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Last Thursday night, I put out the garbage and there was a thick humid feeling in the air that midwesterners know to fear. Soon, a storm came into Stafford. The thunder was pretty intense and the lightning quite bright. I know tornadoes are not common in Virginia, so I wasn’t all that concerned. However, at 2300, I decided that the storm sounded bad enough to warrant me checking the National Weather Service online. Actually, being a Meloch, I can make up any excuse to check the weather. So, I logged onto the National Weather Service, entered my town of Stafford, Va and read the following, “A tornado warning has been issued for Stafford, VA. A tornado has been spotted, seek shelter immediately.”  Ignoring the urge to scream, I immediately ran upstairs, woke the kids and took them down into the basement. The power flickered once , the rain poured down, and I prayed. We all slept in the basement that night. Abby slept on Dale’s recliner and being a true Manry said it was a very comfortable place to sleep. Josiah slept on a pile of beanbags. Gabe inflated air mattresses for himself, Zeke and I. As I was laying on the air mattress, all I could think was, “I am so glad we are not moving this summer and I won’t have to sleep on this for 3 months.” The next morning, we discovered that the tornado struck approximately 15 miles away. We saw some of the damage of snapped trees and missing windows. However, last night we realized that spring was not done with us yet. Another storm came through that dumped 3 – 4 inches of rain on Stafford County. My clean gutters decided they preferred to be clogged and rain poured off them and soaked the ground which overwhelmed my basement walls. From 2100 – 0100 last night, I attempted to stop the water. Gabe, who goes on duty during storms, and Josiah hauled all the toys and rugs upstairs and got everything off the floor. Josiah didn’t complain with his Wii and DVR under threat. I had placed a large rolling garbage can next to the porch under the largest stream of water coming off the gutter and would periodically walk out into the pouring rain and haul it to the curb to dump it. I was quite the sight at 0030. I would then return to the basement and lay down multiple towels and wring them out into a large pail and then dump the water from the pail into the utility sink. That was exhausting work. I thought of all the people I had seen on the news over the years filling sandbags to stop a flood.  How they keep going is beyond me.  I was so tired, it was difficult not to give up and admit defeat.  Throughout this process, I was thinking of the Army’s favorite motto of “Work Smarter, Not Harder!”, but in moments of crisis, more efficient actions always escape me. At 0100, I was too exhausted to stand and went to bed praying that the water would not flood the entire basement. This morning, Gabe woke up and performed the damage assessment. The boy is destined to be an Engineer.  After dropping the kids off at school, I drove to the home improvement store and purchased Dale’s Father’s Day gift: a 12 gallon wet/dry vac. I put it together and tested it out to make sure it worked. I’m sure he’ll love it.

This morning while reading the Bible, I came across a Psalm that sounds like something a mother would say to her kids. The translation is The Message, and the passage is Psalm 15:2-5a:

Walk straight, act right, tell the truth.

Don’t hurt your friend, don’t blame your neighbor, despise the despicable.

Keep your word even when it costs you, make an honest living, never take a bribe.

It’s hard to find better, more succinct advice than that!

I went on a site visit inside the city of Mosul this morning. There is a curfew in effect throughout the whole Ninewa Province due to an ongoing Iraqi Army operation. This offensive has been reported in most major news media. Because of this, the streets were particularly empty as we drove to the different sites today. All three of the sites we visited are sewer/storm drain projects. Below is a picture from the Al Jasaeer project site. The contractor installed a new storm water sewer system on the right hand side of the road where the new manhole and pavement is visible. Before this, there were no storm drains in this area, just like in Phoenix!

As we were returning from our mission today, I noticed an interesting tattoo on one of the team members. Instead of wearing a wedding band, he has a tattoo on his ring finger. It’s hard to read in the picture, but it says Chrissy.

Happy Mother’s Day from Mosul.

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.

This week, Glenn and I went to Dahuk for a couple of days. After spending two days in Dahuk, we then went over to Erbil for another day. I know I need to get up to Dahuk and Erbil more frequently, and I always enjoy visiting my Resident Offices there. But I do feel guilty any time I go because of how safe and secure those areas are. I have numerous blog posts floating around in my head from this recent trip.

We had the chance to do some shopping while we were there. We wandered aimlessly through the bazaar in Dahuk with Gee. He kept asking us what we were looking to buy. We had no idea and just kept walking. I did walk in a scarf shop. I was quickly overwhelmed by the array of colors. The effect was almost dizzying!

Glenn decided he wanted a couple of plants to make his CHU more homey. So Gee took us to a small nursery in the middle of Dahuk. There was a small, elderly Kurdish gentlemen who owned and operated this nursery. Glenn asked him to show us some indoor plants, but he wouldn’t go into the makeshift greenhouse with us because he was afraid of our guns. So we went in and started looking around. Glenn found one he liked that looks like aloe vera but with thorns. Of course, when he picked it up, he immediately pricked his thumb on a thorn and let out a yelp. Everyone got a kick out of that! Periodically throughout the rest of the day, one of the Peshmerga guards would pretend to prick his thumb, yelp, then point at Glenn and laugh. Glenn was a good sport about it and can take a little pickin’.

I’m sure the kids miss my pickin’!

Josiah had been haphazardly preparing over the last month for the ACSI district spelling bee that he attended on Friday. He had to study the spelling words from the 5th through 8th grade lists, because the last round included all the words from each grade level. The study list of words was misplaced several times and given up for lost for awhile until I insisted that he look once again in his school locker. I would quiz him with the dictionary close by and would make several attempts to achieve the correct phonetic pronunciation. On the way to school, Abby would quiz him in the van, but since even I was having a difficult time pronouncing the words, her attempts were even less effective. Gabe would eventually pipe in and offer his phonetic interpretation. I would listen to Gabe and Abby’s attempts while driving and try to deduce what word they were asking Josiah. Josiah would then spell the confusingly pronounced word, and be told that he was incorrect and then Abby would give him the correct spelling. At which point, Josiah would declare what the correct pronunciation for the word should have been. It wasn’t exactly the most effective studying method. You would think I would have given up on this drive along testing, but I made them continue on. I did give up on the grade 8 difficult words as insurmountable and attempted to get through the rest of the lists in the hope that he could make it through the first rounds. The night before the District Bee, I told Josiah to get the study list so we could go over some words that he had previously gotten wrong. He looked in his backpack, his room, and every other room in the house but the list was no where to be found. So, I told him, “You’re not completely prepared for this Bee, so there are no great expectations or pressures. When you are standing up there respond like you would if I was typing on the computer and asked you how to spell congratulations.” I figured that he wouldn’t be immediately eliminated, but assumed he wouldn’t get very far. The middle school principal handed out copies of the study lists on the bus for the ride north. Josiah decided to spend some time cramming. In the afternoon, I received a call from Josiah. He said, “Hi Mom. I won.” I then let out a hysterical unbelieving laugh. “You won? You won? Congratulations, son. That’s great! I can’t believe it, but that’s great!” He has qualified to attend the ACSI Regional Spelling Bee in Atlanta, Georgia on April 5th. That night we went out to Jimmy the Greek to celebrate. He got his menu, opened it up and pointed to “Moussaka”. “That’s my favorite word from my list,” he said. He doesn’t recall the word he won with, but he remembers that his favorite word is Moussaka!