In Training

Little July 4th Mission

I decided the week before Independence Day that my personal July 4th mission was to spread around the proper American Flag etiquette.  I think it was spurred on by a conversation with my Dad... yeah I'm pretty sure that was it!  I find it troubling that so many Americans mistreat the flag and don't even realize they are doing it!  If they knew, they would be horrified (I hope). 

I work in a company of around 150 so the quickest way for me to reach a lot of people is through work.  Asked the boss on Monday and he thought it was a great idea.  Yay!

I emailed out a condensed version of the Flag Code from the American Legion site.  I also provided the link and attached the full document, just in case. 

I tell you what, I felt great afterward!  I had done something!

Saturday came around and Royal and I went to the parade and ate dinner with my folks.  We shot off fireworks and watched the July 4th orchestra/firework shows.  The best part was watching the movie 1776 - who knew a musical about our revolution could be so funny?!  And educational.  Just saying. 

Happy 233rd America!

Think Before You Speak - Day 2

Day 1 Here.

Believe it or not, what you are about to read happened the day after... Day 1.  Hence, you know, Day 2.  Plus, it contains the same cast of characters:

Royal, Ron & Arnold.

I didn't give a description of Arnold last time.  He's in his thirties, high up in the company, married with a child. 

I don't know what started the conversation, but apparently Ron was saying how cool it would be to be in the F.B.I.  (Yeah I know, same kid who didn't want to be in the military because he might see combat). 

Arnold asked, "Why?! Why would you want to do that?"

Ron replied, "Well, a sense of satisfaction. Investigating would be cool, helping the country... you know, stuff like that."

Arnold said, "But there are other people to do that."

Wow. 

A lot because of the events the previous day, Royal blew up.  He told his higher up that that was a coward's answer.  That Arnold wouldn't put himself on the line and that's as cowardly as it gets.  Arnold shouldn't be expecting others to protect himself and his family.  That was a coward's answer.

Royal told me that Arnold looked a little surprised and genuinely didn't seem to understand why Royal was so harsh. 

Sometimes things just happen one after another, I guess. 

Homecoming parade for Royal Marines

is protested by anti-war creeps. 

3 Commando lost 33 men during their six months in Afghanistan.  The article states that one in five of the total soldiers killed in action in Afghanistan since '01 were from 3 Commando.  They fought, and they fought hard.

My family is proud of you guys!  So glad you're back.

Think Before You Speak - Day 1

Royal's had a tough week.  Not only did he work in the 100 degree heat as is normal (don't get me started on the humidity!) but he was unfortunately part of a hurtful conversation with a co-worker.  You'll see what I mean...

I'll introduce the characters:

Royal: My husband, recently left the Royal Marines.  His job in the Marines?  Royal Marine Commando Sniper.  He asked to be sent to Iraq straight out of training and it was a yes.  He served in Iraq and other places I have not yet divulged to my readers.  Royal's time in Iraq was fairly quiet - by fairly I mean they were mortared and rocketed.  Royal spent most of his time on patrol and has many a terrifying story.  Thanks be to God he and his buddies never found themselves on the business end of an IED and never had to experience hand to hand combat. 

In his almost 5 years of military service my husband was not sent to Afghanistan.  He volunteered three times and each time was told he was not needed there (for whatever reason).  If I had to pick something that I believe Royal would change, it would be a trip to Afghanistan with the Royal Marines.

My husband is not a big talker.  He rarely opens up about the serious stuff he dealt with while in the Marines.  It's a common thing for military men and women, they'll tell you funny stories until the cows come home... but not a lot else. 

Ron: Just graduated high school and will be attending university this fall.  He is Royal's main co-worker for the summer. 

Larry:  Another co-worker.  Recently left the U.S. Army as a Sergeant.  Served in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

_________________________________________________

On this day, Ron was speaking with another worker (Arnold) about their upcoming church camp, with one telling the other how much fun it's going to be. 

Royal told his young worker Ron that if he wanted to have some real fun -- join the Marines!

Ron replied with...

What I've Been Reading - April & May

AKA the Book Challenge.

Here we go!  Still a little behind schedule -- I'd love to say that I've read at least 10, but it's not the case.   Simply haven't made the time to do so. 

It's been a while and I can't remember exactly when I read what, so I'm mashing April and May together.  Hope you don't mind.

Marley and Me by John Grogan.  As a dog lover (and the proud owner of the most attractive Scottish yellow lab out there) I was very moved by this book.  Cliche as it is, you'll laugh and you'll cry... and thoroughly enjoy the book!

Into the Breach: A Year of Life and Death With EMS by J.A. Karam.  I started this book ages ago.  Way back in January.   I usually devour books but...  this one was tough to get through.  It is interesting learning about the EMS.  I'm always game for that, but I really didn't care for the writing.  Next time I'll try the same subject, different author. 

Forgotten Voices of the Great War by Max Arthur. This was a book I purchased at ASDA while living in Britain.  I was so in love with shopping for books while we were there!  All these British authors writing from the British point of view - not something I get a lot of in the one bookstore in my town back home.  It's a collection of stories from the real people (British, of course!) that were involved in World War I.  Absolutely fascinating.  My only complaint is that I wish there were more of it!  I also own Forgotten Voices of the Second World War and Forgotten Voices of the Holocaust. 

Total for April / May: 3
Total so far this year: 14

Month of January.
Month of March.

Day of Birth

Today's my birthday.  I am now closer to 30 than 20.  Holy cow!  I'm all growed up!

So, the song for today is Alright by Darius Rucker because his cd was a gift from Hubs for the birthday (we saw him in concert a while back - AWESOME. love him. recommend.)  This song is just so... cheery!

Thank you, Royal Baby for making me happy on my birthday! Thanks for making me happy EVERY day!

Seriously cute chocolate

I mean really!

But...

it is chocolate so I ate the little guy anyway. 

June 6th, 1944

Today is the 65th anniversary of D-Day. 

If you don't know about it, today is a great day to learn.  What better way to honor the day than spending time learning about the brave men and women in the armed forces at that time. 

Blackfive, as always, has a fantastic post with many, many links.  You can bet I'll be on there for a while. 

Always remember.

U.S. Immigration Interview : Part III

Begin with Part 1.

Yikes, so I forgot something that should have been in Part II!  How embarrassing, right?!  As soon as we walked into the Immigration lady's office she'd asked us to be seated.  Then she asked us why we didn't have an attorney present.  We explained the quickness of the interview date.  She allowed us to step forward and sign a waiver saying we were aware our attorney wasn't present and that were prepared to deal with whatever came of the whole thing by ourselves.  What a way to start one of the most important interviews of our lives!  Then came the phone call about the doctor:

Then she got on the phone and started speaking to someone about the doctor Royal went to for his mandatory medical exam. She asked the person on the phone when they stopped accepting exams from said doc. She asked the person to send her that email.
I remember thinking, oh hell no. No you don't. See, they give you a list of doctors that they will accept sealed medical exams from. Royal had to travel an hour to see this guy, and it was ages ago!
Surely, they weren't going to reject us because they didn't have an adequate medical exam...

How We Spent Memorial Day

Royal picked up a bottle of Warrior port some time ago.  He wanted to save it for a special occasion. 

Port is the drink that Royal Marine Commandos use to mark the corps birthday, October 28th.  Because of that, it's also the drink used to mark any extra special occasion for a Royal Marine.  Any port will do, but my Royal especially loved the name - Warrior.  It's what he is. 

Sitting around our dining room table on Memorial Day 2009 we drank a toast to both of our armed forces,
to a friend who just made it home safe from Afghanistan,
and to those we've lost.

RIP Elmsy. 

Every day be thankful for our Warriors. 

Hospital Hubby Part III

OR Kath's in depth experience with the NHS, followed by more parts that eventually lead up to Royal's thoughts on the two health care systems!!
I know it's been ages since I said I would post this 3rd part!  I do apologize, but for some reason it's been difficult for me to tackle.*  I'm not an expert on health care.  I wasn't before I dealt with the NHS and after dealing with them I'm still not!  I can only tell my story.  My husband can only tell his story.  Everybody else can think what they want of it all. 

I've never had difficulty with our U.S. health care system.  It has never let me down.  I've always been able to afford insurance - not always the insurance I would like to have, but insurance of some kind.  I've always been able to pay my medical bills - not always at one time, but they have always worked with me on payment plans when needed. I've had a job since I was 15 years old.  I've never been without work - I've worked 12 hour shifts at a snow cone stand, I've popped popcorn and cleaned the floors at a cinema, been an assistant to a director at a fancy hotel, membership director at a Chamber of Commerce, in internet sales at a gun store, wholesale admin at a soda manufacturing plant and as of right now I handle customer relations at a vehicle dealership.  Not all have been fun.  All have been hard work. 

In 2007 I married my Royal Marine Commando Sniper and moved to Britain.  We knew he was deploying in April so we hurried to get everything in order.  I applied, interviewed and received my National Insurance Numbercard.  I was working and paying my British taxes, including health. He left as planned. 

I missed him and I missed my family but everything was going okay.  Then I got a strange pain in my abdomen.  I have a history of ovarian cysts rupturing and putting me on my ass with 15-25 minutes of gasping for breath through the pain (those little bastards, excuse my French).  I've been told by my family doctor and my obgyn that many women have symptoms before a cyst bursts, but I've never experienced that.  So I thought, hmmm maybe something really terrible is about to happen. I don't have family around to rescue me like in the past.  Better get to the doc's. 

Just for fun: Photos from last weekend

Went with my Mom to Central Market (ooohh! ahhhh!) this weekend.  While she was bustling around picking up items I took some photographs*.  They make me hungry.  Enjoy!

We'll start with tomatoes:

Just look at those heirlooms.  I can still smell them.... yum!  We passed on these, but I was tempted!

Tiny grape tomatoes. So adorable.

18 Year Old British Mum Wants More Free Stuff

So her three kids ... won't turn out like her.  Too outrageous not to be true.  I would give you an excerpt, but it just wouldn't do the story justice! 

Sigh. 

What I've Been Reading - March

AKA the Book Challenge.

Yikes, March was not my best reading month ever.  I'm okay with that though, because some things happened in March (one of which you can read about here, the other is very personal, sorry!) that kept me from spending lots of time alone with a book.  That being said, here is March!

There are some books on one of our bookshelves that are not ours.  They belong to my parents.  Even being the book lover that I am, I rarely look over these books because I have so many to get through myself.  One day in March, by chance, I was looking and found this amazing gem:

We Thought We Heard the Angels Sing by James C. Whittaker.

"The complete epic story of the ordeal and rescue of those who were with Eddie Rickenbacker on the plane lost in the Pacific" gives you a quick rundown of the content.  But it is so much more amazing than that!  This Wikipedia section gives a bit more detail.  Frankly, if you read that and don't want to read the book... I just don't know what to do with you.  While you're there, you might as well read the whole Rickenbacker entry because DAMN, that guy lived a life.  I enjoyed reading Whittaker's description of him in Angels so much that I immediately got on Amazon and purchased this book:
Eddie Rickenbacker, An Autobiography (1967)
It came quickly and in mint condition.  Haven't opened it yet, but I'm excited! 

Now for the really cool part... The copy I read of Angels is signed by the author!  It says:

To my friend, ________ ________ with my every best wish. 
Sincerely,
Lt. James C. Whittaker
April 10 1947

AWESOME.

The Royal Marines YouTube Channel

Yup, you read that right.  The Royal Marines have their very own channel on YouTube. 

The new channel is targeted at potential Royal Marines recruits – young men with an interest in serving with the armed forces and who want to learn more about life in the Royal Marines.

.... features four sections – RMC Training, Extreme VS Marines, State of Mind, and Ambush and Assault. Each section showcases a host of rich video content, bringing to life the Royal Marines' state of mind – the ethos which sets the Royal Navy's amphibious forces apart from any other armed forces.

The videos will be reviewed monthly, with fresh new content and training videos added on a regular basis. An additional section featuring exclusive interviews with serving Royal Marines will be added to the channel in May.

I've watched several so far (like this one, a mud run!  Royal only had to go through this once during training.  It's super tough). There is some really interesting stuff, take a look when you get some time!

U.S. Immigration Interview : Part II

Part I here.

We are there.  We are in the building.  This is it.

It's a big building with lots of windows.  It's very tall and the second floor is open to the rest of it.  There weren't many people around.  We walked through security and were told by a very nice security guy that interviews are upstairs.  We walked by a big open room where several people were waiting in lines of chairs.  Everything was really neat and clean.  We went up the stairs and were immediately greeted by an extremely chipper lady.  I mean, really GREETED!  The building was so quiet, we didn't expect a big "Hi, how are you?!"  She took our name and in return gave us one of those light up vibrating pagers (the first photo) like you find in restaurants.  We laughed about it.  Why wouldn't they use them?

Female Soldier Served With Royal Marines

Her name is Amy Thomas and she served with the Royal Marine Commandos in the Helmand Province during her tour in Afghanistan.  She was with the Marines to gather evidence of terrorism and to deal with female suspects.   While serving with them, she even engaged in a firefight:

She said: 'As soon as we left the helicopters the company came under fire and then it was non-stop.'There were loads of Taliban in the area. I identified one of them running with a weapon and indicated him to the lads. 'They didn’t see him so I took the shot. I don’t know whether I hit or killed him. It was the only time I opened fire on the Taliban.'
....
But when the Taliban struck, her training kicked in. She told the Sun: 'I just got on with it because you have to.'

Amy, from Port Talbot, South Wales, completed a six-month tour of Afghanistan on Saturday and was the only woman to have fought alongside the Marines. It is unprecedented for women to be in combat as they are not permitted to join either Marines or infantry regiments.

'At first I thought I wouldn’t be able to because I’m quite a girlie girl but once I was out, the training kicked in. 'The Marines did not treat me any differently as a girl and I felt like one of the lads when I was out with them.'

Good on the Commandos for treating the lady right!  It doesn't surprise me, though, as I know my husband would have been very supportive and respectful.  They are awesome guys!

On another note, the title of the Daily Mail article linked above is ridiculous. Female Soldier Becomes First British Women to Fire in Anger at the Taliban. Amy Thomas did not fire in ANGER, she fired because the Taliban were trying to kill her and her guys.  Come on people.

-- UPDATE -- 5/11/09 --

So, my last paragraph is a bit... yeah it's all wrong!  Yikes.  I thought the title meant in anger, as in... in anger.  But, as James from the comments points out it actually means in combat.  His quote:  "It means on operations rather than exercise. You would be more likely to describe a gun or ship's guns though eg. "The first time that HMS Nonesuch fired it's guns in anger." 
I should have asked Royal first because even he knew it wasn't what I thought it meant. 
Thanks James!

U.S. Immigration Interview : Part I

Our U.S. Immigration tales from the beginning found here.

The last stage in the permanent resident process (aka Green Card) is the interview.  The big scary interview, which as it turns out, is not that big and scary if you haven't done anything wrong!  At any rate, we received our (SECOND for goodness sake) interview date through last month in a letter.  Our interview date was 10 days from the day we received the letter.  Thankfully, we'd both alerted our employers to things like this before we took the jobs, so that was immediately and easily taken care of.

We called our attorney to make sure she got notice - she didn't.*  See, your immigration attorney is supposed to go with you to your interview.  It's part of their job.  Because of the short notice - usually they give 30 - 45 days notice - our attorney said she couldn't make it and would we like to reschedule our interview?  HELL NO.  We would go without her and take whatever came our way.

We hurried to Staples to make all the copies that our letter told us we needed.  Spent about $10.00 on copies.  We had two folders, one of copies and one of originals -- just in case.  We put them in the order they were listed in the letter.  We checked them.  Twice.  Okay, maybe more like four times.  We picked out which outfits we were going to wear - dressy, but conservative.  We are going to exude honesty.  We put the address in the sat nav.  We Mapquested as well -- just in case.

Day of, we got moving on time and arrived at the large, but nice looking, government building early.  Do we wait in the truck for a while or go in right away?  Maybe they can see us early if we show up early.  Deep breath. 
If Royal doesn't get approved for permanent residency in the United States then the last TWO years of stress and money and time and paperwork and stress and personal information and the attorney (and more money!) are for nothing.  Absolutely nothing.  Not only that, but I guess I am moving back to Britain - leaving my family again, neither of us will have jobs, no place to live, not going back to school... Another deep breath. 

We walk inside. 
 

* I can't tell you how many times our attorney has received paperwork we haven't and vice versa.  We are both supposed to receive copies of everything.  Freakin' government agencies. 

Ain't Too Proud to Beg

Seriously, in my top FIVE favorite songs. EVER. 



Go on, you can get up and dance. I do.

Hospital Hubby, Part II

Part I HERE. 

Get him back in the car, get into the doctor's office, get him wheeled into the office.  So far, so good. The doctor said there would be no way to tell if he was allergic to the medicine or if he had a bad GI thing that's been going around.  Basically, he's allergic to Fluconazole for the rest of his life.  C'est la vie.  Doc gives him a choice: either go to the hospital immediately to rehydrate, or go home with some anti nausea pills and hope for the best and take forever to rehydrate. 

By this time my Dad had shown up to help me.  Royal's in his wheelchair and we are in those hard chairs you find in medical offices right in front of him.  Just as Royal pipes up (well, if almost unconscious people can pipe up) with "I'll take the pills" WE say "We'll take the hospital!"  He was not a happy camper.

Fast forward to the hospital:  The boy is in the bed, the nurse is trying to take his family medical history.  I say trying because, bless his punkin' heart, my dear husband was quite out of it. 

Nurse: Is there any mental illness in your family?
Royal: No.
Nurse: Is there a history of diabetes?
Royal: No.
Nurse: History of cancer?
Royal: No.
Me: Um, honey, what did your Grannie K just die of?
Royal: Cancer...  But that's because she smoked. 
Me: That counts, babe. 
[Nurse smiles & continues as I think, now wait a minute...]
Me: I'm sorry to interrupt but, why did your Granddad pass away?
Royal:  Well, he had diabetes...  But that's because he was overweight.
Nurse, Dad, & Me: That counts!!

It was a nice moment actually.  Laughing about it relaxed us. 
Royal stayed overnight and they pumped some serious liquid into him.  He was looking better in a matter of hours.  They released him late the next morning with an anti nausea prescription that we never had to fill.  After 3:00pm the day before he hadn't had any trouble, which leads me to think it was the medicine, but we'll never know and it doesn't really matter. 

Part III Upcoming : Royal's thoughts on American health care vs. the NHS