Terry's upcoming deployment is affecting my family much more this time. I know it is because we are all still grieving. My family has had their share of stress this year and worrying about Terry and the kids and I is only adding to thier stress.

Even though I am sad that Terry is leaving and of course I am worried about him I also know he has to go. This is Terry's job, he is in the military, he made a choice over 20 years ago that he wanted to serve his country. I believe it is his turn, he has only been to Iraq one time and yes he was there for over a year at that time. We received word today that someone we knew in Germany left yesterday for his "THIRD" tour and he is slated to be gone 15 months. Since we met them in March of 2003 he has spent over 26 months in Iraq. So you will not hear me saying that I don't want Terry to go because it is not fair to the people who have already served so much time over there already.

Deployments are hard on everyone, I don't think anyone has it any easier than anyone else. We all have issues, problems and situations that make it difficult.

So even though it will be very sad and lonely for the next 15 months, the kids and I will be fine. We will have some bad days and we will have some very good days. The kids will grow and Terry will see and hear from them as much as I can possibly make it happen. Please don't worry about us we will be fine.

On a funny note Terry and I were talking about that we were glad they were going to reduce the number of troops and the length of the deployments, he then said, "knowing our luck they will do a big buildup in Afganistan" I said without missing a beat "well then I guess the Air Force and Navy better learn to patrol and learn some arabic" Okay Air Force and Navy friends please laugh now.....