Dont Forget

Don’t Forget

            I am going a little off of topic tonight and going away from my walk with the Lord in a way. I have had something that has been laid on my heart these last few weeks and I think it is time to address. As Americans we tend to take a lot of things for granted. One of the things we take for granted I believe is our freedom and those who protect us and ensure that freedom.

            As most know I was a Soldier for 13 years and served in the US Army as an Infantryman. I have been deployed 2 times in support of Iraqi Freedom. Through both of my tours I saw a lot of death of the insurgents, as well as a lot of younger Soldiers and great men die serving their country. Even though our country likes to pretend like they care, I start to get the feeling that it is not truly sincere. Take a look at just a few of the recent news headlines nowadays.

            One that is truly a travesty is the argument on Capitol Hill right now about retirement benefits for those who served in the military. If you have any Facebook friends that are in the military you have probably seen this post over the last few days.

            I took a job knowing I would never get rich. I've missed out on holidays & spent them working. If I got a "bonus" it would be investigated. I may have to lay down my life or take one. My life expectancy is shorter than yours because of the stress. But yet, you think I'm overpaid & not deserving of a pension or Health Care Benefits?

          Or this one.

          Military retirement is not a Entitlement, it was earned! The benefits aren't some kind of charity or handout! Congressional benefits = free health care, outrageous retirement packages, 67 paid holidays, 3 weeks paid vacation, unlimited paid sick days - now THAT'S welfare. And Congress has the nerve to call a Military retirement an Entitlement?

          I mean come on now really, military retirement is a benefit of going into the military. There are not many benefits other than the health care and retirement for going into the military. For those who spend most of their adult lives in the military protecting the country, get out at about the age of 40-50. Why do we want to take their retirement from them? It is truly depressing, as Soldiers you are asked to make some of the most difficult decisions of your life and then live with it. Put yourself in the shoes of a 17 year old private whose parents signed off on them going into the service. So you enter the military and go through basic training, that is just the first shocking step to your new life as a Soldier. In this day of the military while our country is at war, normally the second step is to be sent to your new unit which is probably ramping up to deploy into country. Shock number 2. Then you get into country and are told your ROE or rules of engagement, in which you realize that when you do have to pull the trigger you have more decisions and consequences that you thought. There are some places in country where you are not even allowed fire on the enemy unless they shoot at you first, think about that you have to wait to be shot at and hope the person misses before you can return fire. At 17 that is something to really take in and still be able to control yourself. God forgive you if you have to actually take a human life, even though it is something you are trained to do from day one of entering into service, once you actually do it boy it changes your life. That is when the secondary consequences start to emerge, you know the not sleeping cause you don’t want to have nightmares, the jumping at every loud noise you hear, the fact that you won’t go into large crowded areas and feel safe anymore, and a plethora of other issues. Yet health care and retirement should be reduced for our Soldiers, REALLY!!!.

            I know this sounds like I am ranting and I probably am, the wonderful thing is that I am doing this without cursing and swearing. I just pray that all Americans understand the consequences of not respecting the people that VOLUNTEER to enter the service and give their lives for their country and removing their retirement benefits. I mean think about it, would you enter a job knowing your retirement benefits are horrible, what will that do to our future Armed Forces. Thank you for reading and God Bless.

G.E.D.D.

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Respect Your Wife

Respect Your Spouse

            OK so I will be the first to admit after a lot of SOUL searching, I am not perfect and I don’t know everything. There are things that I do on an everyday basis that I don’t even realize I am doing that upset my wife beyond comprehension, and unfortunately I am not very sensitive to her feelings on the subject. This is something that I have to work on hardcore, and I mean really start to consciously start thinking about what I am doing before I do it. Today I will outline a few of the things that I have done this week which even though I didn’t think it really affected my wife (or I knew and didn’t care), it had shown a level of disrespect to her that I was not even aware of.

            Monday- This day was my first day back to work after being off for most of July for vacation and surgery recovery. My morning started a 0355 waking up, showering, making my coffee, and heading out the door. My first UN thoughtful decision was not to take the dogs out to go to the bathroom. Some might think take the dogs out at 4 in the morning that’s CRAZY, and to tell you the truth that is what I thought also. The dogs were quiet and not making a fuss and my main focus was trying to be as quiet as possible to not wake up my wife while getting ready for work. But the things I don’t take into account are (1) my wife hears everything once I wake up and (2) I am not as quiet as I think. The other thing that does not even cross my mind is that even though the dogs are quiet and not making a fuss when I wake up is that eventually they are going to wake up about an hour after I head out to work and want to go to the bathroom which in turn wakes my wife up at about 5 am. This is something that I am going to have to make a conscious effort to improve on so my spouse can get a little better sleep in the mornings. The second thing I did on this day to just completely make her morning horrible was spill coffee on myself and not clean it up. I honestly thought that the mess went into the garage on not on the inside of the house, my mistake was the thinking part of this equation and not confirming what had actually happened. So as soon as I had the opportunity, I let my wife know that I had spilt coffee on myself while heading out the door to work, what I did not include was that apparently most of the coffee was on the inside of the house, all over her carpet and garage door. So basically by 7 am in the morning on Monday I had caused a huge mess and deprived my wife of sleep, and when the time came to answer for what I had done all I could think is why is she so mad at me I didn’t do it on purpose. Well that my friends is simple, I should have taken the time to show a little more respect to my wife by looking at what mess I had caused and cleaned it to save her the heartache. For this I am truly sorry, and I will find the strength to confirm things and not just ASSUME that it won’t bother my wife. Finally, after my wife cleaned the mess up and all was said and done, she asked me to clean the outside portion of the garage. I went outside and poured water on the spot on the ground to get it off the garage floor, but once again did not take the time to look at the door or door jam. HMMM, not very smart or thoughtful on my part. In the end my wife finally explained to me how disrespectful I was being and being the hard headed person I know I can be all I did was stand my ground that I was not wrong. Boy I can be stupid.

            Tuesday- My wife had a long trip ahead of her this day taking the kids to the airport to fly home. I made sure that when she got home that I had cleaned the door from the coffee stains and that the kitchen was cleaned for when she got home. You might be asking what I did wrong on this day, well here is the deal, she has strong feelings about our larger dogs being on the couches. We had broken our boxer of doing this about a year ago but recently Rocky has deemed that he belongs on the couch. While my wife is not OK with it we have not really gotten on him about it, well while I was on the couch playing my PS3 my Mastiff decided it was cuddle time with daddy. I being the typical person I am didn’t really think much of it at the time. Once my wife got home and we started talking about our day, our children started talking about how cute Harley looked on the couch today with DADDY. I immediately pretending like “I don’t know what these crazy children are talking about” when my wife just simply pointed out again that I was disrespecting her wishes by letting the dogs on the couch. Once again, lesson learned, I don’t always take my wife’s feelings into account when I let stupid things happen. I really wonder what the rest of the week is going to be like.

            I do know this, it is not just my responsibility but my duty as a husband to ensure that I am taking my wife’s wishes and feelings into account when I do things. This is something that I have to ensure that I make a dedicated effort to do every day, and for all who read this I suggest that you do the same, because in the end if your wife is not happy I promise you your house will not be happy either. So to Shannon I apologize for my retardedness and promise to make a conscious effort to respect your wishes, because as we learned in Genesis 2:18; Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for man to be alone. I will make a helper as his compliment.” (Woman) Thank you and God Bless.

G.E.D.D.

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