Tired and Happy; Hurricane Sandy Recovery

James and I flew to New York in November to help with Team Rubicon's recovery efforts after Hurricane Sandy. I wrote this on the flight home:


What makes a person fly across the country, into the wreckage of a natural disaster, sleep in a dusty warehouse with no running water, no bathroom and 100 other smelly and tired people? What makes someone want to charge in to help so much that everything else in their life takes a back seat? The Veterans of Team Rubicon are ready to do just that and they inspire me. They are Veterans from all branches of the military and they don’t just want to help, they need to help; it is like oxygen to them. Our veterans need a purpose, many of them crave it, and for those who have the experience, working with Team Rubicon is that purpose.

I am not a veteran myself. I am the wife of a Navy Corpsman who was injured in Iraq. I have spent a lot of time over the years sitting and waiting for him to come home safely. This week I experienced my first deployment; I joined my husband and the members of Team Rubicon on Operation Grease Lighting. I flew all night from San Diego to New York, arrived at 5am, and got to work. My skill set is a little different than most of the volunteers and I’m more than happy to stay back at the staging point. So, with my secret weapon, Yelp.com, I got to work to create the most comfortable living conditions possible in an unused warehouse with no water, toilets or heat.

By my first night, I felt like I had been there a week. I had 65 new friends and the things that had been most important to me just a day before no longer mattered. When you are working to help people who have lost everything they own, and too often the people they love, getting to work on time, having clean clothes, taking a shower or getting to watch the news somehow just don’t matter that much anymore. This was one of the first times I have really understood how life changes when one deploys with military members.

By my second day, I had forgotten the smell of the porta-potties, feet and garbage, and the many unwashed bodies packed into the dust covered and drafty space. There were Red Cross cots with sleeping bags covering every free corner. I’ve never seen so many dusty boots in my life. I had made even more friends by now. There were so many names I couldn't possibly remember them all. Being the one who picks out dinner for 100 very tired and cold veterans who have worked themselves ragged all day is an important job. Understanding that hot food is directly related to the happiness of those same volunteers made me a popular girl.

Day three – Veterans Day – what do you get an overworked, dirty and tired Veteran on Veterans Day? A hot shower! It is amazing what you can get people to do if you only ask. The community of Park Slope in Brooklyn, NY where our volunteers were living and operating from includes some very generous people. On Veterans Day I spent a few hours making calls to gyms around the neighborhood to ask if I could send some very dusty men and women to their business to use their showers. The Brooklyn Boulders Rock Climbing Gym next door had been letting the team use their facilities since the beginning. The challenge is there are one shower and four toilets and over 100 people. NY Sports Club had already offered to let us use their showers. By the end of the day the other three gyms in walking distance, the YMCA, Body Reserve and S Clubs were also willing to let us invade their spaces to get clean.

By the fourth day I was solidly settled in and able to fill the needs of the now 109 volunteers living in the warehouse. The veterans were spending their days leading thousands of civilian volunteers from around New York into the homes of Rockaway Beach, that were so affected by the storm. Mucking out flooded and sand filled basements, ripping out drywall, carrying out destroyed appliances and household goods; some even spent time digging through the wreckage to find family photos and hang them out to dry, trying to salvage anything for the people of Rockaway Beach. I flew home on the fifth day, having taught others how to feed and care for the volunteers. In those four days in New York, I learned exactly how to give my entire self to a cause. I learned what my husband has been doing with himself since before I met him, what he was doing in Iraq and at home. There are people I met in New York for the first time who I will remember for the rest of my life. They are part of me and I them. The feeling of community was immediate but it will last forever.

How can I explain that I am grateful for having worked for four days for well over 12 hours a day, and living conditions only slightly better than many homeless people? Maybe I can’t but from now on I will know what it is to give more of myself than I thought possible and to get back something I cannot quantify or explain. Working this hard usually makes me tired and cranky by the end of the day. I was tired but happy and grateful. I am so grateful to the volunteers and veterans of Team Rubicon for helping me to better understand the need to give and the amazing return on my emotional investment. I know this is something that many veterans have experienced while serving in the military. They are pushed to their limits and then beyond. Trained to push farther, to prove to themselves that they can dig deeper into themselves and bring up more than they ever thought they possessed. It is unlikely that I will ever serve in the military, I will always be awed by those who have.

Life After 9/11, A Personal Essay

I wrote this for my Global Perspectives Class. I was limited on space and didn't want to get too personal so take it for what it is.

Sitting at The Broken Yoke in Pacific Beach for a welcome aboard breakfast. My husband had just been assigned to the Pediatric Clinic at Naval Medical Center San Diego for the remainder of his tour. I was going into work a little late so I could join him at the breakfast. When we walked in the radio was playing.

Not long after we were seated we heard the DJ announce that a plane had just crashed into one of the towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. Some of us laughed. It seemed absurd; who would crash into such a large building? It had to be a small plane, maybe a Cessna, and an armature pilot. We continued with the celebration. Some of the sailors were being presented with awards.

Half way through the meal, the DJ had begun to talk about what was happening in New York again. A second plane had crashed into the other tower and we now knew that they were not small, they were airliners, filled with passengers. There was a sudden sense of urgency. Most of the people at the table now knew that we were under some kind of attack. All of the sailors rushed to pay the bill and get to base. We didn't know if there would be more attacks and if there were we knew they needed to be at work and ready.

I went to work that day not knowing what the future would hold. The towers fell shortly after I got there and we all watched it on TV. Surreal. The world had changed forever and it felt as if the whole country was watching it in silence.

American flags went up on buildings across the country. Congress sang God Bless America on the steps of the capitol building. The President climbed through the rubble at Ground Zero shaking hands with rescue workers and people were being kind to each other, helping each other and saying hello more often. In the months after the attack Americans came together, we were united for the first time in my living memory.

By the time President Bush was discussing the Iraq invasion my husband had picked his next set of orders. We were planning our wedding and would be headed to Naples, Italy in the next few months. Even though we were about to make a huge change, going on a three year European adventure, my husband felt the need to volunteer to go to Iraq with the Marines. He is a field Corpsman and trained to fight with and care for Marines. I was mortified. The man I love and was marrying might be going off to fight in a war thousands of miles away. To my great relief, and his distress, his command told him the orders to Italy could not be broken, the Department of Defense held them not the Navy. Another Corpsman would have to go and we were still headed out on our European adventure.

We watched the statue of Sadam Hussen pulled down the morning we flew to Italy. And when President Bush announced that the war was over I watched from a hotel room on a small base in a farm town outside of Naples, Italy. The world seemed like a very dangerous place. I understood now that there were people out there trying to kill Americans just for being American. Osama Bin Laden was a household name and something had changed in me. For the first time since I was a Brownie Girl Scout, I felt really patriotic. A combination of living in a community of service members and becoming aware of what my country stands for on a real level had affected me tremendously.

When our tour in Italy was over and we moved back to San Diego my husband was stationed with the Marines and would be going to Iraq not long after we got home. I knew this would eventually happen if he stayed in the military. We had been lucky; in almost four years we had never been separated for more than a month at a time. I was just glad I would be home and would have the support of my family while he was away.

Like so many military members who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan my husband witnessed the death of his friend, the youngest Corpsman with his team, the severe injury of one of his Marines and countless injuries to Iraqis. He carried guilt when he could not stave off death, knowing he was there to keep his Marines safe. While still in country his behavior changed. Because he was the lead Corpsman and responsible for spotting symptoms of head injury and combat stress in those he cared for there was no one to spot those same signs in him; no one knew. We would learn almost a year later that my husband had experienced a Traumatic Brain Injury and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

My husband returned changed. I felt like we had lost our strong connection. We fought often and he became angry to the point that I was afraid of him. It seemed like the littlest things would set him off. I was sure we were headed for divorce and I could not figure out why. One night everything became clear. My husband lost it in a parking lot. He was frightened of something I could not see. He was panicking and I could not do anything about it. I was able to get him in the car and calmed down after what seemed like hours. Only minutes had passed. He promised me later that night that he would ask for help at work on Monday.

Over the next year and a half my husband was diagnosed with a brain injury, underwent brain surgery and began to work towards recovery and what the doctors call "his new normal". It was the PTSD that was more difficult. He was getting help but there is no pill or surgery to fix it. In fact there is nothing that can truly fix it. PTSD is something that he will live with for the rest of his life. It is something I will live with for the rest of my life. There is fear and anxiety. Constant vigilance eased by a service dog. He still can't sleep even five years later.

Simply put, September 11, 2001 was a turning point in my life. At the time I could not have even guessed how my reality would be changed, how my relationship with my husband would change and how his relationship with our family and friends would change. I could never have guessed the amount of strength and understanding I would need to keep us both together. The physical injury he suffered and my description of PTSD will never do justice to the amount of change we have seen in the almost ten years since the United States of America was attacked. I know that there are countless other families in countries across the globe who will continue to deal with the changes in their lives for many years to come as well. Some with little or no help at all.

In the United States, we as citizens and residents, have begun to give up rights in exchange for promises of protection. Laws, including the Patriot Act, have been enacted by congress allowing law enforcement access to record conversations, hack into email accounts and search without a warrant (www.justice.gov). We have submitted to increasingly invasive body searches and restrictions in exchange for being allowed to travel by air. Our government has attempted to wipe out terrorists in far away countries while we go on with our lives, forgetting that there are thousands of Americans fighting every day.

The people of the United States of American have changed. We have allowed our freedoms to be slowly stripped away and are increasingly passive about demanding accountability from our leaders. We are willing to accept the illusion of safety rather than making changes to actually keep us safe. Our leaders are giving up on two wars that have taken the lives of 6,117 Americans as of July 8, 2011 (www.defense.gov), and the lives of military members from Iraqi, Afghani, British, 19 other coalition countries (www.centcom.mil) and countless civilians. The world is still fighting a war that I believe is being ignored by media and in society, at least in this country.

Having lived overseas for the first three years of the Operation Iraqi Freedom gave me a unique opportunity to learn what people from countries all over the world thought of the United States and of Americans. There was a time when Americans were welcomed in countries around the world. Today our country is seen as an international bully and the people are sheep being deceived by their leaders. I met people who believed that there was no way an educated person would believe that the war in the middle east was about terror and not about oil. There were people who were sure we brought the events of September 11th upon ourselves with our penchant for getting involved where we are not wanted. Americans are now pitied for being lead into false wars by those who want to control the oil in the middle east.

Aside from the opinions of people from around the world the relationship of the government of the United States of American and the rest of the world has been changing since the events of September 11th. Our leaders have ignored the international community and taken action in sovereign countries independent of the United Nations. There has been increasing backlash in recent years from countries that have traditionally been considered allies of the United States.

The world will never be the same. We have lost a collective innocents, in the western world. We cannot go back to the time when people only hijacked planes for money and the worst thing an American would encounter on a trip to Europe was a pick pocket. There are real, quantifiable threats in the world and we now know they are out there. The question is how do we handle them, how will we find a "new normal" as a society?

The New Adventures of James and Amber

So its been a while... James and I have both experienced unemployment and reemployment in the past year or so. Ho-ray! well sort of. I now have a job that I am excited about and James is going to college. It isn't much but I feel like we might be on the right track for the first time in a while.

Here's to a great 2011. I can't wait to see what the new year brings.

Healthcare

I know we are all talking about healthcare. I had a thought today while eating lunch with a co-worker. Why, oh why are our lawmakers trying to change the whole healthcare system all at once? Wouldn't it be better to fix one problem at a time? Maybe we should just focus on helping those who are so called un-insurable. Make healthcare available to everyone. And when I say available I mean make it possible for them or their employer to purchase. We also need to encourage those who are insurable to purchase insurance.

Once everyone can get coverage we can move on to making the insurance that people have work better. Meaning that the care people need is covered without bankrupting the patient's family. I don't know exactly how to do this, I am not an expert in insurance payments or healthcare. My common sense tells me that there are experts out there, patients, insurance billing specialists, hospital administrators and doctors with relevant experiences. It seems like we are relying on our lawmakers to solve this problem but they are not experts nor are their aids. I believe they are probably asking for help but only ceremoniously. There has to be a way for these experts to come together in a meaningful way to help solve this problem.

Now that everyone can get coverage and it is taking care of the needs of patients we can work on getting the country healthier. I'm talking preventative maintenance. We do it for our cars why not our bodies. Lets reward people for going to their physicals, having their teeth cleaned, going to the gym and eating right. We should also give people the tools to do this, access to information on good nutrition, good exercise habits and what is expected of them as patients.

We as Americans also need to take some personal responsibility in our own healthcare. The information is out there, we just need to go and find it. We need to ask questions of our doctors and do a little research. Make a commitment to eat veggies and take vitamins and exercise, even if it is just taking the dog for a walk. This is fixable. We just need to take it one step at a time.

What do you think?

New Year

So the new year brought a new job. I like it and hope it will become a permanent position soon. I also started running. I don't like it but I also hope it will become a permanent event in my days. I do like the way I feel and that I am sleeping really well. I also love my new iPhone holder too. James is working really hard to find a great new job.

I'm also very excited because my very good friend Andrea married our other good friends Jeremy last month. I can't wait for the reception. The new year has started out well and we are hoping that it will only get better.

James Is Home :)

I flew out to meet James in Napa this weekend and then we drove home to San Diego. He decided it was time to come home and felt he could make better progress here.

We are both ready to start planning for our future for the first time in a while. And I'm glad to have him home. Now we can share our summer adventures rather than just filling each other in each night.

What Owen Has Been Doing while Leo is Away

For those of you who know Owen, our Basset Hound, this will probably be no surprise. Owen has made some new friends while James and Leo are away. In this photo you will see Owen, Mya (that's the pit bull he has mounted) and Ollie. Ollie is a Boggle, half Beagle half Boston Terror. While at Andrea & Jeremy's housewarming party the dogs would chase each other around the yard... take turns being chased and playing games. The funny part is here you can see Owen has mounted Mya but that was usually not the end of it. Every time this happened Ollie would climb right behind Owen... Well you can imagine the laughs they were getting from the party guests. Dinner and a show! I tried a few times to get a picture of the three of them but this was the closest I got.
Its a good thing dogs can't look at the Internet; I think Owen might be either really embarrassed or really proud, not sure which.