On Saturday my nice neighbor Carl came to fix the trench that the plumbers made when they did all their work. As you know it was done in the middle of winter and even though the backhoe guy tried to cover it up best he could, it was still a mess. Carl spent a good 2 hours smoothing it over and adding some dirt where it had sunk. When he finished his wife came over to meet us. She is a very nice lady and we had a good visit. We talked about Terry leaving and she told me to call any time. Carl would help me with anything. I talked about being nervous about the first winter without him here and Carl said "Well at least you will never be snowed in". As much as I want to be on post, I appreciate the kindness of people that we really don't know very well.

My friends husband left yesterday and all evening she had people stopping by to offer help and bringing by food.

This is how we survive. It is in times of need that you find out how good most people truly are. And it is very important to have that support system. So all you civilians that want to help, just ask or even better just do something nice for someone you know that has a spouse deployed, because even though we will all say we can handle everything, having help is how we survive.

Here is Terry's address for Iraq. Please DO NOT put his rank. I am not sure how long it will take for the mail to start working, I would think a good month or so.

Clark, Terry
HHC 10th MTN DIV.
CP Victory, Iraq
APO AE 09342

April 27, 1991

Terry and I got Married 17 years ago today. Seems like only yesterday that we got married and loaded up with my cat Cleo and my parakeet Alex in the Ryder truck and headed to Fort Benning, GA. 9 states and one Foreign country later and we are still going strong. It has been a wonderful 17 years and we have 3 adorable children to show for it. 5 years ago Terry left for his 1st tour in Iraq on the 28th of April. At least this time I have him for a week after our Anniversary.

At the last minute Terry and I decided to go to he Deployment Ceremony. As we were walking up Terry noticed some guys and said look Secret Service. We knew General Cody was going to be there, but didn't think he needed Secret Service. As the Ceremony started we found out Governor Paterson was there. Wow!!!!

Everyone gave very short speeches and they were nice and to the point. It was a nice Ceremony.

We decided to have a clean up day and so we burned all the extra sticks and leaves. It was a good way to get the kids to help.

We went to visit some friends that are now stationed at West Point. We haven't seen them since we left Germany in June 2005. It is amazing how you can not talk to see people for awhile and then pick up right where you left off. They are wonderful folks and we had a wonderful visit with them.