Karen’s Place

My entire life my family spent our summers and most weekends in the winters at the lake.  When I was 15 my brother and sister were old enough to stay home and work, leaving me at our lake house alone all summer with my folks.  My parents always told me one day I would miss times like that where I would have the freedom to spend that much time down there.  Of course I didn’t believe them-parents of 15 year olds are never right!  Well, not until the 15 year old becomes a 30 year old.

That summer, became bearable when I found out one of my closest friends from Jr. High now lived in the same town.  The same town where the two most exciting things to do were A)Go to the single screen movie theatre, or B) Go to the skating rink.  We chose the skating rink.  (as a side note, when this rink first opened, my brother and I used to take our OWN music there to be played because the city was so much more progressive than the lake.  Can you believe they didn’t have Queen??)

The first night at the rink this really cute red headed boy came and asked me to couple skate (ahhh, couple skate -pardon me while I swoon).  So we did, and we did it again, and then we were interpretable for the rest of the night.  As it turned out, this very cute redhead went to the same school and knew my friend.  The three of us hung out a couple of times, and then the three became two, he and I.  I really couldn’t have picked a better boy for my first boyfriend.  It was almost storybook.  We skated, we went to the movies, we even went to the county fair for Pete’s sake.  Almost sickening-I know.  Summer ended, we wrote to one another but he was 17 and with me only being 15, I didn’t have maturity needed to allow it continue.

The next time I heard from him he was in Cuba.  He had just finished basic training and he was in the Navy.  We wrote back and forth but weren’t consistent about it.  Some time ago when Classmates.com became all the rage I thought to look him up.  His bio said he was on the Stennis in San Diego.  I shot him an email with no expectations.  Much to my surprise I got one back almost immediately.  He was indeed still in the Navy and in fact about to be promoted to Chief. 

I pleased to say the redhead and I have stayed close friends ever since.  He’s now stationed in Virginia Beach.  Hopefully soon to be promoted to Senior Chief.    I received an email from him yesterday.  The email told me he had good news and bad news for me.  He would tell me the bad news first so that the good would cheer me up.  His bad news was that he was being deployed for a year to Iraq.  I was so stunned by the news I could hardly take in the good news.  That which was that he had just saved a ton of money by switching to Geico.  Yeah thanks!  This is his sense of humor.  I really thought at my age I was done having to worry about my friends being sent to Iraq.  I know sadly, I will soon have to worry about my friends kids being in Iraq, but never thought I would still have to worry about my friends.  I started with my million questions.  When are you leaving, why are you leaving, what the hell did you volunteer for, and what ship will you be on?

This is where my disbelief took an even deeper spiral turn south.  He told me he wasn’t going to be on a ship, for the year he was going to be deployed he would be considered part of the Army.  WTF?  You mean on the ground?  I really thought he was trying to pull one over on me.  No, he was completely serious.  Just before shipping out he would be issued Army fatigues that he would wear for the entire time he would be in Iraq.  I don’t even know how many times I asked him to repeat himself.  I just couldn’t, and still can’t wrap my brain around this idea.  I argued that he’s not ground trained how can the government do this?  He said it wasn’t a new idea; we already had over 10,000 Navy persons on the ground as part of the Army right now.

So, the trip I had planned for June to Virginia Beach/Norfolk has now been moved up to February.  I knew he was leaving in September, it was just supposed to be for a presumably benign 9 month ocean tour.  I wanted to see where he worked and the base and Virginia Beach before his tour.  Now the trip will have a very different feel.  

He’s told me I can come on the ship with him.  I know I will, although I’m not sure if I’ll be able to handle it.  I don’t anticipate having claustrophobic issues, I wonder with my feelings on this entire political issue if my incredibly sad emotions will take over once the look of the active military will be there slapping me in the face.  Only time will tell, I suppose…  Only time will tell.