Plucky Letters to US soldiers in Iraq

Monday August 4, 2003


Dear Charlie & Buddies,

I hope all is well and you are healthy, wealthy and wise. I hope you’ve had some time to do something different once in awhile. All work and no play makes Jack a very dull boy. And crabby. Everyone needs a hobby, however temporary or situational.

Personally, I've been busy cluttering up our yard with junk. I have lawn ornaments now, due to drastic end-of-season price reductions which have caused me to purchase items I had no idea I even wanted.

I have two faux-marble statues now. One is a couple of angels cooing cutely at each other, which I snuggled into a little hollow amid the pine trees by the patio. (Wal-Mart, $9.99 last week.) The other is a sweet little boy peering at a sweet little bird perched sweetly upon his wrist. He's under the birch tree in the corner of the yard. (Schnucks grocery store, $4.99 today.)

These are in addition to the ‘Three Frogs w/Lily Pad’ and ‘Boys Playing Catch’ I already had, courtesy of my mother’s lawn ornament frenzy of last year. (Which I was not artistically prepared to appreciate at the time, but now I do.)

If this trend continues I will next purchase a grandiose faux-marble fountain and install it in the front yard. Dancing Waters would be really cool, maybe with music and a choreographed light show. Worse yet, my Catholic heritage might incline me to half-bury a bathtub and stick a Madonna inside, and then the neighbors would have to take legal action. Can you imagine the social STIGMATA (ha ha) involved?! Hopefully I can restrain my artistic impulses.

Unfortunately, social concerns have not been able to fully compromise my rampant lust for price-reduced lawn ornaments. I am also now the proud owner of a three and a half foot tall cast-iron sundial, which is on display in our backyard as well. It was $8.74 at Schnucks, down from the original price of $34.99!!! How could I NOT heft it into my shopping cart?? $8.74!!
I wish they'd had a few of those charming park benches left over, but I didn't see any.

The fact that I have never anticipated the need of a sundial is quite beside the point. After all, you never know when all the clocks in North America might just go on the fritz all at once. Then everyone will be lining up at my gate begging me to tell them what time it is. And I will proudly...

... Uh-oh. Do you have any idea how to read a sundial? Neither do I, but that is, again, beside the point. $8.74! THAT is the point! Besides, all of my recent lawn ornament purchases are tastefully placed variously about the backyard, within the confines of the privacy fence. And they really do look nice. Really.

If you would like some lawn ornaments for your Iraqi environment, just let me know. Maybe you could use an angel or hedgehog or something, just to make your barracks lawn a friendly, inviting place to relax. I’ve noticed that the angels and the sweet little bird-boy are real mood-enhancers when I sit on my patio in the evenings. Every once in awhile I look up from Reason Magazine, and there are those statues, in gradually changing circumstances of light, and they just look so gosh darned idyllic.

Oh, what the heck, I’ll send one regardless. Gives me a good excuse to cash in on the incredible lawn ornament savings available in this great day and age.

Much Love,

--An Army Mom

Wednesday July 23, 2003


Dear Rob & Buddies,

My husband, Rudy the Mexican, claims to have a better tan than I. Mind you, for the past month I have been taking kids to the pool nearly every day while he has been hanging out in our basement finishing drywall. (Jeez, how Mexican can you get??)

I have spent a considerable amount of my summer mastering the art of reading a magazine in such a way as to ensure it casts no shadow upon my body. Yet my naturally brown spouse claims a better tan? I think not! He even brags that this alleged “tan” will still be there in February when I am the color of joint compound. He’s ridiculous! That’s not a tan- that’s just plain old ordinary brownness, and I remain unimpressed.

I suspect he secretly believes that he, a Mexican-American purebred, is somehow superior to me, a European-American mutt. He may even furtively hope I get skin cancer so he can smirk and think condescending thoughts about me in Spanish.

I hold that only an earned tan, a tan caused by actual exposure to the actual sun, aided by skillful magazine juggling on the part of the tan-ee, counts. I say Rudy is not tan; he is merely genetically refried. And besides, the tops of my feet are darker than his.

HA! If I get a pair of brown contact lenses, dye my hair black, and learn to eat molè without grimacing, there is a slim chance my mother-in-law may finally find a way to approve of me.
Naah, that’ll never happen.
Oh well, at least my cheesy thighs now look more appetizing than her inedible flãn.

Okay, okay. I admit she's a good cook. In fact, her cheesecake is soley responsible for the state of my thighs. Making me fat is probably her way of exacting revenge upon me for failing to be Mexican.

Much Love,
--Mom

Thursday July 24, 2003


Dear Rob,

Today our intrepid little family attended an Industrial Tool Sale at the Bloomington Sale Barn. I have no idea why we did this- it must have been the seductive Industrial Tool Sale flyer that came in the mail.

TWO DAYS ONLY!
THURSDAY AND FRIDAY, JULY 24TH & 25TH!
FREE ADMISSION!

We’ve been looking forward to it all week. The flyer contained items of all kinds, things you would just die to buy for very cheap prices until you actually see these items in person. Rudy was hot for a pistol-style crossbow. ($19.99) Dylan had $21 in his pocket to purchase a walkie-talkie set (also $19.99) or a skateboard ($9.99). (Nobody knows why skateboards are being sold at Industrial Tool Sales and nobody asks. They also sell park benches and cast iron school bells.)
I was secretly hoping to come home with either an orbital sander ($39.99) or, heaven help me, a Ryobi power miter saw. ($89.99) [I actually did make a good case for the saw, but Rudy says he’ll just borrow one from his brother. Damn!]

Rudy and I came home empty handed and slightly depressed. Dylan got the walkie-talkie set, but failed to play with it at all, even though I made a trip to the dreaded Wal-Mart for 9 volt batteries. It’s probably already broken and shoved to the back of his closet, never to see the light of day again. Instead he’s playing with the two dollar yo-yo he scammed me into buying while I was in an altered state due to the BLIP! BLIP! BLIP!-ing of the Wal-mart checkout lane. (I swear it’s a radical leftist plot designed to make innocent capitalist shoppers such as myself commit messy hari-kari right there next to the National Enquirer.)

On the bright side, we did see quite a few interesting tatoos emblazoned on the rapidly aging bodies of the people working the Industrial Tool Sale. And we got to talk derisively about them in hushed voices with the other desperate souls in line with us as we waited for the walkie-talkie set to be delivered into Dylan’s eager hands.

On the way home I noticed that a new anti-smoking campaign is afoot in our fair city. They have billboards all over the place featuring the cute crayon renderings of 9 year olds who have never smoked a cigarette in their unsatisfying little lives. What the hell do they know about smoking? Give the little bastards five years and they could very well be puffing away like mad while bragging to their degenerate teenaged friends about the billboards they once decorated in their distant youth. I bet they’ll laugh ironically as they light up a Camel.

Just in case you were wondering, here’s what I know about teens smoking: Teenagers first smoke because the teenagers who would have been cool no matter what they did, smoke. It is a fact, and it does us no good to keep denying it. Thus, teenagers who wish they were cool, but will never be cool no matter what they do, tend to smoke too. So you’ve basically got two groups of teen smokers: truly cool risk-taking teens and teens who are hopelessly not cool. Everybody else is fairly safe from becoming smokers, the lucky bastards. Also, many many teens smoke but do not become habitual smokers. (These, in my opinion, are the truly cool kids.) None of the real smokers, cool and uncool alike, will ever listen to reason. It won't matter how many cute Crayola drawings captioned with slogans such as “Only Butts Choose Butts!” are slathered upon the billboards of America.

So I say give it up and instead hand out free cigarettes all over the place. What the hell, at least then nobody would pawn an expensive pair of athletic shoes just to buy a carton of Marlboro Lights.

But nobody listens to me no matter how much sense I make, and that is exactly what is wrong with this country!


Much love,

--Mom

Saturday April 12, 2003


Dear Rob,

Today was beautiful and sunny, which means all the homeowners in central Illinois got to work on their yards. Rudy mowed and fertilized the lawn. I am the luckless individual who trimmed the bushes and “edged” the landscape bricks. My rough estimate is that there are about 100 miles of brick edging surrounding our flower beds and shrubbery. I crawled along those 100 miles of brick with a dull kitchen knife cutting back the sod growing over the edge of the bricks. You may be wondering why I don’t go to the store and buy the widely available tool designed specifically for that purpose. Just stubborn, I guess! Actually, the knife works fine and it was nice to be outside, and nice to see everything finally turning green. As soon as the world turns REALLY green I will take and send you some photos.

Dylan is a good helper. Doesn’t complain, although at one point he said “What’s in this for me?” I said “You get to live in a nice house with a nice lawn.” He was okay with that. He pulled his plastic sled around, loading up all the clippings to take to the curb. I play psychological tricks on him to keep him motivated. When he began to lose interest, I told him he does a much better job than Rudy of clearing away the piles of clippings and old mulch. This made him feel very important and kept him working for quite awhile.

When he casually mentioned that he might prefer to be watching TV, I pointed out how many worms I was uncovering in my edging profession. Being a 10 year old boy, he finds worms quite fascinating. He followed along with his sled and gladly took on the additional task of relocating each homeless worm to a more desirable location. He seems to possess quite a bit of interesting (to him) knowledge about worms. For example, he claims that if you cut a worm in half it will not die, but instead will live on happily as two new, improved worms. That bit of information doesn’t seem logical to me. I did not allow him to cut all the worms in half, despite his eager offer to perform that particular service on behalf of wormkind.

When even worms and beetles could no longer hold his interest, I assigned him the ever-important task of riding his bike up and down the street to count how many flags were flying today. (14, including ours, 15 if you count our Airborne flag.)


Please call as soon as you can and let me know that you are okay. I want so much to ask you what you and/or your guys need us to send. Every time I hear of a thing someone over there has requested, I run out and buy it and send it to you. Today it was fly-swatters. Of course, I also buy a bunch of other stuff as long as I’m at it. I hope you have enough baby wipes. I only sent a small pack today because I know they are going into just about every care package being sent. But this afternoon I heard that the care packages are all backed up and you guys might be running out of baby wipes!

You need to understand that to those of us on the homefront, the idea of you running out of baby wipes is tantamount to running out of ammo. There is this very weird, but powerful, baby wipe mania going on in America. It’s almost like the Beenie Baby or Pokemon phenomenon. I guess we feel like we can keep our boys safe by sending more baby wipes. I’m thinking of re-investing my entire 401(k) in companies manufacturing baby wipes.

If you run into CCN’s Ryan Chilcote tell him your mom thinks he is a cutie, even with his hair all grunged up with desert suck filth. A few days ago he did a report with his hair sticking straight up, sort of like Marge Simpson. The next day he made an attempt to comb it down by parting it in the middle and it looked slightly worse. He also put on a polo shirt, trying to look tidy, but the grunge around his neck just showed more. Still, I think he is almost as cute as you.

9:01 PM here now. Time for me to take a Xanax (else I drive Rudy crazy by constantly yelling OH MY GOD, THOSE ASSHOLES ARE SHOOTING AT ROBBY!) and channel surf my way around the world to get a glimpse of what the 101st 3rd Brigade is doing today.


TTFN (Take Time For Negotiatingawaytocallmom)

Much Love,
--Mom

Friday, June 27 2003


Dear Rob,

I just got your letter dated May 21!! I get very excited about mail from you. Any letters from you put the mailman at great risk of getting hugged and kissed by me. I actually think our mailman is more fearful of me than of the neighbor's dog. (Which is unfair since, unlike the dog, I have NEVER humped the mailman's leg.)

I've been thinking about your crowd control missions in Mosul.

Yes, I am VERY proud that you are one of the "Big Boys" getting the job done. Its great that everyone wants you on their team, and I"m not surprised by that at all. (I really am proud, though!) What surprises me is that you are doing something like that in the first place. You're a medic with Field Artillery- whose boneheaded idea was it to send you out doing MP type duties? I mean, think about it. You guys are not trained for this sort of thing! The whole idea scares the bejeezus out of me!

What if you're out there doing the "Master Choker" thing and you choke the wrong guy?? Like maybe the one whose best friend is standing 10 feet away with an AK47?? I realize you have to come on strong, you're right about that of course. Still, proceed with extreme caution. I still think hiding under your bunk would be a more effective survival strategy. (But if you could arrange for someone to take a photo of you in action doing your choke technique, I know Rudy would love to see it.)

I will never understand men. If women were in charge, there would be no need of any "Master Chokers." The whole world would be free to scream nasty things at each other in the streets without fear of physical confrontation. Nobody would want to mess up their hair, embarrass themselves in front of the neighbors, or make a bloody mess they'd have to clean up later. Instead of waving guns in the air, we'd be waving wooden spoons. I can picture the whole thing clearly:

Iraqi women would yell:
"You Americans are evil Godless sluts exposing yourselves all over the place! Get out of our country!"
American women would yell:
"Oh, yeah? Well you Iraqis can't cook for shit! Nobody eats goat anymore! You are totally, like, not cool! And get a freakin' washing machine already- you people are literally stinking up the whole planet!"
Iraqi women:
"GET OUT of our country!"
American women:
"GET OUT from under that stupid tablecloth!"
Iraqi women:
"Infidels!"
American women:
"Losers!"
Then everybody retires to the family hovel to either cook goats or order pizza from Dominoes.

Women are too busy to keep up hostilities for long. The kids have to be in bed by nine, and we have to have potable water on the stove by 7 AM. I see no good reason Saddam Hussein and Donald Rumsfeld couldn't have been satisfied with gossiping behind each other's back.

Think about it.

Much Love,

--Mom

Thursday, August 21, 2003

Dear Rob & Buddies,



What I learned on our End-of-Summer Family Trip to exotic Branson, Missouri
By Mom


1. Driving from Bloomington, Illinois to Branson, Missouri takes a very long time and should be against the law.
2. Branson, Missouri is supposedly the number 2 vacation hot spot in America, just behind Orlando, Florida. I have no idea why this might be true, unless these are the results of a poll taken among nursing home residents who really miss Dean Martin and can’t get enough of Pat Boone Vegas-style Country-Western stage acts. (In Branson, these are simply called “Shows.”)
3. Everyone in Branson, except waiters and hotel employees, is over 65.
4. Other Branson visitors who happen to be staying at your hotel will enthusiastically ask you which Shows you have seen. Failure to see lots of Shows will earn you the scorn of your fellow Branson tourists.
5. IMAX does not count as a Show, and if you tell your hotel neighbors that you went to IMAX they will not know what you’re talking about.
6. Trying to explain IMAX to senior citizens is like trying to explain quantum mechanics to kindergarteners. They just wait for you to stop talking so they can say, “Oh. We went to the Dixie Stampede!”
7. The food at the Dixie Stampede is rumored to be better than Old Country Buffet, but not as good as it should be, considering the prices. And there is no senior citizen’s discount!
8. The management of the Branson Veteran’s Museum will not give you the veteran’s discount unless you are an actual veteran and can prove it. Nobody will care that you are the sainted mother of a brave patriot fighting for freedom in the Iraqi desert. Looking skyward while proclaiming, “Holy-Mary-Mother-of-God, what has become of this great land of ours??!” will not sway them in the least. The Branson Veteran’s Museum is obviously run by a bunch of Calvinist Protestants who have no regard for the institution of motherhood.
9. My husband is the kind of person who cares very much how the toothpaste tube is squeezed, and he is not afraid to give demonstrations to me and my eleven year old child. (This led to a minor argument during which I may or may not have uttered the phrase “prissy-butt.”)
10. Sharing a small hotel room with a man and a boy is difficult, at best. Being nice about it is even harder, but worth it in the long run. (That’s a guess; I have no personal experience with being nice about it for more than 48 hours.)
11. Some people like to spend vacation time watching the Sci-Fi channel in a small hotel room even when it is nice outside. It is best not to suggest that such an endeavor is a waste of precious vacation hours.
12. Some people drive like maniacs when they are pissed off at their wife for suggesting that watching the Sci-Fi channel in a small hotel room is a waste of precious vacation hours. I believe this is called “passive-aggressive behavior.” However, I did not comment upon that while hurtling through space at 80 MPH in the front passenger seat of a vehicle controlled by the passive-aggressive member of the family. I guess you could say I wanted to live.
13. On the day that you and your family plan to visit Silver Dollar City it will be closed for renovations. (“Park's closed, folks. Moose shoulda told you out front.”)
14. On the day that you and your family do visit Silver Dollar City it will be overrun by hoards of small uncivilized sweaty creatures who never look where they’re going and tromp all over you. One of them is very likely your kid.
15. Driving from Branson, Missouri to Bloomington, Illinois takes a very long time and should be against the law.


Are we back yet?

Much Love,
--Mom

August 25, 2003


Dear Captain S.,

My son, who shall remain nameless due to the fact that he DOES NOT want me to write to you, mentioned that if you had my email address you might send me some photos. That would be great.

The Son Who Shall Remain Nameless keeps writing, "DON’T WRITE TO ANYONE OVER HERE BUT ME!" Do you think he’s been stricken with chronic paranoia? I mean, it’s not as if I were giving you detailed summaries of the more embarrassing moments in his life or anything.

Far be it from me to mention the time he came home from 5th grade all upset and, when I asked why, announced “Katie dumped me- right on the bus!” I never wrote to you that his kindergarten teacher told me, in a grave and serious tone, that he often colored outside the lines. (an early sign of a potentially subversive personality, or so I was told.) I haven’t ever revealed anything personal about The Son Who Shall Remain Nameless at all, have I? Of course not!

Well, you and I both know I am innocent, but it still might be best if you not mention this letter. After all, he may one day be in a position to put me in a nursing home and I would prefer it not be too wretched.

His letters often say that “shit rolls downhill” in the Army, and he seems to be poised at the bottom of a steep incline. (I’d suggest that leaders who shit downhill end up with a group of shitty followers, but I’m sure you’ve already heard that one.)

If you have the time, I would love some photos from your collection. I promise not to deluge you with any unwanted email and I will not give out your email address to anybody. (You really have no reason to believe that, but you should anyway. I am a harmless, undemanding, and friendly pen-pal.) If you are not inclined to receive any more correspondence from me, just don’t answer.

Actually, maybe you’d better answer saying, “I don’t want any more correspondence from you.” Else I might just assume you are too busy to worry about it, which you probably are.

Just to show you that my heart is in the right place, I will enclose a recent diatribe about our family trip to Branson, Missouri. (it was educational.)

I hope that you are well and in good spirits and that you will refrain from telling The Son Who Shall Remain Nameless anything about this letter lest he park my Depends-swaddled butt in a really smelly old folks home immediately upon his triumphant return to the world.

Hey, I just thought of a great Depends UndergarmentTM commercial! :

A retired Army officer comes on the screen saying,
“In the Army, shit always rolled downhill.”
[He pauses a moment while his credentials are displayed on the screen.]
“Then came Iraqi Freedom and Depends.”
[Film clip of soldiers lobbing loaded diapers at enemy, who scream and fall back in terror. Back to retired officer.]
“Depends. The first weapon of mass excretion, and the best line of defense.”
[Fade to American flag flying over devastated diaper-bombed terrorist training camp.]
Voice over: “Depends Adult Undergarments. We DON'T wear them on our heads.”


Just makes you want to rush right out and buy a case of adult diapers, doesn’t it? Makes you feel darnright PROUD to poop your American pants!

I'd better sign off here before I give forth too much and cause you to reprimand The Son Who Shall Remain Nameless. (Remember, he is a hapless bystander and is in NO WAY responsible for his mother’s degeneracy.)

Much Love and Support,

--An Army Mom

Tuesday June 24, 2003


Dear Rob,

Nothing has happened since last I wrote. I mean that literally. Okay, yeah, I did the first installment of BIG CLEANING WEEK, but it really doesn’t change much of anything. Although I did discover that I tend to pack kitchen drawers full of items I don’t need or want. As I fish them out and release them to that great garbage dump downstream, I wonder “Why do we OWN this thing?”

Its hard to turn down a freebie, but later you wonder why you ever kept the thing in the first place. I’m talking about stuff like free car dealership keychains you got at the County Fair or refrigerator magnets that advertise fertilizer. It’s not like I went out and bought these items. I’ve never gone out thinking, “Maybe I’ll get myself a new Humane Society ruler today!” Its just stuff I bring home because it’s free. Somebody hands this stuff out at a Corn Festival and I think, “Hmm, you never know when you might need an emery board emblazoned with VOTE ROD BLAGOJAVICH!” (Well, what if I happen to suffer a hangnail on Election Day? I’d better keep it.) I hate to think our political system is dependent on such things. Most people don’t even know who Dick Cheney IS. Yet many are driving around right now with a car air freshener in his likeness dangling from their rear view mirrors.


Dylan and I went to Toys R Us to get him a tape player so that he can listen to the new Harry Potter book for hours on end. He had $25 in gift certificates, which gave us the perfect excuse to forgo Best Buy. (Whew!) We purchased a tape player for $6.99. Our theory was that at that price, who cares if it breaks? Heck, throw it away and get a new one, its practically disposable. Unfortunately, we didn’t notice that an electrical cord is apparently optional. As in “sold separately.” Rudy told me to go to Radio Shack and buy a universal adapter thingamagig for about $12.00. There is something wrong with this picture, but I just can’t put my finger on it.

Harry Potter himself is garnering quite a bit of publicity these days. The religious “Right” say he is a loathsome fiend intent upon the corruption of our youthful innocents. Yeah right, Right. I challenge any evangelical Christian worth his salt to show me how Harry Potter is more corrosive to America’s youth than sitting in a pseudo-church Sunday after Sunday witnessing adult role models speak in tongues and throw themselves orgasmically around on the chapel floor in the throes of religious fervor.

Hel-lo! Most of these complainers don’t even know the difference between a machine shed and a decent chapel. Many are so unsuccessful they hold weekly services at a local public high school, yet they consider themselves authorities on the Will of God? I’d like to see some credentials, please. I heard some guy on the radio prattling on about Harry Potter encouraging kids to believe in “the occult.” Seems to me that guy must believe in the occult himself, else why is he so scared of it?

I call the evangelicals “New Age Christians” because I know they would hate to be called New Age anything- makes them think of “the occult.” I used the term a few times with Rudy’s sister-in-law and you should have seen her cringe. But the term is accurate- these folks are practicing a new form of Christianity. No doctrine, no liturgy, no one in charge. Anybody can become a preacher just by taking a mail order course. Dial 1-800-PENTACOST. Then all you have to do is find someplace to hold worship services, convince other Born Agains to show up, and viola! You’ve got a congregation.

I hear it can be a real money-maker. Before you know it, the dough is rolling in and you can buy your own metal utility building/church. You then put up a big wooden sign out front: Rural Midwestern Church of Evangelical Snake Handling or some such. Throw some gravel in the parking lot, and you’re in the big time.

I’ve been to a couple of them with Rudy and his brother. Real classy- 30 congregates meet in a public school auditorium. The “service” consisted of the preacher giving a speech, then everybody stood up and waved their arms around while someone of dubious musical talent played the organ for about 100 years. Then the preacher made another speech. Everyone yelled hallelujah. Afterwards we all trooped to the gym for a pot luck of green bean casseroles and macaroni & cheese.

I noticed that many of the congregants throw little phrases like “Praise God!” and “Thank you, Je-ya-zus!” into ordinary conversations about work or gardening. One guy went on and on about who was saved when, as in, “Isn’t that John Smith? I think he was saved in the summer of ’92, right after the grain elevator exploded.” I was asked if I were saved. I told the guy I’m Catholic and he looked very sad about the state of my immortal soul.

Unfortunately, nobody was speaking in tongues or falling into trances.
I had really been looking forward to seeing some of that kind of religious carrying on, but this was a conservative bunch. Now Rudy’s brother is back to going to their old church, held in an old movie theater, where one might witness some hard-ass “gifts of the spirit.” (Gifts of the Spirit include tongue-speaking and convulsions of some sort.) Too late for me, though. I pissed off the sister-in-law by saying “New Age Christians” once too often, so now I’m uninvited.

On Sunday nights, if I can stay awake until 11:30 PM, I like to watch “Jack Van Impe Presents” on TV. Jack Van Impe really knows his scripture. He is able to convince me that the rapture is right around the corner. He will tell you the news of the day, then toss off a few scriptures proving Armageddon is truly upon us. It’s a darn good thing he comes on late at night when I’m tired. Else I might be moved to construct a Rapture Shelter under our basement right after the show.


TTFN (Trust The Fundamentalist New-agers!)

Much Love,

--Mom

March 21, 2003

Dear Pres. Bush,
Robby will not be able to attend the war today. He isn’t feeling well, and I have decided to keep him home.
--Robby’s Mom