happy patriot day to fg4pg american users!

[WastelandMama]

making a thread for our resident biggity bad a**, angel! heart who not only served in iraq and stuff but who was already in the army when 9/11 happened! in fact, we'd been married for only 6 days when it all went down! booooo...

here's my "where were you on 9/11" story, copy/pasta'ed from my lj:

welp, its that time of year again. 9/11. an american tragedy that has now, like all great american tragedies, been appropriated by politicians to use in their campaign ads.

everyone always shares their "where were you on 9/11" stories, so i shall share mine.

angel and i had just been married six days. SIX. DAYS. hadn't even gone on our honeymoon yet ((lol, still haven't!)). i was sleeping the blissful sleep of one who's been engaging in entirely too much circus-sex when my phone rang.

it was mama. and she was crying. something about new york and the planes crashing. i remember thinking "wtf? planes crash sometimes." but i kept listening. eventually i woke up enough to realize it wasn't the crashing she was freaking out about, but WHAT the plane had crashed into.

which is when i mumbled "the world trade center? but they already tried to destroy that a long time ago...", which is about when she started screaming "OH MY GOD! ANOTHER PLANE!!!"

THAT woke me up.

i lived the whole experience through mama. we had no cable or antenna even yet, so i wasn't able to see anything on tv. at the time, i felt like i was missing out on this big american experience bc i KNEW the whole country was watching, but now i'm SUPER happy i didn't have to watch it happen live. ;_; super happy.

i convinced mama to turn off the tv and calm down, and to call p.k. ((<---my big sister)), then i called jessica ((<---former best friend)) and my exact opening words to her were "the world has gone crazy".

during my phone call with her, angel came back home. he said he'd heard it on the radio on the way to work, and he knew the base would be locked down. he didn't know when they'd let him come back home, so he'd come back to tell me that and give me a goodbye kiss. ^^

they DID lock all bases down for 24 hrs, but happily angel was back home the next day. his words when he came in the door were, and i s**t you not, "we're deploying to iraq."

i remember this very well bc i frowned at him and said "no, no, everything online says this is the work of some random a*****e terrorist. its got nothing to do with iraq!" and he gave me this 'aw, ain't you cute' look and said "doesn't matter. we're going to iraq."

and sho' enough, he eventually did. ~_~

he still won't say HOW he knew or who told him they were deploying to iraq. kinda like my grandpa won't talk about what he did for the cia back in the day. XD but still, he knew.

and when he DID go, and started sending me letters about how they had to trade the few personal possessions they had for FOOD bc their rations kept running out, or how they had NO BODY ARMOR or armor on their vehicles, that's when my burning hatred for bush started.

and i still hate that man. ******** him. he sent MY husband over there without any real protection AND THEN let the army say the wives weren't allowed to send over body armor! we had to hide it in other packages! bc it wasn't 'army issued', despite BEING PURCHASED ON BASE!

ugh, assholes.

anyway, 9/11 for me was a surreal kinda day. all my info came from our radio and the interwebs, which back then were pretty weak sauce compared to today.

i've seen the videos of stuff happening since, of course, and its hella horrific. but i remember also hearing about all the CRAZY acts of heroism on that day and being SUPER PROUD to be american. like, more so than usual bc i'm pretty much always like "YAY AMERICA!" but in the aftermath of 9/11, i was super proud. ^_^ also super exasperated at all the people who ran out to buy a flag. bitches, you should've already HAD a flag! pffft.

OH! and i tried to go donate blood, but my veins are 'too small' and apparently all run the wrong way, so even though they tried forever and bruised the HELL out of my arm, i was unable to give. ~_~ i donated money to i THINK the red cross instead...

alrighty! enough of that! i think the best way to commemorate 9/11 is to thank a service member or someone from your local fire dept/police dept/emt/etc. those are the real heroes, yo. ((the WRONG way to commemorate it is to be all pissy at the entire islamic community in your area and just generally be an ignorant a*****e, btw.))

ALSO! and no one ever seems to think of this! but go and donate to your local animal shelter today ((if you want, of course))! most of the dogs who were sniffing out survivors and the like came from shelters! good dogs with bad owners end up there, so go donate or give them some food or adopt!

today would be a great day to get a new dog. ^_^ ((notice i did not say PUPPY...puppies are cute, but too much trouble. older dogs are the way to go. same with kitties.))

or a new cat! kitties need love, too! ^^



so share your stories! or just give a shout out to someone you're thankful for or look up to! or a local hero! whatever! heart  

[II Lioness II]

••••

• ◄ [ { Wow, that's a touching story.
My 'where were you' story is much simpler:

I was in fifth grade in South Daytona, Florida. To be honest, I didn't even know anything had happened until my picked my little brother and I up from school that day and asked if we had heard what happened. Looking back now, it angers me that the teachers kept it from us. I understand not turning the news on to let us watch it live - that was some scary s**t - but they didn't tell us. Granted, the entire week after it happened that was all we talked about. And I mean all. Lessons were put on hold so that we could talk about what was going on. There were five kids in my class with family members in the Trade Center. None of them survived. My teacher taught us all the words to Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the USA," and to this day I still remember them. Every morning on the school news, someone from our class would get on and sing that song, and the school would have a moment of silence.

After my mom picked us up from school that day we went to Wal-Mart. To buy flags. Not that we didn't already have some - we had one flying in front of the house, and I'm sure we had some older ones in the garage, I mean, my mom was a Marine at once point, and then for a while she was a Marine's wife - we just wanted more. I don't think I wore anything but Red, White, and Blue for the rest of the year.

My dad is a Marine, and at the time he had just been stationed in North Carolina. It wasn't long before we got a call that said he was being deployed.

Now, nine years later, my husband is in Army basic training and I'll be leaving for my basic training in just over a week. And when people ask me "why the military? why not continue on with school?" I look at them with pride and say "Because I love this country, and someone has to protect it."

Proud to be an American! } ] ► •

What is sweeter than honey? And what is stronger than a lion?

Only the love between an Army wife and her soldier.