Friday, January 21, 2011

Disconnected

Here's an excellent essay by my friend Enola Gay called The Great Disconnect.


She writes: "When we were connected to our family, we were connected to our neighbors and we were connected to our communities. If someone was in need, we, as a family member, neighbor or community saw to that need. There was resolution and accountability. Taking care of each other was a matter of life and death..."

An excellent perspective. Go read the whole thing.

2 comments:

  1. This is so true! (And thanks for the link to the complete blog.)

    In an opposite direction...
    One aspect of overseas military life that I have been experiencing is how the spouses REALLY are here for one another. The amount of times I have had offers for help are amazing. And finally (in my life), I have accepted help from these spouses. Maybe it's because I have also offered and given help, so I feel it's ok to accept. While we're over here in Europe, away from our families, we ARE each others' families.

    Not having been stationed in the U.S., I don't know if this is normal for service families. I suppose in about 15 months I'll find out!

    ****
    Thanks to Patrice and all of you commentors for continually inspiring me to think about 'prepping' even though there's little I can do right now. At a base event last night, the USO was giving away free books. There were many novels, but I chose the "U.S. Military Pocket Survival Guide plus Evastion & Recovery!" :)

    KatieJ
    Germany

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  2. Unfortunately, KatieJ, it's been my experience that the helpful closeness you've experienced overseas does not exist in CONUS.

    Actually, let me rephrase that. In our branch of service, that camaraderie is non-existent. We are in a subgroup of the Navy, and are pretty much left on our own. No attempts to bring spouses together, no information network when the guys are overseas, nothing.

    The Ombudsman program in our area serves absolutely no purpose.

    I hope, for your sake, that your experience in CONUS is just as wonderful as your overseas experience has been. I'm pretty sure that no one is left to their own devices as much as the TAR Navy.

    Good luck, and congrats on the free book - great choice!

    TAR Navy Wife

    P.S. TAR stands for Training Active Reservists. We are discriminated against by "regular" Navy people all the time. They think it's a cake walk to train the Reservists, and don't realize how many TAR have served in Afghanistan and Iraq (my husband included).

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