New pictures from our medics

Just a few recent photos of some of the medics we support here at Soldier's Angels

Somtimes they look pretty serious, once in a while they have some fun.


Hey - that's Sandy, bottom left wearing green!

Happy Anniversary to my world's best wife

OK, personal note here. I'd like to dedicate today's entry to my smart, sexy and funny wife DJ as we celebrate our 6th year of marriage. She is my rock and my center and I am really lucky we found each other, and that she was willing to abandon her common sense long enough to marry me.

It's a second spin around the dance floor for both of us. The difference this time is that it just gets better and better - no matter what happens.

One month before our wedding, she got down-sized. Five months after the wedding, I got downsized. We attempted to blend two sets of snarly teen-aged kids into one family with only limited sucess. But we never let them play us against each other, and never stopped loving them even while they conspired, threatened to move out, did move out, told the other parents what ogres we were and have eventually started to mature into fairly reasonable human beings.

She works 90 hours a week to build our business and gives me gentle motivators like:

-"I really appreciate that you know how to do the accounting"

and

-"If I catch you watching TV during the day, I will stab you"

I keep the books, help with the non-creative side of things, and try to reassure her that it's ok to earn 20 cents an hour because it's our own business.

We downsized from our big house in a suburban nightmare development to a 70 year-old garden spot with no family room and no mortgage, and we love it.

So happy anniversary, sweetie. Thanks for calling me.

-Rog

More wonders for the little ones

I write a lot about how hard our medics work to take care of Iraqi and Afghani children who are the most innocent victims of this war. Today I'd like to mention some of the wonderful folks who help make that possible. Here's a little girl with her Mom at the 28th CSH, all wrapped up in a blanket sent by our volunteer Angels.
Mary Jo and the ladies in Florida who had a "tie one on" blanket making party, and shipped over 28 kid's blankets in March.
A collection of "hug me pillows" from Donna and her family in New York. She said they stuffed 50 pillows into a 10-pound box by putting them in a huge bag, then vacuuming all the air out. She added a "Watch out for flying pillows" warning for the medics who opened the box. Wish I'd gotten to see that.

Donna's family sent a rocking chair to the Camp Ramadi aid station so the medic could rock those little ones, too.

Not to mention all the baby clothes, diapers, formula, stuffed animals, toys, games and tons of love sent by dozens of other Angels.

-Rog

A Flood in the desert!

Our buddy Jason the medic tells me it's been raining like hell there. They've had lots of mud and their aid station got flooded yesterday, which put out their electric lights. Of course, since KBR did the wiring, a chaw of tobacco spit in the wrong direction could do the same thing.

Luckily, we sent him some battery-powered Coleman lanterns last month, and they put 'em to good use last night.

photo from coleman.com

He said the docs had to perform some procedures by lantern light, and these $29 wonders saved the day.


KBR billed to DOD................. $89,000,000,000,000 gozillion dollars

Coleman Lanterns ................ $29 each

The irony................................Priceless

What kind of requests do we get from the medics?

photo from crackerbarrel.com

Our medics ask for various things that they just can't get through normal channels. The US military does a good job of keeping them supplied, but there are the "extras" that come up from time to time.

Some of the most unusual requests I've received?

"Our aid station smells like burnt mustard and baby shit - can you please send air freshners"

"Anything from the goodness of your hearts"

- our Angels loved that one! They've got some awfully big hearts.

"Cigars for the old farts in the unit"

- I'm older than most of them , and I can relate to that.

"Cartoons for the Iraqi kids in our ICU" - gotta love that one.

And then there are the ones that give pause.........

"Pillows for children. Anything to help them feel less frightened"

"Wet-wipes and swiffer floor cleaners to wipe up the blood".

And the one that I'll always be glad we could help with:

"We had a lot of children injured in a bombing. I walked in circles for 6 hours holding one little girl so she could sleep

- is there any way you could send us a rocking chair?"

We got him a kit from crackerbarrel.com, and it arrived in less than 5 days. They got it put together and loved it. Sgt Jason hopes they only use it to sit on the veranda and watch the sunsets - but it's ready in case.