NYC, Here I Come!

I am off to New York City tomorrow at 6am. Yes! I should probably be sleeping now before waking up at 4am, but I am hoping Shane calls me tonight. We haven't spoken as much as usual the past few days, so I am in need of a good talk.

I've been doing well and am pumped to spend the next 4 days and 3 nights in the Big Apple. I have my first bridesmaid gig, my Mom's family is coming in to see me on Saturday and Saturday night I will see friends. I am also planning to spend some quality time at H&M on Sunday. Oh, what's that? It's Halloween? Whatever. Trick or treat, I want clothes from my favorite store. (There are no H&Ms in all of Texas)

Brace yourself for pictures galore next week! I haven't had the chance to dress all fancy since...my wedding day? Yeah. And wow, come to think of it, it's only 1 month and 1 day until our 1 year anniversary. Exciting!

I'll be back after my weekend of Manhattan madness. See you tomorrow, East Coast.

Cheers!

I See The Light

My new favorite pastime has become going through the hundreds of letters and emails between Shane and I since he first left and seeing how much we've grown as people and as a couple. I'm actually considering making a book out of this year, but it's only in the first stages of planning.

I came across this one a little while ago, and it happens to be from exactly 9 months ago today, on January 24th:

"Hi shane I just missed a call from you and am crying. I'm at ernies and was checking my phone every second and of course missed this one. I can't call this number back its not working please check ur email soon and call me I love you and I'm in public and crying
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry"

Spastic, crazy, anxious...I know. I remember that night pretty clearly. It was the fifth night of Shane being gone. I went to this place called Ernie's here in town with friends to keep my mind off of how much I hated life. I was sitting with my friends Cathy, Rachel and Lauren and had my phone out on the table, just in case Shane called. I put my phone in my bag when I went to the bathroom. It was on vibrate and went off while it was on the floor of the bathroom. I go back to my friends, pull my phone out to put it back on the table and I see the dreaded words "missed call." I ran out of the bar crying and wrote that email.

A few hours ago, I wrote Shane my nightly email which included this:

"I have had a good mental health day. I see the light at the end of the deployment tunnel. It's not super bright, just like a little glimpse of it is all I can see, but it's there nonetheless. I've spent a lot of time thinking today about how we are just a few months from living a life without anymore interruptions. That thought baffles me, like I can't believe it sometimes. No Australia, no me living in Jersey and you in Texas, no deployment. Only me and you doing whatever our damn hearts please.

...A week from now it will be November. THAT is very exciting. I love you Shane Gardiner, hope to hear from you tomorrow."

Cool, calm, collected...I've grown up. Well, maybe not so much grown up as I've learned how to handle deployment more and more as time goes on. Today is day #277.

I'm very ready to knock out another week. And, I am going to New York City on Thursday through Sunday for Liz and Devin's wedding! I am very excited for a long weekend in my favorite city. Even more excited that my mind is in a good place and I really do see the light!

The Hood

A look at some recent news stories in Killeen, Texas in the past month…

Last Friday, a man was shot and killed around the corner from my apartment.

On Monday, an 11 year-old girl was kidnapped and assaulted on her way to school.

A couple of weeks ago, a 17 year-old high school girl was shot and killed.

A week or so before that, 4 soldiers committed suicide here at Fort Hood. One took his wife’s life too.

Killeen, home to Fort Hood, should really just be called “The Hood.”

I knew Killeen was bad when I moved to Texas a little over a year ago, but in recent weeks, it’s been extra awful. And, with the one year anniversary of the Fort Hood shooting in a couple of weeks, I’m especially bothered by this place. Not to mention the gunshots I hear outside my window every so often.

It occurred to me just how shitty of a town Killeen actually is a few months ago when my stepmom was telling me about a murder that happened in her town of Monroe, NJ. She said the community was horrified and how something like that was just unheard of. My town of East Windsor, NJ was pretty much the same. Murder doesn’t happen in normal suburbia America.

In Killeen, crime is raging. Working at the Fort Hood Sentinel, we get press releases straight away to let us know about all of the crap that goes on. Bank robberies, house burglaries, shootings, stabbings and cold murder happen a little too often. There was also the case that happened yesterday in a nearby town where a 67 year-old man exposed himself to a bunch of children in a McDonald’s playpen. I kid you not.

Am I scared? No, not really. Mom, Dad, do you need to worry? No, you don’t. I’m not an idiot, and I avoid shady situations at all costs. If it makes you feel better, I sleep with a knife and a taser behind my bed. AND Shane will be on his way back to me in 85 days and can beat up any and all bad guys.

Needless to say, I’m excited to leave Killeen when that day finally happens, because this place blows. In the meantime, I’m looking forward to moving to a new apartment on the other side of town in just 6 weeks. From what it seems like, it’s a little less “hood” over there.

Back on Track

"We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same." ~Carlos Castaneda

I came across this quote last night, and really loved it. It definitely inspired me to make the rest of my weekend better than yesterday afternoon. A two hour call from Shane yesterday evening really jump-started my change in attitude though.

After laying in bed and hating life for most of yesterday, I got up and snapped the hell out of it. I told myself "he'll call when he calls" and decided to get my ass out of bed and do something. This past week, I bought the components for my Halloween care package to Shane and his platoon. I did something similar for Valentine's Day, where I made up a bunch of little bags of goodies for the 30 or so guys. If this is any indication of the sort of mom I'm going to be, then I'm going to be a very cute and nerdy one.

So, I took about an hour putting together 29 Halloween bags, and then a special separate thing with more candy in it than the rest for Shane. I took pictures, but Shane reads my blog and I don't want him to see! The package came out really well; I'd say it's one of my best efforts all year.

Shane and I had our longest phone conversation since R&R ended, and it was awesome. We reminded each other of just how little time we really have left of this stupid deployment. I went to sleep a much happier Melanie, to say the least.

Today started with another call from Shane, and the rest was productive, productive, productive. I gave my room a much needed cleaning, did laundry, bought groceries, bought shoes for Liz's wedding in two weeks, and went running.

I've been slacking in my working out ever since I got back from Paris, and I decided tonight that I need to get back on my game. I go to rugby practice twice a week, but I'm always happier when I'm running daily or almost daily and that hasn't been happening. I went to my favorite little place to run on Fort Hood, on the track outside the III Corps building. I vowed to myself to make it routine once again.

Well, time to start another week. I think it's about 12 more weeks until Shane comes home? Not too shabby I guess. I think this funk has finally ended and I am getting back on track...literally.

Sigh...

I can’t remember the last time I had a weekend to myself to truly chill out and do nothing.

Sounds nice, right? Wrong.

I thrive and kick deployment in the face when I am keeping busy, and for the past however many months, I’ve been all over the place, with a set plan for every weekend. I am usually a champ at distracting myself enough to make the days go by faster. But this weekend, I am at a loss.

I am losing my mind and it’s only Saturday. I just got back from a night out in Austin with friends, and now I am alone and bored and sad. Thing is, I don’t actually want to do anything. Lying in bed, listening to music, and ignoring everyone’s phone calls until I get one from Shane is my plan for the time being. No offense to everyone, I’m just waiting to hear from Shane and can’t focus on any other conversation until the one I need to have happens.

It just hurts pretty badly right now. I miss Shane more than I can even make words convey, so I won’t bother trying.

The worst part is, there is nothing I can do when it feels like this, other then look at the clock every so often to remind myself that time continues to push on, no matter what. That’s really all I can find comfort in right now.

Are we there yet?

“You’re so strong, how do you do it?”

I can’t begin to count the times I’ve been asked that line. And to be honest, I don’t even know what answers I have pulled out of my ass.

When I spoke to my grandma last night for our weekly call, she went into a spiel about how strong of a kid I am- how despite being the only positive product of an ugly divorce and oftentimes battling my way through my teenage years (don’t we all?), I came out “smelling like a rose.” As far as she can see, I’ve grown up to be a tough young lady who is strong enough to handle deployment in stride, because of that “good head on my shoulders.”

I have always looked up to my grandma, a woman who has been going 7 years strong since the loss of her best friend of nearly 55 years, my grandfather. To me, that’s strength.

I don’t doubt that I am tougher than your average cookie, but I doubt that people know or understand how little strength I have sometimes, especially as of late. It’s easy to lie through my teeth and say I’m doing fine when I’m not. Or to act like I’m above seeking medication or therapy to deal with anxiety, because that’s not the case either.

To everyone who always reminds me you’re there for me, I know. And I appreciate it more than you can ever imagine. When I think back to this year, I will always remember who was there and made the effort to care. I am well aware I have the best friends I could ask for. I am sorry for not taking many of you up on the offer to "talk" as much as I should. I just shut down a lot.

After nine months now, I’m learning that I handle deployment in waves of doing okay and not-so-okay, which seems to be the norm. Lately I've been going with keeping it to myself, writing it down, or venting about it to those who are going through the same thing as me or have already done it. Many times, I don’t even do that.

Or, you could be my mom last night, who had the patience to hear me explode about every single crazy thought in my head for almost an hour and have the power to calm me down. No one else in the world could have helped me in my condition last night, so thank you for that, Mom.

For the first night in many, I feel pretty okay. I have slept off the rest of my well worth it exhaustion from ACL this weekend (recap to come soon), I got an apartment for Shane and I as of today (will begin my move in December), and I finally feel levelheaded once again. My day started off with a good conversation with Shane, which I know has helped me build my strength back up, because it was M.I.A. for a little bit there.

So how do I do it, you ask?

I make the effort to roll out of bed every morning and put one foot in front of the other, and then I hope for the best.

I don’t think that’s much different from anyone else.

99 Days

Yep, that's right ladies and gentlemen. We have reached the double digit landmark until the supposed January 14th date that Shane gets to leave Afghanistan. Let's hope it stays that way...or gets pushed up!

Let the new countdown begin.

I have been keeping to my normal busy life, and time is continuing to pass at a decent pace. I started to lose my mind a little last week, but am back on my game now. I think I'm over my little pity party of having to come back down to the reality of being back in Killeen without Shane, and I'm back into a routine.

I also have things to look forward to now. I have started to check out apartments for Shane and I, which is super exciting. And, thanks to Craigslist, I also nabbed a ticket to Austin City Limits this Saturday with Cathy, which I am way excited about. The Gaslight Anthem, Matt and Kim, The Very Best, M.I.A., Temper Trap...lots of good acts to see, and the weather should be perfect. (80 and sunny!)

I wrote a long nerdy email to Shane last night about how much The Gaslight Anthem means to me (as most of you know, and I'm sure you're tired of hearing it) and I will probably end up posting that soon. I just need to edit out the ultra-nerd parts.

In other concert news, I got tickets to see Lady Gaga...the show isn't until April 6, 2011 (Shane will have been home for 3 months by then!) but I am happy about it. And no, Shane will not be going. When I asked he said, "Are you kidding me?!?" His loss.

That's all for now. I'm hoping Shane calls before I go to work, so I am going to bed to sleep off the hours I have to wait!

Only 99 more days to go. Whew. We got this.

CNN Story on Shane's Unit

Just found a story on the 20th Engineering Battalion on CNN. I copied the story below, and you can check out the video here-

http://afghanistan.blogs.cnn.com/2010/10/05/fort-hood-survivor-fighting-war-in-afghanistan/

After completing a seven day mission, a bomb-hunting patrol rolls into Kandahar air base in a cloud of billowing dust.

Among the road-weary American troops peeling off body armor and sweaty helmets is a 21-year-old soldier from New Jersey named Alan Carroll.

He hops out of the turret of an armored vehicle carrying a heavy 50-caliber machine gun, and then begins loading flak jackets and rucksacks into the back of an open truck.

The young man moves with speed, strength and enthusiasm, something you wouldn’t expect from someone who survived four bullet wounds in a single day less than a year ago.

“I’m trying this year not to go to hospitals,” Spc. Carroll says, while cleaning his guns back at his tent later in the day.

Carroll wasn't wounded on the battlefields of Afghanistan. He survived the November 5 shooting rampage at the U.S. military base in Fort Hood, Texas.

A lone gunman opened fire in a processing center, where troops were getting medical clearance before deploying to Afghanistan and Iraq.

Alan Carroll returned to combat in Afghanistan three months after he was shot at Fort Hood last year

“At first I really thought it was a joke,” Carroll recalls. “Then I got hit here,” he says, pointing at his left arm, “and I was like, 'Holy crap! What the hell was that?' I still couldn’t believe it was actual live rounds.”

The room filled with smoke. Carroll says he tried to carry Pfc. Aaron Nemelka, a friend and fellow soldier who had been shot in the neck, out to safety.

“That’s when he shot me in the back,” Carroll says. “I was holding my back and trying not to scream and playing dead at the same time.”

Several agonizing moments later, Carroll made another attempt to carry his friend out of the blood-soaked room. That is when he came face-to-face with the suspected shooter, U.S. Army Maj. Nidal Hassan.

“Me and him just looked at each other,” Carroll says. “And the only thing I could think is ... ‘Dammit, I’m dead,’” Carroll says. “And he fired off two shots, and I heard one go past my ear and the other one hit me in the leg. Dropped me back down on the floor.”

When the smoke finally cleared, 13 people were dead, including Nemelka and two other soldiers from Carroll’s company. Carroll was one of at least 20 who were wounded.

Later, as he recovered in the hospital, friends and family say Carroll’s first priority was Afghanistan.

“His first question was, ‘Is this going to stop me from deployment?’” says Sgt. 1st Class Gerald “Woody” Wilson, one of the commanders of Carroll’s platoon.

“My mom’s sitting there and begging me to take [medical discharge], my brother’s begging me to take it,” Carroll recalls. “I said I’m not taking medical discharge. I’m deploying.”

Three months later, Carroll arrived in Afghanistan along with the rest of his unit with a clean bill of health.

“He did physical therapy,” Wilson says. “He was worried about staying behind.”

Carroll’s mother, Teresa Scholte, describes her son growing up as an “adrenaline junkie” with a “bull-headed” determination to succeed.

“When he was in school he was short and very thin,” says Scholte, who works as a receptionist in New Jersey. “That is what led him to take on this personality of ‘nobody’s going to mess with me and tell me what to do.’”

Today, the 20th Engineering Battalion operates in southern Afghanistan hunting for roadside bombs, the deadliest threat to U.S. troops in this country.

According to the commander’s statistics, since February 2, the battalion has had a 66 percent success rate in clearing the bombs. Slow-moving convoys of heavily armored vehicles have successfully discovered and defused 209 improvised explosive devices, but they have also been hit by no less then 129 roadside bombs. In eight months, 13 combat engineers have been killed by Taliban ambushes and explosive booby traps.

Photos of three soldiers killed in the November 5, 2009, Fort Hood shooting decorate the entrance of their company headquarters in Kandahar, Afghanistan.

Route clearance is dangerous work. And for the first six months of the tour, Carroll has been at the very front driving a Husky: the one-man, bomb-sniffing armored vehicle that one sergeant nick-named “the Coffin.”

“It’s the worst job,” Wilson says. “One, you’re by yourself. Two, you’re in the lead. And three, you’re usually the one who gets hit first. You’ve gotta be brave to drive the Husky.”

All but one of the vehicles in Wilson’s platoon have struck IEDs, including Carroll’s Husky.

“I had one hit underneath my truck. But it really wasn't that significant. Still scared the crap outta me,” Carroll says. He emerged from the explosion unscathed.

But last August, tragedy struck Carroll’s platoon when an insurgent fired a single round from a recoilless rifle at the turret of Wilson’s vehicle.

The attack killed the gunner, Spc Alexis Maldenado. Today, members of Maldenado’s company wear an engraved bracelet with their slain comrade’s name on it.

“It was probably the worst day of my life, the day he passed away,” Carroll says.

Meanwhile, the memory of the Fort Hood shooting is never far away. The portraits of three soldiers killed at Fort Hood hang in the entrance of Carroll’s company headquarters.

Soldiers from the 20th Engineering Battalion have received hours of counseling and therapy since the Fort Hood shooting. Their officers say they keep a close eye on the troops in the wake of more recent casualties.

But the true test of the combat engineers' emotional and mental health will come after their tour is finished, warns Lt. David Judson, one of the officers in the company. That's when they'll be back in the United States without the support of their fellow comrades-in-arms.

Like many of his fellow soldiers, Carroll was in 7th grade on the day the planes struck the World Trade Center. Nine years ago, he says he was waiting for the school bus when he learned about the September 11 terror attacks.

A lot has changed since then. Carroll is still relatively short, carrying weapons that sometimes seem almost as tall as he is. But he also has the bulging muscles of a man who spends long hours in the gym. And he has the enduring respect of his colleagues and superiors, some of whom have nicknamed him “National Treasure.”

“I wish I had more Carrolls,” says Wilson, Carroll's platoon sergeant.

Teresa Scholte, however, is worried about her son’s long term recovery from the Fort Hood shootings.

“That is weighing on me more then him being over there in Afghanistan,” she said in a telephone interview with CNN. “I feel like he’s more protected in Afghanistan because of the armor he has.”

“The only time it gets to me is when I’m alone and it's dark outside,” says Carroll.

“I get nightmares,” he adds. “But I’m used to it by now … I wake up, look around, see all my friends here and say ‘Nevermind, it's not real, go back to sleep.'”

After their seven-day mission, Carroll and two other soldiers laugh and joke about girls, as they scarf down pizza, much like other American men in their early twenties.

But the trio is navigating the sprawling military city at Kandahar Air Field, dressed in combat fatigues, with machine guns slung over their shoulders.

Barely old enough to drink alcohol legally, these young soldiers are already veterans of battles both at home and abroad.

They have the physical and mental scars to prove it.

-CNN 10.05.2010.

Surprise! My Weekend Home

Liz's Bachelorette Party Saturday night in NYC
(From L to R: Melissa, Chrissie, me, Liz, Natalie, Kelly. Not pictured: Ludia, who had to leave at 4 am and was getting her one hour of sleep!)

Long before my trip to France, I had planned on coming home for a weekend in October for my friend Liz's bachelorette party- but I had to keep it on the downlow since we made it a surprise affair. Everything worked out perfectly, and I had a blast this weekend! (Along with the hangover from hell...)

I barely slept but every second was worth it. I flew into Newark at 1am on Saturday, and Erin picked me up. We went to the Edison Diner like old times before going back to her house. I can't remember the last time I slept in East Windsor, so it was nice. I was home again. After only five hours of sleep, we were up and out the door to meet up with my mom, sisters, and Shane's mom for lunch at La Piazza, an awesome restaurant in Allentown I used to always go growing up.

Courtesy of each of my moms bringing a bottle of wine, I had a lovely buzz going on after our couple hours of bonding and stuffing our faces. Shane's mom brought me to the Hamilton train station and I got pretty choked up on my hour ride into the city. Okay, okay, actually I all out cried like a total loser. It had been almost a year and a half since I had the pleasure of riding NJ transit into my beloved Manhattan. I missed the smell and the graffiti more than I care to admit.

I was in a cab soon after my arrival into Penn Station where I met up with Liz and the other bridesmaids. We began drinking immediately and got ready for the evening's festivities. From dinner to a drag show to a dance club to the final bar we ended up at- it was a fun night all around. I think it's safe to say parts of the night became blurry for all of us, as any successful night out in New York should be. I know Liz had an awesome time too which makes me happy. Now I have the wedding to look forward to in a few weeks!

After four hours of sleep, I woke up and made my way back to Penn and took the train into New Brunswick where my Dad picked me up by the Rutgers Bookstore. Ah, nostalgia at its finest.

Which reminds me! I vaguely recall meeting a girl in the bathroom of one of the places we were at who was a student at Rutgers living on Senior Street. That was so three years ago for me. Small world though!

Anyways, I spent Sunday at my Dad's playing off my hangover the best I could. My stepmom's father, "Papi," passed away a week ago, so I'm glad I was able to see "Nani" while I was home. I hugged her so tight. I can't even begin to imagine what it's like losing your husband after 55 years of marriage. Both of my grandmothers had to deal with watching their husbands go first too. Just awful. RIP Papi.

I was back on a plane I nearly missed at 6:30 pm and eventually made it to bed around 1am this morning.

So, it was a short but sweet weekend home, but I definitely made the most of it- family, friends, a great night out in NYC, a diner and a real bagel are totally worth my current state of exhaustion.

I have not spent a weekend in Killeen for an entire month now. Woohoo! And at least this weekend I have Austin City Limits to look forward to! I don't have my tickets yet, but I'm going to make it happen for sure. After all, The Gaslight Anthem is coming to town. Psh, like I'd miss that...

I'd like to finish this post by announcing that it is almost less than 100 days until the end of deployment. Thank fucking goodness, because I have been pretty insane lately over missing Shane.

So insane I don't even have an appetite just yet for the box of Entenmann's cookies my mom sent me back to Texas with. Hopefully tomorrow will be a different story.

Thanks to my family and friends who made this weekend an awesome one :-)