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One week ago today, on 2 May 2008, MAJ Rick Biddle walked over from the Operations trailer and told me that SET 8 had been hit by an IED. SET 8 is based out of COB Speicher in Tikrit. The team had taken some USACE personnel on a project site visit along the Bayji to Baghdad Pipeline Exclusion Zone north of Tikrit. Among the personnel was Jim Lockard, a Project Manager working at GRN. At approximately 1000, Jim’s vehicle was hit by an IED and came under small arms fire from insurgents. The Aegis SET repelled the attack, pushed the insurgents back, evacuated the USACE personnel, and returned to COB Speicher. Jim died at the CSH as a result of his injuries sustained from the IED blast.

When I arrived in Mosul in August 2007, Jim was the Project Manager for the GRN healthcare clinics. For a couple of months, I spoke with him every Sunday during the weekly healthcare clinic conference call. I finally had the pleasure of meeting Jim in October 2007 when I went to COB Speicher for the Engineer Conference. I immediately liked Jim as everyone did when they met him.

On Wednesday, I traveled to COB Speicher for a memorial ceremony in honor of Jim. COL Pfenning spoke of his admiration and respect for Jim. Several other of Jim’s colleagues also gave remarks during the ceremony. They each consistently mentioned his love for his wife Maria and his two teenage daughters Danielle and Nicole. They also shared stories of his sense of humor. One of the speakers shared Ecclesiastes 3:1-8. In this passage, the Preacher says:

There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

I reflected on those words of Solomon as the bugler played Taps at the end of the ceremony. I along with everyone else that had the pleasure of knowing him will miss Jim dearly. Each night my kids pray for the safety of everyone deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan and other places around the world. They mention me by name as well as others we know that are deployed. In Mosul, we will continue to honor Jim’s sacrifice every time we go outside the wire.

Rest in Peace, Jim Lockard.

Today I accompanied Gabe on his second grade class field trip to the National Zoo. We had visited the zoo during Spring Break and this time I drove the correct way. On our first visit, we were unable to walk through a number of the exhibits, because we ran out of time. Gabe was determined to see what he had missed. Luckily for him, today we saw a myriad of snakes, spiders, lizards, and skinks. “Wow, Mom, look at this! Wow, Mom this is cool!” He even spent some time looking through a microscope at dead beetles. I, however, turned down the request to have a look at that, and must admit that snakes, spiders, frogs, and hissing cockroaches are far from my ideal creatures. At the exit of the invertebrate house, there was a small butterfly greenhouse. We walked in and I just stopped. I love butterfly exhibits. They are peaceful and lovely and call to me to just “set down and rest awhile.” Dale’s Mama, Johnny loved butterflies. She collected butterfly things. One year, we took her to the butterfly pavilion at the New Orleans Zoo. It was the most beautiful place. We walked all around the zoo, but Dale’s Mama stayed in the butterfly house. She told us she would “set down and rest awhile.” Gabe was unwilling to let me rest however, for there were more strange and odd creatures to look at like naked mole rats and shrews. Gabe may tolerate my butterfly, bird, and panda gazing, but there’s no standing around when there is a skink to see.

Today Zeke and I went out to feed the fish. Zeke sprinkled the food in and the fish swam up to eat it. Zeke leaned over to look at them, said “I love my fish!”, and promptly fell in. He did a complete belly flop. I snatched him by the back of his jacket, dragged him out, hauled him inside, stripped him down, and gave him a warm shower. He cried throughout all this and only settled down when I had him wrapped in a towel, holding him on my lap. I told him, “It’s alright, you’re alright, you can stop crying now.” He looked at me and said, “Now I’m going to get the throats.” (Zeke’s word for throwing up) Those who know me, know I’m a neurotic hand washer. (Not quite Lady Macbeth, but close.) When Zeke comes in after playing in the pond water, I always make him wash his hands. I tell him that he has to wash his hands, because the pond water can make him sick if he doesn’t wash it off. His 3 year old brain must have worked out that if he can get sick just sticking his hands in the water, falling entirely in the water would certainly give him the throats. I assured him that he was alright and was most likely not going to get the throats. It is remarkable to me that he has been playing, fishing, throwing rocks, netting leaves, and breaking ice in this pond for 10 months and this is the first time he has fallen in. I am ever so thankful that I was standing right next to him when he fell. All the fish survived this bit of excitement, both those with fins and those without.

Our two weeks together did fly by and the days were filled with all things ordinary. Ordinary days, but because Dale was with us, I loved each one. Dale had no honey do list, but managed to fix things anyway. He easily corrected my home improvement mistakes and reattached various towel bars that Zeke had pulled off the wall. He then decided to go into battle against the tent caterpillars occupying the weeping cherry out front. Dale fell back on the old Manry solution of attacking a large swarm of creatures by hitting the nest with a big stick. When the caterpillars started dropping out of the tree onto his shirt and hair, I decided it was best to leave that job to him. We took a bush walk that greatly needed a Kirk accompaniment, since there were rocks to fall off of and water to fall into. Later, we all chose fish for the backyard pond. Dale who was most concerned with water quality bought 3 algae eaters and named them Tuck, Roll, and Golem. He also bought water plants. He spent quite a bit of time fixing his pond. Josiah chose a bright orange goldfish, the bravest of the lot and named him Napoleon. Abby chose a white and black little fish and named her Jewels. She’s sparkles just like you, Juliet. Gabe chose a hard to find orange and black fish and named him Dynamite. Zeke chose a beautiful orange and black fantail and named her Cleopatra. I decided to join the party a few days later and added Mohawk who has an orange stripe and Pirate who has a black eye patch. Hopefully, we’ll remember to feed the fish. Dale will get upset if he returns to find his pond redo neglected. A loud frog seems to have joined the fish. We hear him at night croaking out “my pond…my pond…my pond”. Last year, Gabe transported tadpoles from the pond to the creek down the road when he and Dale cleaned the pond. Maybe one came back to tell us off. Along with watching the fish, we watched the birds. When I first saw the bright blue bird on my feeder, I thought that the bluebird of happiness had come to pay a visit. After consulting my bird book I believe it is an Indigo Bunting instead. Sometimes what brings me happiness isn’t exactly what I planned would bring me happiness. The last thing we worked on together was the puzzle I had started in January. We finally finished it and discovered that a piece was missing. It looks good, but there is a piece missing. That’s how I feel when Dale is away. I am pretty good, but a piece of me is missing. These last two weeks, I had no missing piece and I enjoyed them very much.

Abby participated in her 6th grade science fair today. She did her experiment on whether smell effects taste. Grandpa, Grandma, Josiah and Gabe were her lab rats for the experiment. They all loved the chocolate, but weren’t too happy about the onion. She concluded that smell does effect taste, but she would have to eliminate the effect of texture. She made her display board and had to answer questions from the judges. When she came home from school she told me that the project next to her was completely gross. The girl had a cow’s heart under glass and did her experiment on clogged arteries. During the awards ceremony, the Best in Show was won by the cow’s heart girl. Working with a cow’s heart to win the science fair just wouldn’t be worth it for my daughter. Gabe, however, was greatly disappointed that he didn’t get to see the cow’s heart. For the last couple months, Gabe has been asking me how he can win a trophy. When he finds out that you get a trophy for winning Best in Show in the Science Fair, I fear what he’ll come up with to outdo a cow’s heart.