Across the Great Divide

From the Department of Overheated Rhetoric: Preventing the Shocking Assault on Families.

In response to an alert by Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, police all across the nation are investigating widespread, cowardly assaults on American families.

"The 911 lines lit up like you wouldn't believe," said Shorty Romisch, emergency services coordinator in Silt, Colorado. "We're lucky it's spring break. Can you imagine if they hit the schools, too?"

"Never seen anything like it," agreed 25-year veteran Chisago County deputy Lute Andersen as he manned a checkpoint designed to protect downtown Lindstrom. "So far, all the attacks are aimed at working families and small businesses."

Across the country, coroner's reports shared a eerie similarity. Virtually all the victims had been smothered, squeezed or crushed; a few were found drained as well. Many more were robbed, but allowed to escape with their lives and only the clothes on their backs.

"It's clearly a coordinated attack of epidemic proportions," said  Dr. Dorothy Liebfrau-Milch, a forensic historian at Chadron State College. "Such wholesale disregard for the survival of the middle class is unprecedented. As for the working poor, I'm afraid it's already too late."

Speaking out against the mayhem was Rep. and famed foster mother Michele Bachmann, who condemned the malign forces responsible: "Record spending. Record taxes. Record debt... Instead of changing the status quo, Democrats continue to embrace its worst features. And they ought to be ashamed of themselves.”

In response, Minnesota State Rep. Tony Cornish, police chief in Vernon Center (pop. 329)Lake Crystal Minnesota (pop. 2420) , has decided to amend his bill, "Justifiable Use of Force in Self-Defense," adding "Democrats raising taxes" to circumstances when the use of deadly force is authorized.

*****

But the plucky Bachmann didn't stop there.

In an opinion piece published today, she also accused House Democrats of making Americans unsafe by refusing to pass a FISA bill. No matter that they did.

As Joe Bodell points out, the Congresswoman is fuzzy on a few other details concerning the Protect America.

Meanwhile, in her news release declaring the historic attack on American families, Bachmann says:

In Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District, this means an average individual tax increase of $2,256 and an average loss of per person income of $1,609. It means 2,665 fewer jobs and $292 million less in our local economy.

Now, we know that an "average increase" — which averages the factory owner's tax bill and the factory worker's — bears little resemblance to the actual increase an average taxpayer will see. But Rep. Bachmann is probably counting on her constituents not knowing that. Such precise figures sure sound authoritative.

But where Rep. Bachmann is concerned, I must quote my eighth grade math teacher: "No credit for the answer unless you show your work."

Sorry, I Can't Understand You With Your Tongue in My Ear.

As with most of our political sex scandals, non-Americans look on in bemusement.

If Spitzer wanted to dedicate some of his apparently endless stock of moral outrage to prostitution, he would have done better to crusade for health and safety regulations in the sex trade than for abolition. He, of all people, knows that the industry can work perfectly well for people on both the provider and the consumer side. So why didn't he?

For many years now, social policy in the US has been moulded by morality. (Interestingly, commercial policy hasn't. It's illegal for one adult to pay another for sex, but perfectly legal for two adults to be paid to have sex with one another by a third person, who will film the encounter and then sell it as pornography to other adults.)

Morality, which is hard to define let alone to measure, is not a good basis for public policy. Science is a good basis for public policy. Economics, even. But not morality. Look at sex education in the US. The Bush administration promotes abstinence. No information about condoms, nothing about safe sex. The result of this cross-your-legs-and-think-of-God approach, according to official figures released this week, is that a quarter of teenage girls in the US have a sexually transmitted infection. How moral is that?

Though morality demonstrably collapses in the face of reality, the US is committed to exporting this approach. Its taxpayers have been asked to part with an astonishing $65bn to pay for HIV prevention and care in the developing world. To get a penny of that money, organisations have to pledge that they will oppose prostitution. The pledge was brought in by former Aids tsar Randall Tobias, handpicked by George Bush. "Former" because he resigned from public life last April, after his phone number was found on the client list of a Washington escort service. Spitzer is in good company.

— Elizabeth Pisani, The Guardian [via SoxFirst]

David Brooks does, too.

I don’t know if you’ve seen a successful politician or business tycoon get drunk and make a pass at a woman. It’s like watching a St. Bernard try to French kiss. It’s all overbearing, slobbering, desperate wanting. There’s no self-control, no dignity.

These Type A men are just not equipped to have normal relationships. All their lives they’ve been a walking Asperger’s Convention, the kings of the emotionally avoidant. Because of disuse, their sensitivity synapses are still performing at preschool levels.

So when they decide that they do in fact have an inner soul and it’s time to take it out for a romp ... Well, let’s just say they’ve just bought a ticket on the self-immolation express. Some desperate lunge toward intimacy is sure to follow, some sad attempt at bonding. Welcome to the land of the wide stance.

Maybe they’d be O.K. if somewhere along the way they’d had true friends, defined as a group of people who share a mutual inability to take each other seriously. Maybe they’d be prepared for what is about to happen if they’d subordinated their quest for immortality to the joys of domestic ridicule.

But they are completely unprepared. And in the middle of some perfectly enjoyable dinner party, a woman will suddenly find a tongue in her ear.

American Crosscut: Ask Questions First, Shoot Later.

My regular American Crosscut counterpart, Joey Monson, has been very busy making Wisconsin safe for secondhand smoke, so I invited Joel Rosenberg to  join me for this edition.

A common thread runs through Joel's blogging, novels and training work — guns and civil rights. To some, he's a knowledgeable and heroic advocate for individual freedom. To others, he's a fanatic who just may be compensating for something.

Which is kind of how public debate about guns tends to break down.

From reading him, though, I knew he'd welcome a discussion that didn't involve hysterics over guns, so I gave it shot...

Charlie: Two gun bills are before the legislature this session. One dealing with self-defense has gun opponents in an uproar. The other requiring background checks for gun sales in the secondary market has gun owners up in arms. We can get into the specific legislation if you'd like, but I'm more interested in the reactions underlying these proposals.

I understand why people unfamiliar with firearms are worried about guns being misused, and why their desire to suppress guns in society drives responsible gun owners nuts. Both sides seem to think the facts are on their side and their fears about the other side are justified.

Suppose you were doing a course entirely for the folks who think the Castle Doctrine/Shoot First bill is a bad idea. How would you open their eyes to your point of view?

Joel: The second step would be a little history, and I'd ask folks to combine history with common sense.

But, before that, I'd ask folks to step back, and take a look at the facts.  I'd say something like, look, whenever you're trying to figure out what legislation will do, should it become law, the first three things to to look at are the legislation, the legislation, and the legislation.  I'm told you think it's a bad idea, I'd say. 

Okay -- and I'm not asking this to embarrass you:  how many of you folks have read HF 498?  Hey, it's okay -- I haven't read all of the thousands of bills up in front of the lege, either.  But we're talking about this one, and Charlie Quimby has been nice enough to put this class together of people who say that they think that the bill's a bad idea. That's great, by the way; I've long had a standing offer to Heather Martens of the "Citizens for a 'Safer' Minnesota" to let me do a presentation on other laws to her followers, and over the five years that offer's been in effect, it's been ignored.

So, let's get started. 

If you haven't read the bill, I think that you're here at this class under false pretenses -- you've been fooling yourself.

You don't think that this bill is a bad idea, because you haven't given yourself the necessary tools to think about this bill.  If you don't know what it says, you haven't begun to equip yourself to have an informed opinion about what it will do. What you have are feelings about it, and you've set yourself up to be manipulated by unscrupulous politicians who are appealing to ignorant feelings, not appeal to your informed opinion.

So, yes, let's start off with the specifics of the bill, and then go on to the history of it -- what problems it addresses here in Minnesota, and what the history is of similar law elsewhere.  And by the time we're done, if you still think that calling it "Shoot First!" or the "Shoot the Avon Lady" bill, you'll have to explain to yourself why similar laws haven't left any dead Avon ladies lying on the ground or given legal permission for gangbangers to shoot up the neighborhood

If what you're reacting to are feelings that you've gotten from what opponents or proponents of the bill have said to you, I'd suggest you ask yourself this -- after you've read the bill, and carefully:  "Who's been telling me the truth about this?"

So, let's get started. If we're going to understand it -- whether you end up agreeing with it or not -- let's, well, understand it.

That's how I'd start off.  And then I'd turn to the bill, and go through it, line by line. Let's get informed first, and then we can deal with feelings based on information.

Charlie: Maybe we can take the rest of the class in a follow-up session. For now, I think we likely agree that emotion, coupled with personal experiences, accounts for where most people line up on either side.

I grew up in the small town west where guns are a pretty normal part of life. We took gun safety in gym class. When my grandfather died, my dad inherited two possessions — a quarter horse and a lever action Remington 30.06. Those were venerated valuables worth passing on. I liked to shoot, but not to kill, so hunting wasn't a big part of my experience, but until I gave my rifle to my son a year ago last Christmas, I've always had a gun around.

I suspect people who've never had that normalization of guns associate them mainly with violence, power trips and aberrant thinking. And if I may go out on a limb early, people with those types of issues are probably disproportionately attracted to guns. They just don't represent the vast majority of gun owners.

On the other side, there's a strong current of aggressive defensiveness — of the "pry my gun from my cold, dead fingers" variety — that spooks gun opponents. What in your experience makes you such a staunch defender of gun rights, and why should these people not be afraid of you? 

Joel: Well, okay, if you want to get into facts -- or, at least, the facts about the bill -- later on, I'm willing to do that.

I'm not sure that it's just emotion and personal experiences that do drive folks; I'm pretty sure that it shouldn't, all by itself.  I think too many tend to generalize from too few experiences, and too few facts.

But, yeah, too many people are rationalizers, rather than rational.

One of the many things I respect about Felicia -- we've been married for thirty years, come this year -- is that it was facts and reasoning that brought her -- she did her own research; being an information professional, she's very qualified to do that; nobody else does her thinking for her, and smart people don't try to -- over a period of years, from being emotionally anti-gun to, among other things, being the first woman in line at the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office in 2003 to apply for her permit.  (She wasn't the first person in line; there were some guys who got there ahead of her.)  If you want to know what combination brought her there, ask her; she's been an adult for some years now, and is perfectly capable of speaking for herself. 

And, sure, lack of familiarity often breeds fear.  There's a fair number (I'm not going to claim a majority; haven't taken a survey) of white folks, particularly suburban liberals, who seem to be utterly terrified of black folks -- particularly black folks who live in the city.  Of those I've talked to about it and have been willing to talk about it -- I think that many bigots have trouble copping to bigotry; most simply change the subject, at least around me -- not one has ever so much as sat down and had a cup coffee with a black guy who lives in the city.  Kind of reminds me of that awful Bill O'Reilly thing where he (granted, not a liberal) went to some restaurant in, I think, Harlem, and was utterly surprised to learn that when black people eat in a restaurant in a black community, they use utensils and engage in conversation.

Sometimes I wonder what planet some people come from. 

Me, I grew up in what was, in many ways, a stereotypical liberal Jewish household, at least on the gun issue.  Guns were a horrible, goyish thing, and, of course, it would be utterly horrible if any Jew were ever to have anything to do with one . . . unless, of course, they had an Israeli accent and were wearing an IDF uniform, in which case it was a good thing.

That said, the importance of civil rights was part of my upbringing. Civil rights aren't just what allow a black guy with the appropriate amount of money in his pocket to sit down at a lunch counter and buy a cup of coffee, or for all of us to go into the voting booth and support the candidates of our choice (or try to vote one out of office); it's also what protects those of us with unpopular views or -- in some asshole's view -- the wrong progenitors from being hauled off in the middle of the night to disappear into Lubyanka or the Isle of Pines or Buchenwald or a swamp on Olen Burrage's Old Jolly Farm, never to be seen alive again.

Yeah, I feel pretty strongly about that.

We can get back to that, if you'd like, and how central the issue of the right to keep and bear arms is to other civil rights -- enumerated and otherwise -- if you'd like, in another round, but this is already getting long, and I haven't dealt with your question as to why people shouldn't be afraid of me, nor asked you one.

So let's get to that.

I dunno. I'm not sure that people shouldn't be afraid of me. It's okay if some are. After all, I'm a professional writer who has some tools I've honed a bit in the practice of my craft over some decades, and I think -- and hope -- a sometimes biting wit, and am, when I feel it appropriate, utterly willing to engage in criticism that is intended to be cutting and painful, and if, say, a fellow I'm not going to name on your blog still holds a grudge over how I metaphorically and very publicly raked him over the coals over the time he tried -- and failed, miserably, and embarrassingly -- to get me jumped-and-thumped by the MPD and he still wants to keep his distance, hey, that's fine with me.  Hell, the more distance, the better; I'll be happy to buy him a bus ticket to Tierra del Fuego. One-way, and he's got to promise to use it, and at least stay there for awhile.

But I guess you really mean about the gun stuff.  I don't get to decide what other people feel, but, hey, let's take a look at the facts.  I've been regularly carrying a handgun in public -- lawfully -- since years before the Personal Protection Act passed, and have yet to take it out to kill, wound, threaten or intimidate somebody for, well, irking me.  And, truth to tell, it's at least arguable that I irk pretty easy.  (The Star Tribune used to worry aloud about "irked" permit holders.  That irked me.)

You could ask my friends.  And some folks who don't like me.  Need a list?

Rationally, the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior, isn't it?  Since I've managed to go through something like a dozen years of carrying without killing, wounding, threatening or intimidating somebody with my handgun* --

after having been, at various times, insulted in person, in print and in email; cut off in traffic; bumped into on the street; sworn at by a stumbling drunk coming out of bar; gotten bad service at any of several establishments; had my parking space stolen and my car towed;  and a zillion other irk-worthy things I could list, if you'd like

-- the smart money is that I'm not going to do it today. 

But, hey, even if after all that, if some folks choose to be afraid of me shooting them, I'm not equipped to deal with it, even if they'd like me to; I'm a writer, not a psychotherapist.  Ask any shrink you'd care to, though; if people don't want to change, there's nothing they can do about it, either.

So far, this has been more of a Q&A than an exchange; I think it's time that I ask you a question before I take another one -- so let me ask you this: if, after all that, somebody is frightened of me shooting them, what measure or measures do you think should I take to reassure them, why should I take those measures, and how effective do you think they'll be?

___________
* Except in my very few defensive gun uses.  Let's not get into those, here; it'll get 'way too long.  I've never had to put my finger on a trigger, and have never come close to being prosecuted in those very few cases. Granted, a robber or two got scared out of hurting me or my family, and that's just fine with me -- that was, after all, the whole idea. Can we leave that part of it at that, or do we need to go into detail?
___________ 

Charlie: On a personal level I’d expect you to avoid threatening language and behavior and try to engage them in ways so they get to know you as a human being. You already do a lot of education, and I knew you’d be open to this, so that’s why I contacted you in the first place.

But I think we both know the issue here is not the measures you take individually — because you can’t reassure everyone, and you’re not the only conceal and carry gun owner out there. We have to deal with this as a society, too.

You don’t have to do any more than the law compels you to do, and I believe the law should be concerned with safety, not reassurance. So we have this push and pull over laws restricting or relaxing rights where these concerns about safety and liberty play out.

Since I have the ball, I’m calling time out here. This is the first conversation I’ve had with a footnote! Let’s pick up the thread in a new post a few days from now.

Tell Me if You Think This is Weird.

No, I mean besides the fact it looks like the graphic was created in Excel.

Would you believe it was produced by the U.S. Treasury Department?

So much for keeping government agencies free of political dominance. This sort of "serve the executive, not the country" has been happening throughout the federal government over the last eight years.

Whoever wins the White House will feel like the place was built on a toxic waste dump. I hope some good people have managed to stay on.

A Random Walk Far From Wall Street.

The banker resumes are streaming into Wall Street recruiting company Options Group. On average, 100 are arriving each day. Three of them will lead to jobs.

[...]

"I've never seen so many resumes come to me at any time in my life," adds Options CEO Michael Karp.

– "Grim reaper of jobs stalks the street," Wall Street Journal

More than 70 percent of the economists polled by the Journal say the economy is in recession, and some of the boys who've been living large are starting to feel the pain. Not the top dogs, of course, though some might have to decide if they need a place in Aspen and Jackson.

The bad economic news might be good news for one of my neighbors who lives on the edge of an upper crust golf community on a nearby mesa. W.M. has lived there for years and had the views to himself, but recently the area has started to fill in with more homes.

The oil and gas business is driving a lot of the growth here, and that looks to continue, but maybe a sour market  will slow the building of the big houses encroaching on him.

His place is all paid for, and he lives debt-free. Several times a day, he walks or jogs the three-plus miles to town, so he's in pretty decent shape. I don't think he's concerned about the financial markets or consumer spending or any of that stuff.

Elbow room. That's all he wants.

Walking Man doesn't always wear the garbage bag. A few days ago, it was warm enough to go without a shirt, but the nights in the cave still have to be pretty cold.

Yesterday, I was filling up with gas and watched another familiar figure eating a sandwich in the parking area. He had a nice Easter egg yellow sweater over two other shirts; clean blue jeans; white, open-toe sandals over blue wool socks. As he ate, he did a slow, bobbing dance around the sunny side of the lot.

He lives under a bridge not too far from the convenience store, and he's out walking a lot, too. But there can't be two walking men. With the white beard and place of residence, he's known as The Troll.

I wouldn't want their lives, and I worry when a few days pass without seeing them. And I worry less about my own stuff, as they remind me of the resiliency we share and the good fortune we don't.

 

Awareness Test.

Why Didn't the Founding Fathers Finish the Job?

On a hike this week, I spotted a rare antiquity in the sagebrush, thought about picking it up, then let it lie. I should've taken a picture, at least, but I guess the surprise of finding it so close to the trail threw me off.

Out here, you don't often see a rusty tin can with no bullet holes.

Just outside the boundaries of a golf course, light sparkles from shattered bottles at the bases of badlands buttes that provided backstops for boys with their guns. Now the fancy houses are too close and covenants prohibit shooting, so the glass deposits are being left farther out. A former gun club between here and town is now silent, though cars show up at the well-maintained club house on occasion for mysterious purposes.

When I grew up out here, gun racks were a fixture in pickup rear windows. If not for gun laws, the meth addicts would've put an end to that practice, anyway. But there is still an ease with guns that crosses liberal and conservative lines.

Somewhere back in Minnesota's legislative committees, dueling gun proposals appear to be buried beneath more pressing matters, like how to come up with a billion bucks. One would extend background checks to buyers acquiring guns from private parties or at gun shows. The other would make it easier to shoot someone in self-defense.

Although the background checks bill would require buyers to pay a fee and make a visit to a gun dealer to file paperwork, it seems hardly more onerous that the requirement that private parties register the transfer of a used car when it's sold. On the other hand, it's hard to see what the measure would accomplish, since by my reading, tracing weapon ownership rarely results in solving a crime.

The shoot-the-teenager-stealing-beer-from-the-garage bill, to paraphrase Dakota County Attorney James Backstrom, also seems like a pointless exercise — one of those periodic forays designed by the NRA to stir up conservative voters.

Whether they're intended to tweak the opposition or let supporters sleep better, both bills deserve to die.

I blame the founding fathers, of course. We could have avoided all this nonsense if they'd put a little more effort into defining the right to bear arms. One definitive clause stuck in one ambiguous sentence as the Second Amendment into the Bill of Rights certainly didn't cut it. They should've passed a separate Bill of Gun Rights to clear up all the confusion.

Why, off the top of my head, I can think of nine more visionary amendments that could have better enumerated our rights for us.

1. A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
2. A boiled squirrel, being necessary to the avoidance of hunger, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
3. Indians, being in the way, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
4. Honor, being necessary to the full enjoyment and expression of manhood, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
5. Passenger pigeons, being a blot upon the skies, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
6. Slaves, being prone to run away the first chance they get, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
7. Rabid dogs and skunks, being too dangerous to drown in a sack, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
8. Freedom from fear, being necessary to the pursuit of happiness, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
9. Cowboy movies, being as yet not invented but essential to perpetuating useful myths of independence for later generations, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
10. Dominion over the Middle East, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Tawdry Thursday.

Elliot Spitzer may stand out as a star governor who resigned because of a sex scandal, but he's not the only one.  New Jersey Gov. James E. McGreevey resigned after announcing he had an affair with a male staffer. But in another case, the voters didn't know why their popular governor moved on.

Former Oregon Governor Neil Goldschmidt sexually exploited a 14-year-old girl when he was mayor of Portland. Without explanation after a term as governor, he stepped out of elective politics and went on to exert his power for corporate clients before the secret came out, 30 years after the fact.

And even now, the girl gets blamed by Goldschmidt's ex-wife, who says she isn't blaming her.

"[S]he was a predator and Neil was an idiot," Goldschmidt said in the transcript.    

Later, describing her ex husband she is quoted as saying, "…he was vulnerable like I think many men are to a situation…"

Sorry. The last time I was vulnerable to a 14-year-old, I was teenager, not the mayor of a major city schtupping a friend's daughter.

Most governors try to confine themselves to screwing groups of people.

Goose, Goose, Goose, Lucky Duck.

Somehow I doubt the Daily Breeze of Torrance, California, has pulled more than 1200 comments on a story before – especially on one that appeared in the Life & Culture section, reserved for news of pets, religion and gardening.

But a short article previewing former vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro's speaking engagement last weekend has reached a lot farther now.

“If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman of any color, he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept.”

She made the comments last week, but on Tuesday, the Obama camp latched on to them, calling them outrageous and demanding that Mrs. Clinton repudiate them.

In an interview on Tuesday night, Ms. Ferraro defended her comments and said she was furious with the Obama campaign, accusing it of twisting her words.

— New York Times

Most people still running for president are very lucky to be who they are, or they would not be in that position. That should not take away from their other attributes and qualifications. It simply expresses a point that high-level achievement in modern politics — or business or entertainment — rests on more than ambition, talent and hard work.

Let's review.

The White House incumbent would not be in this position had he been born into Barack Obama's family.

Hillary Clinton would not have been in this position had she married Dennis Kucinich.

John McCain would not have been in this position had he not had the good fortune of being a courageous prison of war who found on his return that his first wife had become disabled in a car accident.

Mike Gravel ... wait, he's not in this position.

Al Gore, Bill Richardson, Mitt Romney, Christopher Dodd, Ted Kennedy and George H.W. Bush are all personally accomplished, but also life members of the lucky sperm club.

Competence aside, questions of whether blacks and women "deserve it" are simmering beneath this race. And in a world where 80 percent live in poverty and 70 percent are illiterate, anyone reading this is very lucky to be who they are.

Military Wives' War Service is Often Out of Sight.

My father was on a destroyer in the China Sea when I was born. Four years later, I remember being told I was now the "man of the house" and needed to help my pregnant mother and my brother while my dad was deployed off the coast of Cuba.

I was too young to know what my mother was really going through, but I've had a few glimpses now, thanks to my nephew's wife, Gwen.

Today I read the military is considering changing policy so soldiers serving in South Korea can be accompanied by their families. It reminded me of this commentary about how the military lifestyle makes the pursuit of a career nearly untenable for military wives.

I know the challenges that Army wives face. I've been a lawyer and an Army wife for 10 years. In that period, I've moved seven times. I've taken four different bar exams and held five different jobs. My income has been taxed in at least five states. My children have had five different nannies. I think it's safe to say that military wives like me face career obstacles that few civilian wives could appreciate.

The author, Laura Dempsey, writes mainly about her personal and professional tribulations as an Army wife. But the challenges she faces as an attorney sounded different from what Gwen has dealt with as her husband, Ben, served in Iraq.

Missing from Dempsey's account was the type of huge supporting role Gwen was playing back at Ft. Hood, Texas.

I sent her link to the article and asked her to describe how spouses like her are asked to support our military. I thought everyone supporting our troops should be aware of those spousal sacrifices, too. It's a level of uncompensated service that's borne off the books and out of sight of the taxpayers. Her volunteer work, plus mothering three kids, doesn't just keep her from earning a living. It can represent a drain on the family finances.

Here are some excerpts from her reply.

You asked me for my take on the support that is somewhat expected from military spouses.  This is a complicated subject and very near to my heart.

My specific experience revolves around the program that the army has put in place to assist the unit in preparing families to be separated due to deployment as well as to create a bond between families in order to create a support system and good communication resources for when the soldiers are away. It is called the Family Readiness Group [FRG]. There is a group at each level in the hierarchy of the Army.

Here is how it works:  generally the Commander of a unit tasks the job of Family Readiness Group leader to his wife. If the Commander is not married, then another wife may volunteer to lead or the next officer in command's wife may be asked to step up (as in my situation)... The leader position carries a lot of responsibility because it isn't just the volunteer's reputation at stake.

I considered summarizing all ways Gwen and other FRG members are supporting the troops and their families. It was quite a list, but it didn't really capture the level of commitment involved. I think Americans need to hear more.

We collected supplies for all of the babies born in the unit and delivered the gifts to the hospital. We also organized meals to be delivered to the homes of all of our new moms as well as any local family members that became ill or had a death in the family or any other circumstance brought to my attention.

I had to attend all meetings and training sessions pertaining to the FRG group and dealing with the stressful deployment situation (usually 2-3 per month, about 2 hrs each and had to find and pay a babysitter each time) and then disseminate the relevant info to about 100 family members via email, phone or US post depending on their situation. 

I had to collect and organize accurate contact info for our families so that in the event of an emergency the correct people would be notified as well as to keep communication lines open. I had to make regular contact with each family member to make sure they were up to date and to try to help with any issues. 

I was part of the CARE TEAM for the unit which goes to the homes of family members whose soldier has been injured or killed to provide support (babysitting, making phone calls, a shoulder to cry on, etc). I was the liaison between the family member and the army. Any question or issue that they needed help with they would contact me about it first and I would either answer it or find the appropriate person and forward them on. 

As a group, we send care boxes to the unit for every holiday and at least 1 x per month. We visited all of our injured soldiers at BAMC (2 hrs south of here) or at our the Base's hospital. We went to memorial services, purple heart ceremonies, and also coordinated transportation for soldiers coming home for R&R leave or emergencies. 

When the soldiers were redeployed we made sure that all of the single soldiers living in the barracks had blankets, pillows, sheets, toiletries, etc. All of which were not provided by the Army and had to be paid for through fundraising by our group. We only had 30 soldiers in the barracks, but I know a few units had over 100. 

I personally went to every welcome home ceremony. Each event that required our group to pre-prepare boxes, or goody bags or even washing the sheets and blankets was held at my home. Each time I had to clean and prepare my home for guests and I also fed the whole group each time.

She also described a family that almost lost their baby during a series of medical setbacks. The father was in Iraq with Ben, and Gwen scrambled to coordinate communications so he could get home.

The baby was in very bad shape and I even worked with the brigade level FRG leaders to start making funeral arrangements. Then this family's other child fell ill...

To make a long story maybe a little less long, the soldier got home in record time, the baby survived, and I had a $360 cell phone bill. I also had to call in many favors from friends to babysit and run errands for me while I dealt with this situation. The friends that all helped me are also army wives dealing with deployed husbands, acting as single moms, some of them are also FRG leaders, and they all took time away from their families and FRG groups to help.

I know I'm forgetting things that we did. I'm sorry if it all seems a little scatter-brained. Even as I sit here writing to you, I need to be assembling gifts and award certificates for all of my volunteers for a recognition ceremony this weekend, and I need to pick up Will's glasses from the store, make dinner, help with homework, and still be nice to my husband when he gets home.  [Ben returned in December.]

It's all what you make of it. No one is forced to volunteer... just like you aren't forced to enlist.  If I didn't want to do it, I never would have stepped up. It's a lifestyle that Ben and I are committed to for the time being. 

By the way, I think its funny that Ms. Dempsey is complaining that her kids have had to have 5 different nannies. Nannies?  Really?  That is so far outside my bubble of understanding. Must not be too tough if she has a nanny. I want a nanny.

Just kidding.

– Gwen