GingerSnap
08-18-2009, 09:08 AM
I have a son who is in Afghanistan and they are getting ready for elections on Aug 20, 2009 and it is especially dangerous right now. He is head of security for some governor or something. Sometimes we can use Yahoo Messenger and a webcam to visit with him. This is so hard because the room has to be very dark and he has to be lying down so there is no light given out through the window and he looks so serious and exhausted and I just want to reach through the webcam and grab him and clutch him close to me and say "You are safe now." But instead, I try to just be very upbeat and discuss all the boring details of my life and he likes to watch the screen reading the boring details and watching through the webcam until he can go to sleep. He says the standard greeting in the morning there is "Made it through the night". He would email me these news stories about the violence which did nothing to make my day but then I realized he was wanting me to realize how dangerous this was so I email him every morning so he will have something to read before going to sleep whenever we aren't able to use Messenger which is most of the time since the election is so close and no more of forwarding the violence reports. As a previous military member and having worked on a military post for several years as a civilian, you just have no idea how much contact from friends and family mean to the soldiers so if you know someone, stay in contact and yes, sometimes they don't get back with you but know they received it with a smile on their face and that others were just envious. My son is a career soldier so this isn't the first deployment and won't be the last - it's making me old! Keep in touch with those soldiers.