Where to begin? When I go for long stretches without posting, it's always difficult to know where to pick up. Do I try to play catch-up and explain what I've been up to, and if so should I write one long rambling post, put it in bullet form or just break it into a few short posts? How about a little of each. I'll ramble a bit on some things, maybe throw in a bullet list or two, then follow up with some short posts. How's that?
Well, the most important thing that happened in our lives in the past month, was that our Marine got on a great big boat and sailed across the Atlantic ocean.
He's been in the Marines for more than three years, and this is his first deployment. We've been lucky having him just two hours away, but he didn't join so he could see the sights of Jacksonville, NC.
It wasn't easy to watch him get on a bus and know I wouldn't see him again for at least eight months. I thought 13 weeks of boot camp was hard. We have been able to communicate a bit, a line or two here and there, via email. I had some sense of comfort, excitement even, knowing he was taking part in training exercises and humanitarian missions. Then something horrible happened. There was a crash and two young men lost their lives. Two others severely wounded. They were part of the VMM261, the same squadron as Casey. Like Casey, the young men who died were Corporals. All I have been able to find out is that they had just dropped a group off a group of troops and there were four aboard at the time of the crash. I don't know if Casey was among those that had been dropped off, I do know that sense of comfort has been shaken. I mourn for the families of those young men and I pray that the injured will recover.
I had other things I was going to say, but they seem so insignificant at the moment. Some how the mundane things of my day to day don't belong in this post. So I'll stop here for now, but not before asking that you say a prayer for those injured young Marines and for the families of Cpl. Kerns and Cpl. Reyes.


















