Her - Memoir

On Wednesday as I was getting ready to leave Vermont - My friend Beth handed me the memoir Her. She thought I might like it! I had briefly read about it last summer but had not ordered it and then immediately recognized it.

I could not put it down. Can I say that one of my favorite books for 2013 was actually a book I read on the first day of 2014? It is a story about loss, spinning out of control, gaining control, happiness and sorrow.

One of the most interesting things Christa Parravani is now married to Desert Storm Marine Veteran Anthony Swofford... and most of you understand my deep connection to Jarhead

small world...
great authors...
together with an interview - article

Yesterday, was the Marine Corps Birthday.
In 2005 I took my daughter to see the movie Jarhead on the birthday.
Imagine the two us in the movies watching that with a bunch of Marines.
Maybe she was too young for a few of the scenes, but we it a memory we will never forget and it is one of our favorite movies.

Today is Veteran's Day.
Thank you for serving.
Do you what you can today to touch a vet.
I have a few addresses if you want to send a Thanksgiving card or Christmas Card.

swofford

To be real honest I have had the Anthony Swofford crush for some time now.


I read the book Jarhead early on not sure exactly when I first picked it up.

Later when my brother working with the Navy Reserves I sent him a copy to Horn of Africa

As a Former Marine and active duty during Desert Storm he would get it.

Then they made it in the movie. And being the good parent took my daughter (11 or 12) to see it on the Marine Corps birthday.

It was the Marine Corps birthday for goodness sakes how could I pass it up. That was literally a once in a life time opportunity.

Swofford wrote Exit A in 2007 and I posted.

His new book Hotels, Hospitals and Jails is good.

It is something like reading a diary of random thoughts. A guy trying to get his act together despite life’s obstacles.

I pre-ordered from Amazon months ago and finished it in 2 days.

I actually got a real book – not an ebook!

The way he writes a memoir is something I just cannot put my finger on…

He sounds happy and settled.

Washington Post review

My thoughts for Veteran's Day 2014

My blog from My Colorado View

I am often asked by friends, family, and coworkers, how they can support the military. But, before I share with those interested how they can support the military, as a member of the armed services, I first want to thank every American citizen for giving me the opportunity to serve my country.

As I approach 26 years of service my heart continues to swell, race, and break for all of the amazing men and women I have served with over the years. Not sure I can put all of that into real tangible words but my heart has grown to a capacity that I cannot even explain.

So, what about you? What can you do to support he military? In the coming week I just encourage you to say, “thank you”. Words matter. And look for opportunities to serve.

Personally, I am putting some extra homeless Ziploc bags in my car and I will consciously look for individuals to give them to and say thanks. Typically, I give granola bars, Kleenex, pretzels, crackers, or dried fruit. One in every five homeless persons is a veteran. According to a recent report, there are about 750 homeless veterans statewide in Colorado and on any given night, with about 325 of those in Denver. Throughout the entire year I look for opportunities to support veterans. You do not have to look very far in Colorado to find real needs.

I think this is a great time of year to reconnect. Call someone that you know has served and just check in. Leave a treat on a co-workers desk or celebrate this Tuesday by bringing a carton of half and half to the coffee station with a note thanking vets. (Nothing says true love like half and half) Small things have big impacts.

I get nostalgic during this time of the year. I watch the movie Jarhead.   It is a family tradition, I know most moms and daughters have different time honored traditions – but this is ours. Forest Gump is another great movie and it is typically on several times throughout the week. This next week is a perfect learning opportunity for families, as there are countless documentaries and movies to watch ranging from WWI, WWII, Vietnam, or current conflicts.

I also caution you about the post and email that gets sent around each year to send cards to “Recovering Soldiers” at Walter Reed. This program is no longer up and running. You can still send cards but I suggest sending them to USO or Fisher House. Better yet, next time you are going through DIA take a few minutes and drop in at the Denver USO in Concourse A. I drop off my magazines, newspapers, or books I have finished on the plane when passing through. Or stop by the Fisher House in Denver near the VA Hospital. The Fisher House provides a place for service member’s families to stay when they have extended treatments at VA hospitals. I liken this the “Ronald McDonald House” for military families, but they provide so much more.

So, fly your flags high this next week. Think about the veteran’s that have served in past, those currently in harm’s way and those that will lead in the future.

Must Read

This is a must read.

Formation

A Woman's Memoir of Stepping Out of Line

by Ryan Leigh Dostie

One of Bookriot‘s “Best Books of the Summer”: Cheryl Strayed’s Wild meets Anthony Swofford’s Jarhead in this powerful literary memoir of a young Army recruit driven to prove herself in a man’s world.

Raised by powerful women in a restrictive, sheltered Christian community in New England, Ryan Dostie never imagined herself on the front lines of a war halfway around the world. But then a conversation with an Army recruiter in her high-school cafeteria changes the course of her life. Hired as a linguist, she quickly has to find a space for herself in the testosterone-filled world of the Army barracks, and has been holding her own until the unthinkable happens: she is raped by a fellow soldier.

Struggling with PTSD and commanders who don’t trust her story, Dostie finds herself fighting through the isolation of trauma amid the challenges of an unexpected war. What follows is a riveting story of one woman’s extraordinary journey to prove her worth, physically and mentally, in a world where the odds are stacked against her.

I stayed up way too last night finishing up a book. I had not attended on staying up til midnight, but I could not stop reading. I have done the same thing all of my life. If I dive into a book, it at times becomes unstoppable. Many years ago I read the book Jarhead. I even sent it to my brother when he was in Horn of Africa. I was excited when they made into a movie and my daughter and I went to go see it on on the Marine Corps birthday. Yes, I was the only mother that brought her daughter, but we both loved it. I guess she can explain that to her therapist later. Anthony Swofford has just published his second book Exit A. Fantastic, some might find it strangely disturbing. It is not a summer beach read with young love tangled in sheets, it is much deeper.
publisher info

excerpt


This boy is an American, born on the third of July, 1972. While his mother spat and screamed through the life-endangering birth, his father and the orderlies and janitors lit illegal fireworks in the hospital parking lot. The men drank from bottles of bourbon and beer while leaning down to light Bottle Rockets and Flaming Marys and Wailing Jennys. His father supplied the armament and the devil's milk, and the matches, and most of the boisterous ranting and raving about God and Country and the Founding Fathers and the Mayflower and Plymouth Rock and the Salem witch trials and the Red Threat, that ungainly, bloody bear from the East.
The doctor held the boy upside down, and the safety of the womb became history. The room above the mother spun one hundred times, and she went under.
No one found the father, not even the orderly sent to look. So they slapped the boy's bottom and placed him in a crib, where he waited for someone with his same blood to come to consciousness. His aunt Mirtha was the first to appear at the hospital, and after cursing the father's name, she picked up the boy and performed an auntly show for him, baby talk and ego stroking and burp and bowel sounds. Because his aunt was present and cogent, and the nurses wanted to get down to the parade grounds for the base general's midnight fireworks display, they asked her to name the boy, and she did. This boy's name is Severin Boxx.
This girl's name is Virginia Sachiko Kindwall. She is the daughter of General Oliver Kindwall and Mrs. Oliver Kindwall, once known as Olive, though that was not her given name but simply a shortening of her husband's. Her given name was Nakashima Sachiko. Olive died on the birthing table at Travis Air Force Base in California, in July 1972. While she died giving birth to Virginia Sachiko, her husband, a major at the time, paced the base morgue while overseeing the identification and shipment home of the newest dead boys from Vietnam, some of the last. Later, Kindwall would tell his daughter that on the day of her mother's death and her own birth, the dead boys from Vietnam seemed much more dead than usual. He spent that night wide awake with his back ramrod straight, flat against the gray concrete floor of the hospital morgue, while his daughter, a few buildings away, slept with other military babies, some born to mothers whose husbands had died in Vietnam.
The maternity nurses that night paid extra attention to Baby Kindwall, Baby and not yet Virginia Sachiko Kindwall, because her father had been too distraught to remember what name he and his deceased wife had decided to call the child if the ball of love entered the world as a girl. The nurses rocked Baby Kindwall in their laps and called her "sweetheart" and "precious" and "lamb," and the nurses wept and cursed God and Vietnam, as they did every night.
On the floor of the hospital morgue, Kindwall dreamed of his wife in twenty years, in a church dressing room, preparing their daughter for marriage. The women's faces were made of shattered glass, and they could not find the wedding dress, so the daughter decided to be married in the nude. The dream ended with Kindwall walking his naked daughter up the church aisle, but the altar was absent priest and groom. Flames shot from the tabernacle. Kindwall awoke in the morning without recalling the dream.
The next day he volunteered for his third tour in Vietnam.
The day he left, he noticed a yellow piece of paper affixed to the refrigerator door with a watermelon-shaped magnet, these words written on it in his wife's penmanship: Girl=Virginia Sachiko. So his daughter had a name now, but no mother, and a father back at war.

vino

Is it too late to begin thinking about gifts for the holidays?
Check this out Jar Head Wine -
A bit of vino, and the proceeds going to a great cause. This would make a great gift.

Jarhead Red is a wine made by Marines, for Marines, at Firestone Vineyard on California’s Central Coast. Net proceeds from the sale of this wine benefit the Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation, which provides educational assistance to children of U.S. Marines, with special attention given to children of fallen Marines. Please consider directly supporting the foundation at Marine-Scholars.org.

My daughter and I watched Jarhead again today. We went to the theatre on the Marine Corps to watch it the first time and now we own a copy. It was plagued with mixed reviews, but I liked it. I read the book about two years ago – even sent to my brother when he was in Horn of Africa.

As per usual the weeks are just crossing off my calendar. Tomorrow is Friday and although the week has been completely full, it seems like it was just Monday. My weekends are full for the next several weeks – so the family just needs to get over the idea of sparkly white counter tops and neatly folded towels. March madness is taking on new meaning at our house.


I am going to be an aunt in less than two months – Hard to believe. I am anxious for the baby girl. Many miles will separate us, but my heart will be ready to receive the new gift!

The weather is changing here – Shortly, I will be able to come home and have a few hours of daylight after work. I cannot wait to get my hands in my soil and plant. I have four raised beds that I cram as much stuff as possible in. Last year I planted beets and they were simply delicious. Of course, I will dominate the garden with the easy stuff like lettuce, squash and radish – but I am going to mix it up this year too. I am going to stagger plant sunflowers and try my hand at parsnips.

Growing up as a small child we always had a huge garden. We lived in a rural area until about the fourth grade – My mom always planted row after row. She canned vegetables and froze the fruits of her labor. The largest difference is that I do this as a hobby – I yearn to be close to living things. I love to watch things turn from seed to leaves to plants to abundance. My mom did it as a necessity. She did this knowing that the produce she preserved for the winter would carry us through. Some say that canning, baking and home making are a lost art. I cannot completely argue with this theory. I am just thankful for the female role models in my daughter’s life that can carry out these activities fairly well. I have never mastered making the perfect flaky pie crust, baking bread from scratch or mastering perfect moist peanut butter cookies. But, I recognize not everyone has the gift. Her aunts and close friends compliment my shortcomings.