Plucky Letters to US soldiers in Iraq

Tuesday, January 25, 2005

Dear Rob & Buddies,

I had to stay home from my exciting and lucrative job as a Lunch Lady today. I have a dreadful case of conjunctivitis (pinkeye) in my left eye. It itches, weeps, and constantly oozes a sticky fluid. It’s been doing this for days with no sign of stopping. It is red, irritated, and in general looks like a bloody mess. I went to the Doc-in-a-Box on Sunday in hopes of a cure. No joy.

The 14 year-old physician’s assistant on duty didn’t seem the least bit interested. He kept looking at himself in the mirror, probably admiring his brand new lab coat and the jaunty way he’d draped a stethoscope around his neck, ala Doogie Houser, MD.

He finally got enough of himself and looked at my eye while breathing bad breath in my face. He asked no questions about my very obvious runny nose and constant sneezing. He did not feel my neck for swollen lymph glands. He didn’t even bother to listen to me take deep breaths, which would at least have given him an opportunity to use his shiny new stethoscope.

After one last glace in the mirror, he said something like, “Yep, it’s conjunctivitis, alright.” (No shit, Doogie.) Then he slowly and very neatly wrote me an Rx for some kind of sulfa drops. You should have seen it- this was the most legible Rx I’ve ever seen in my life. It looked like a class writing assignment completed by an obsessive-compulsive calligraphy major. It was actually quite beautiful and, knowing it was probably useless in the treatment of my disease, I should have saved it to hang on my refrigerator.

The antibiotic eye-drops aren’t working, of course.

Even I know that a patient presenting with pinkeye in combination with an upper respiratory infection is likely suffering the adenoviral form of conjunctivitis. (Any lamebrain with internet access can find out that much!) Antibiotic drops won’t work; obviously I need topical vasoconstrictors (e.g., naphazoline) and steroids (Vexol, Flarex, Pred Forte) two to four times daily. Geez!

I called my primary care physician’s office four hours ago. I am still waiting for somebody to call me back so that I can inform them of the proper management of my case.


I’m enclosing an article from the Pantagraph. (No, I do not have “delusions of Grandma.”) It might be of interest because it’s about a grueling 24-hour swim practice held in honor of one of your fellow soldiers. His name is Glen P_______ and he’s a social studies teacher at Normal West. Perhaps you know the guy. Now I’m trying to think up some kind of honorary event on your behalf.

Maybe I can organize all the lab techs at Bromenn Hospital to pull a 24-hour blood draw or something of that nature. How ‘bout a 24-hour urinalysis? Volunteers could sit around drinking large bottles of water and compete every hour to see who can produce the most toxic or incriminating substances.

In the meantime, take care of yourselves, eat right, get plenty of rest, and avoid anyone with conjunctivitis. It’s a horrible disease causing much suffering and personal tragedy. Trust me; I know what I’m talking about here.

Much Love to all,

--An Army Mom

January 20, 2005


Dear Robby,

HAPPY INAUGURATION DAY!
(Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Literally.)

It’s probably for the best that President & Mrs. Bush forgot to invite me to the inaugural ball this year. (I’m sure it was just an oversight, and I hope they manage to have a good time without me.) I am exhibiting symptoms of a new and different illness.

Nobody cares, though. I think everybody is sick and tired of me being sick and tired. The travesty of my ill health is no longer of interest to anyone but me and my mother. Honestly, how many strains of the common cold can one person have in any given year? According to my high school biology teacher, once you’ve had a particular virus you’re supposed to be immune to it for life. But I’ve been catching a new cold roughly every three weeks. Mr. Lenning obviously didn’t know jack about viruses.

Or would that be “viri?” Hmm. I’ll go look it up. Webster’s New World dictionary doesn’t give the plural for virus. I typed [plural of virus] into Google and found this:
The plural of virus is neither viri nor virii, nor even vira nor virora. It is quite simply viruses, irrespective of context. Google & Learn, that’s what I always say. Actually, I’ve never said that before, but I will from now on.

Irrelevant tangential asides aside, I can’t for the life of me figure out how I have managed to catch so many versions of the common cold in one season. I might be a prospective entrant in The Guinness Book of World Records. Perhaps I should call them up and ask if “cold catching” is a legitimate category. If they want proof, I’ll send them a few of my used facial tissues every three week. If they analyze my snot in their lab, I’m quite certain they’ll find I’ve been host to every available cold virus extant, both foreign and domestic. Do they pay people to be in The Guinness Book of World Records? Probably not, but the publicity might raise public awareness of my plight. Maybe somebody will send me a few boxes of Kleenex.

Much Love,
--Mom

From the Decatur Herald & Review:

Sending off the soldiers
By Huey Freeman, H&R Staff Writer
January 8, 2005

URBANA- Sgt. Robert M_____ was put through some hard tests when he served as a medic with the Army's 101st Airborne Division during the first months of the war in Iraq.

But that tour of duty will always have a special place in his heart.

While serving in Iraq, M_____'s name was given to a grade school class in Bloomington, his hometown. When a letter arrived from the class, M_____ recognized the name of the teacher as someone who had been in his fifth-grade class.

While he appreciated the letters from the students, he appreciated even more the correspondence he began with the lovely brunette he lost contact with half a lifetime ago.
"We just kept corresponding," he said.

After he returned home and completed his active duty service obligation, M_____ joined the Illinois National Guard.

Six weeks ago, M_____ , 24, and his former classmate, Stacey, were married. "I'm very happy about it," M_____ said.

Sgt Robert and Stacey M_____ were at the Urbana Armory on Friday afternoon along with 183 other soldiers in the second battalion, 130th Infantry Regiment, and hundreds of other family members. The relatives gathered to honor the infantrymen who have been called up to active duty for 18 months.

The soldiers will fly out of Willard Airport in Savoy today for months of training at Fort Stewart, Ga. They will later serve in Iraq, according to Chief Warrant Officer Bud Roberts of the National Guard's public affairs office.

M_____, who has been working as a lab technician at Bromenn Hospital in Bloomington, said he did not want to return to Iraq, but he knows medics are needed there.

Of the infantrymen he will be serving with in the storied Blackhawk Battalion's Headquarters and Headquarters Company, M_____ estimates 95 percent have no combat experience.
"I am going to work with the (30) medics to get them ready for what to expect over there," he said.

Robert M_____ said he knows it will be rough in Iraq, but he loves his job. He is more concerned about how his newlywed wife will do in his absence.
"She's taking it better than I thought, but it's going to be hard," he said.

January 17, 2005

Dear Rob & Buddies,

Yesterday Rudy and I took Katie (my niece) out for breakfast after church. We always enjoy dining out with Katie because she is a nine-year-old curmudgeon.

Nothing is sacred to Katie. We were at Circuit City the other day and she wandered off, so Rudy went looking for her. He found her standing in front of the video cameras watching herself stick her own tongue up her nose on closed circuit television. She’s actually quite talented and can insert her tongue a good quarter- inch into her nostrils, but that’s just not the sort of thing the management of Circuit City care to broadcast over their video monitors as a means of enticing potential customers to buy expensive camera equipment. We had to leave the store after she demonstrated her “unique” ability to the Store Director in person at the front desk.

So there we were at breakfast yesterday, and Katie had a whole new list of complaints on which to dwell. Her third grade teacher, Mr. Ford, plays jazz music to “relax” the students when they are working hard. Katie says she HATES jazz music. In her opinion, Mr. Ford should play only rock music, preferably “Arrowsmith” or “Creed.” Katie also does not approve of Mr. Ford’s playing of “Schoolhouse Rock” videos during winter inside recess. She claims that the “Conjunction Junction” feature is “obviously JAZZ!” She says, “If they’re going to include jazz songs like “Conjunction Junction,” where do they get off calling it Schoolhouse ROCK anyway?”

Rudy said that is a question worthy of Andy Rooney

Katie likes to decorate the placemats at our favorite after-Church-breakfast place with her “unique” artwork. At Christmastime she drew us a charming scene in which four darling children knelt before a sparkling Christmas tree. Unfortunately, Katie likes to tell a story as she’s drawing her pictures, and invariably something goes horribly wrong. In her Christmas picture, for example, she ultimately had Santa approaching the children from behind gripping a club with which to beat the dickens out of them in a bloody fury. (“Santa found out they were bad,” she explained.)

Rudy, not being an actual parent himself, encourages her in these artistic depravities by saying things like, “That’s pretty good, but maybe you should add a little more blood in the lower left corner.” One of these days he’s going to wind up in jail.

As we sat down to yesterday’s breakfast, Katie announced that she’s gotten pretty good at drawing tables & chairs lately. With that in mind, I asked her to draw a nice picture of the Bush family having dinner at the White House. She took pen in hand and immediately decided that the White House has burned to the ground and the Bush family has to live in the house next door, which is, in her own words,
“A shack, a shack too small for even real people to live there, but the President has to live there, or tell people he can’t, which he would never do else he might get bad news told about him on TV for saying out loud that it’s a shack.”
(Well, at least we know Katie is politically savvy and understands the nuances of media hyperbole and class warfare.)

With Rudy’s misbegotten guidance, she drew a lovely picture of the Bush family: George, Laura, Jenna, and Barbara, seated around a table eating turkey, steak, peas, mashed potatoes and, of course, Bush’s Baked Beans. (I have the drawing in front of me now, as I am saving it as evidence for her future husband/parole officer/psychiatrist.)

In this masterpiece, Katie has rendered each Bush family member with a word balloon above his or her head, thus allowing the Bush’s to engage in dinner table conversation, which goes as follows:
George Bush: “Darn, you burnt the turky, Laura!”
Laura Bush: “So-rry!”
Barbara Bush: “I’m not eating that! EIUUU!”
Jenna Bush: “I want a beer!” (followed by a belch, spelled out as “braaub”)
Laura Bush: “Excuse yourself!”
George Bush: “Amen!”

On the reverse side of this placemat, Katie began illustrating her “Tale of Shamu,” in which she claims to have befriended the world famous celebrity whale and been ferried around on his back in one of his fabulous Sea World shows while the rest of her family suffered simultaneous diarrhea attacks in the Sea World bathrooms, which is why they can neither verify nor refute her claim of having met and befriended Shamu. That’s also why nobody took any photos of her riding around on Shamu’s back that day. Her mother took the camera into the bathroom and so, alas, there is no photographic evidence of Katie and Shamu frolicking together on that wonderful day when they met and became good friends for life. (See "My Tale of Shamu" enclosed.)

While Katie was notating her Shamu story, I noticed she was forming her lower-case “f” incorrectly and I pointed it out to her. She insisted it was correct, although it was clearly either an uppercase “L” or a lower-case “j.”
We went back and forth on the issue and she claimed things have changed since I learned to write in cursive “about a thousand years ago.”

“Besides,” she said, “my teacher told me I am a really good eff-er.”

Pardon me, did you say,
“A REALLY GOOD EFF-ER??”

The instant it came out of her mouth, Katie knew she’d made a colossal and, to us, hilarious blunder. To her credit, she made an immediate attempt to backpedal, shrieking,
“I mean he said I’m good at writing cursive letters! That’s what I MEANT!”

I believe her, of course, but it’s much too little and much too late.

I now have a permanent image etched in my mind of this perfectly respectable third grade teacher sitting down to a parent-teacher conference saying,
“Damn, that eff-ing Katie of yours is one good little eff-er!”

I can almost hear the jazz music playing in the background.
(Conjunction junction, what’s yo’ function? Hookin’ up words an’ letters an’ phrases…)

Hey, Rock & Roll Cleveland, right?

Much Love,
--Mom

My niece, Katie, tells the story of her friendship with a celebrity:

My Tale of Shamu
By Katie
(As told to Aunt Madge)


I, personally, know a celebrity. I mean PERSONALLY. I met Shamu, the famous whale, in Orlando, Florida.

On our family vacation in Orlando, my parents took us to Sea World. And they all had a diarrhea attack and had to go to the bathroom at the same time. I was the only one who did not have an attack.

While they were in the bathroom for the “family flush,” I got picked to swim with the famous whale, Shamu. I got picked because I am a blond girl with blue eyes, so I look good on TV and in shows.

Shamu carried me on his back, around and around, up and down, swimming gracefully in the water. We did not shake hands because Shamu has flippers, but he did carry me on his back all around the pool. Some people ask me if I got to stand up on Shamu’s back like a surfer, and the answer is, “No.”
Shamu has an enlarged blow-hole and I was afraid of my foot slipping into it, or of him sneezing and blowing me off.

Shamu cannot visit me because he would dry out and die outside his pool. He doesn’t send email because he’s wet and might get electrocuted on a computer. Also, his flippers are not good for typing. But I know he is my friend and he was glad to carry me on his back, gracefully around and around.

This story of my relationship with Shamu is NOT a lie. It is a TALE. There’s a big difference.