HAPPY TURKEY DAY!!! - Blogged By JME and N8


N8 and JME wanted to wish all of our friends and family a very happy Thanksgiving and to share a little bit of what we did to celebrate the day.

N8 had the privilege of serving Thanksgiving dinner to the wounded soldiers at LRMC. He also was able to eat with them and had a wonderful feast of turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, meatballs, cock-doggies (watch 'Rat Race' if wondering what those are), Filipino egg rolls, fruit salad, chocolate mousse pie, a roll, and two glasses of water. Needless to say, it was a lot of food, and N8 enjoyed himself. Also, last night, N8 and his department had a potluck and N8 made wassail and his mom's famous amazing yams that everyone loved and asked for the recipe. Here it is if anyone is interested:

4 Cans of Canned Yams
1 Bag Large Marshmallow
Nuts or Gram Crackers (optional)
Butter
Brown Sugar
Mini Marshmallows

Drained, rinsed and mash the yams. Take a marshmallow and wrap it with the mashed yam until it is the size of a racket ball. Roll the yam in chopped almonds, walnuts, pecans, or gram crackers, or you can leave it plain. Line them up in a casserole dish. Place a small piece of butter on top of each of the yams. Sprinkle with brown sugar and mini marshmallows. Bake in the oven at 350 degrees for 30-45 minutes. If you want the marshmallows on the top to be a little brown, you can broil them briefly right before you take them out. Bon Appetite!


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Meanwhile 5,194.4 miles away, JME got up early this morning and ran a little more than a 5K for the 24th Annual Thanksgiving Day Food Drive Run/Walk co-sponsored by ORMC and the Newman Center at WSU. Talk about burning the calories before eating turkey dinner. It was so fun! She ran with her brother-in-law FireRyan (FR). Pookie and Pooh Bear came a long. They were going to do the 2 mile walk but Pookie ended up not feeling good, so they were our moral support.



FireRyan (FR) was able to run the 3.92 miles in 28.42 minutes. JME was able to run it in 48.09 minutes. That doesn't sound too good, but it was quite an accomplishment for JME and she was so proud of herself. She ran the whole way and didn't stop. At the very end when she was almost done, she heard the cowbells that her family brought and looked up to see FR ringing away at the bells. Then he got next to her and encouraged her all the way to the finish line. He even got her motivated enough to sprint that last little bit of the way. JME felt like she was going to vomit, but FR said that it isn't a good run unless you feel like you need to vomit a little at the end. Pookie and Pooh Bear were there at the finish line. Thanks for going, guys!

Also, JME is involved in the 'Biggest Loser' at work. Last Monday on weigh in day, she had lost a total of 9 lbs and placed fourth. The contest goes until December 21st and the winner gets $150 and the winning team gets $50 each. JME is planning on winning and having Pookie, FR, and Pooh Bear with her today was amazing encouragement and support.

N8 and JME are very thankful for each other and for the support of their family and friends. JME is very thankful for the joy of movement and that she was able to run this morning. N8 is thankful for a healthy body and that he has the privilege of serving the 'Wounded Warriors' in GERMANY and that he is not down range. Here's an 'amen' to that from JME.

We hope all of you have a very happy Thankgiving and know we are thinking of you!

Vegas, Baby! - Blogged by JME

A few weeks ago, JME and a few members of her family went on a short little road trip to Vegas. We drove down on a Thursday, hung out on Friday, and drove all the way home on Saturday. Quite a long drive for such a short stay! There were six of us traveling together. Lele and her two boys, Bug and Skunk, all piled in JME's car while her mom and dad rode separately in their car. Meeting us in Vegas was Aunt L, Great Aunt M and Great Uncle A. We went down to see Great Grandma M who just turned 93 in July.

Here is a picture of all of us (four generations are included in this photo). From left to right on the top row is JME, Great Aunt M, Aunt L, Great Grandma M, Uncle A, mom, dad, and on the bottom row is Lele, Bug, and Skunk.



We all had a really nice time. Not only did we visit and see grandma, but we had a little time to relax in the warm sun by the pool. Lele and JME put the boys on tubes and had races around the lazy river, and also had a nice time just visiting and being sisters.





That night, on the way home from visiting Great Grandma, Aunt L started talking about some sore spots she had on her bottom lip. JME mentioned that they probably were cold sores. Aunt L said that she wasn't sure because she didn't have a cold but had been stressed and wondered if that could be a reason to get cold sores. Later that night, JME, Lele, Dad, Aunt L, and Uncle A went to see a show called The Mentalist starring Gerry McCambridge. As a "mentalist," McCambridge reads the minds of random audience members and predicts the outcome of random situations during the performance.



Gerry amazed the audience as he guessed people's names, what had been on their mind, and phone numbers from phone books. It was pretty entertaining, but the highlight of the night was when he stopped in the middle of everything and said that there was something that needed to be addressed. He sat pondering for a moment, and then said, "Don't worry. It's just a cold sore." We immediately remembered the conversation we had earlier that day in the car and, amazed, started laughing, as did everyone around us. Gerry then pointed toward the five of us and said how that information was for someone in our area. It was so unbelievable!

On the way home the next day, we stopped and had a bite to eat at "In and Out Burger." How can anyone go to Vegas and not stop and eat at the "In and Out Burger". We were in such a hurry to get home, none of us had a great breakfast and "In and Out Burger" sure hit the spot. Even Skunk at a whole hamburger!



After driving a few hours, we decided we needed to stop and stretch our legs. We stopped by some of the red rocks. We found a camping area with some trails and climbed some rocks and had a great time.

There is no better place than the great outdoors to just let it all out!




We finally got home a little after ten, but first we ate at our family's favorite restaurant, La Casita. They were so nice and accommodating to us. We were all dirty, tired, and hungry by the time we got there and probably didn't look like much, but the owner made sure to do what he could to make us comfortable and the food was great! We got what we always get there, the Luis Special. It's a family tradition.

THE CHAPLAINS CLOSET - Blogged by JME

The following is an article that was written about the Chaplain's Closet that N8 runs. I thought it would be cool to post it so that you could see a little more about what N8 is involved in while in Germany and what the Chaplain's Closet is for.

Also, it might seem like, with all the outings N8 has been on and all of Germany that he is seeing that N8 is on a big vacation courtesy of the Navy. However, that is not the case. Although N8 has had many opportunities to go on these 'Wounded Warrior' trips, his main priority on these outings is to assist the Wounded Warriors. He is constantly carrying crutches, pushing wheelchairs, providing lunch, keeping role, and assisting with other needs that the Wounded Warriors may have. The reason that there are no pictures on this blog of the Wounded Warriors from those trips is because of the patient privacy laws (HIPPA-Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act).

If there is anybody interested in donating to the Chaplain's closet, please let me know so I can get you the information.

SOLITARY SHOES A TACTILE SYMBOL OF AMPUTEE'S SACRIFICES

By Seth Robbins, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Tuesday, November 10, 2009, 2009

LANDSTUHL, Germany — Behind Landstuhl Regional Medical Center’s closet door No. 3E 105 are two bins labeled "left" and "right."

They are filled with shoes.

Smelling of fresh leather, the shoes vary in style and size: a green and black Reebok high top, size 10; a tangerine-colored Converse, size 8; a women’s white New Balance, size 5; a burgundy and black hand-sewn slipper, no size given.

The bulk of these shoes have no mate because the other is being used by someone who has lost a limb.

"They live in the closet," Army Chaplain (Maj.) Eric R. Meyners said of the shoes, sifting through the bin. "It just doesn’t seem to be the right thing to do to have them displayed."

Meyners doesn’t notice the bins much when he comes to work now. But when he gives tours of the chaplain’s closet — which is really more of a room — a hush falls over visitors when they see the single shoes.

"It gets very real," he said. "It brings home for them the harsher side of what goes on in war."

In the chaplain’s closet, there are dozens of shelves packed with other reminders. Shirts are sliced from collar to waist and fitted with Velcro closures so they can be worn around casts and other cumbersome devices. There are similarly altered boxer shorts, and tear-away pants to be worn over leg braces, and electric razors for soldiers who are unable to use their dominant hand and would cut themselves with a traditional blade.

The shoes may be tucked away in a closet, but medical advances and modern prostheses have brought amputees out into the open more than during any prior war.

Though the total tally of amputees from Iraq and Afghanistan — more than 900 so far — is less than one-fifth the tally from Vietnam, troops with missing limbs remain potent symbols of the conflicts, said retired Col. Charles Scoville, chief of amputee care at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

“Our guys with limb loss are much more visible. They are returning to normal lives,” Scoville said.

One of them is Joseph Bowser. Now staff assistant to Secretary of the Army John McHugh, Bowser lost his right leg after a 2004 mortar attack in Balad, Iraq.

Then a sergeant first class, Bowser had just finished talking to his children by phone when he walked outside and heard the familiar sound of mortars. He glanced at his watch, thinking that it was about time for the evening’s attacks to start.

Before he put his arm down, a 122 mm Chinese rocket exploded nearby.

“I remember it being hot,” he said, “and I looked up and there was all this smoke and dirt coming down. I’m laying on the ground screaming for help. That’s when the guys picked me up, and I felt my body go limp.”

Bowser was bleeding profusely from the back of his right leg. Doctors at Balad stopped the bleeding, but Bowser’s leg and foot were mangled, his heel bone destroyed. When he reached Walter Reed, Bowser was advised to have his leg amputated.

“The easy part was saying I want to have it amputated,” Bowser said. “The hard part was being pushed out the door and knowing that when you come back you are not going to have a piece of you anymore. There is no way of putting it back on. I was crying like a baby while they pushed me out.”

During his two-year rehabilitation, Bowser learned to walk again with a prosthetic leg attached below the knee. And after mastering that, he laced up a pair of skates and headed onto an ice rink.

“The first thought I had,” Bowser said about the decision to have the amputation, “was I want to play hockey again.”

Maj. Marilyn Rodgers, a physical therapist who has worked with amputees at both Walter Reed and Landstuhl, recalls a litany of accomplishments by past patients, including a below-the-knee amputee attempting to qualify for the Olympics in white-water kayaking and a lieutenant colonel leading his unit back to Iraq after losing part of his foot.

“They are pushing the technology,” Rodgers said. Prosthetic legs with microprocessors assist with walking and standing, a new prosthetic arm interprets nerve muscle impulses to close or open fingers on a mechanical hand, and stronger and lighter prostheses allow amputees not only to run, but to race.

More than 100 amputees have returned to active duty, about 40 returning to Iraq or Afghanistan, something that would have been unthinkable in the Vietnam War.

“We’re an active bunch,” Bowser said. “We don’t want a leg [that’s only good] to get out of the bed and go the bathroom.”

Yet no matter how sophisticated the technology, amputees can’t escape the physical realities of a lost limb. Hence the shoe bin.

The bins were placed in the chaplain’s closet late in 2005, when the hospital had an influx of soldiers injured by roadside bombs in Iraq, said Army Chaplain (Col.) James Griffith, director of pastoral services at Landstuhl.

Griffith recalled two soldiers looking for shoes; one had had his left leg amputated, and the other had lost his right foot. They both happened to wear the same size.

“One took one shoe and the other took the other,” Griffith said

Griffith also remembered a soldier’s mother wading into the sneaker bins for her son, taking care not to break up one of the many new pairs that are also available.

“Every pair of shoes in there is someone’s life dramatically altered. It means new adjustments, new goals, most likely a new direction in what their vocation will be,” he said. “It is also a new beginning. They survived and they get to go home.”

SHINEDOWN!!! Blogged by N8

As many of you know I am a rock and roll junkie. One of my most favorite bands is Shinedown. I've followed their career very closely ever since I saw them for the first time when they opened for Van Halen in Denver in 2004. So, when I saw that they were coming to Europe on their current tour and that on November 19th Frankfurt was scheduled, I did everything possible to be there for it.



They opened their show with their hit single "The Sound of Madness" which is the title track from their newest album. I love the lyrics to this song because it rags on people that think that life is so hard and that everyone is out to get them when they have no clue how bad things really can be (I created the sound of madness, wrote the book on pain, somehow I'm still here to explain that the darkest hour never comes in the night. You can sleep with a gun. When you gonna wake up and fight?)



They then went on the play "Save Me" which is off of their second album Us and Them. This song discusses the dangers of drug addiction (I've got a candle and I've got a spoon. I live in a hallway with no doors and no rooms.) Notice singer Brent Smith's "crazy eyes" in the picture below...



After that, they played their hit single from their debut album Leave a Whisper ".45". It's a very emotional song and brings out a lot of feelings about struggling in life.



The next song was "Heroes" off of Us and Them. I love it because of the heavily distorted bass riffs throughout the song.



The next song was one of my personal favorites. It was "Fly From the Inside" off of Leave a Whisper. It's a song about realizing your personal potential and what you can accomplish on your own (I found a way to steal the sun from the sky. Long live that day that I decided to fly from the inside.)



The next song was their newest single off of the Sound of Madness album "If You Only Knew." I love this song because it reminds me of my JME that I miss so much! (It's 4:03, and I can't sleep. Without you next to me I toss and turn like the sea.)



The next song was "Cyanide Sweet-Tooth Suicide" also on the Sound of Madness album. It's probably the most hard-core song on the album. It got the crowd pretty riled up!



The next song is JME's favorite Shinedown song. It's "Call Me" also from Sound of Madness. This song reminds me a lot of my life being deployed so much (I kept my whole life in a suitcase. Never really stayed in one place. Maybe that's the way it should be. You know I live my life like a gypsy.)



They then played "Left Out" also off of Sound of Madness.



After that came "The Crow and the Butterfly" which is a softer song off of the Sound of Madness album.



Next was "Cry For Help" again, off of the Sound of Madness album.



After a brief wait. They came out and started an encore. The first song was "Second Chance" which is probably their most successful song yet. It is also off of the Sound of Madness album. This song has been kind of a theme song for my current deployment. Last time around I made a lot of mistakes that I can't take back and I think that God has given me one more opportunity to do it right (sometimes goodbye is a second chance...)



Their final song was their first single from the Sound of Madness album "Devour". I love this song! It is probably the best going-away song for old "Dubyah" (Devour! Devour! Suffocate your own empire! Devour! Devour! It's your final hour!)



All in all it was a great show and I'm so glad I got to be there. It really cured a small part of my homesickness. What's really cool is that during the show I got to shake Brent, the lead singer's, hand. Also, when they were exiting the stage, their guitarist Zach was handing out picks and was bending down to give me one. I took a command coin from the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center with me and gave it to him when he handed me the pick. You see, Shinedown has done several USO shows both in and out of the war zone and I really appreciate their support for the troops. I hope he sees it as a token of the U.S. Forces' appreciation.

Kaiserslautern - Blogged by N8 and JME

N8 got to drive the van for the 'Wounded Warriors" on their weekday trip a couple Tuesdays ago to downtown Kaiserslautern. First they went to the Kaiserslautern dungeons. You had to crouch down to get into the tunnels. Here is a picture of N8 next to one of the tunnels to give you an idea of how small they are. Someone with claustrophobia would not do well here.



Here are a couple pictures of Chaplain S, who is about 5'4" or 5'5" walking through the tunnels. These tunnels are escape routes for the royalty that lived there.





When archeologists were excavating the tunnels, they found many graves. This is a picture of a real skeleton that they found while excavating. It was kind of creepy to see this actual open grave. The stone that makes up the walls of the grave were chipped away so that they could fit the body into it when they buried this person.



After they went to the dungeons, they went to the Protestant church in the city. It was big and very pretty.







This is a memorial inside the annex of the chapel. The statue for this memorial that N8 is standing by is a statue of Martin Luther.



This one is of Johannes Gutenberg.



His is a picture of outside of the chapel.



This is the oldest restaurant in Kaiserslautern. This restaurant has been there since the 1640s.

Burg Frankenstein - Blogged by N8 and JME



Burg Frankenstein is the actual castle where Mary Shelly had the inspiration to write the novel of Frankenstein. The weekend before, the weekend of, and the weekend after Halloween they decorate it and make it a haunted attraction. The actors there don't follow the same rules as they do in the states. They ARE allowed to touch you. They were picking some people up, throwing them in coffins, closing the lid, and jumping on top of it. They would grab people and take them away from their groups. The chainsaw guy would put the motor of the chainsaw right up against people. N8 got chased after by the wolfman. He kept grabbing him and tickling him and would not leave N8 alone for about 10 minutes. By the time he was done with N8, N8 felt like he needed to pray and go to church.

Here is a video that was on YouTube that someone posted that will give you a better picture of what it was like. It is all in German but it is still fun to watch.




In the picture below, they have taken one of the girls from her group and tied her to a torture device. They have a whip out and they are cracking it right next to her to scare her. The other picture is of one of the torturers.





The atmosphere was perfect. The group that went with N8 was perfect. From left to right: Silvia, Chaplain S, Chaplain M, RP3 B, N8, RP1 N. Taking the picture was Master Sergeant R.



This is probably the most fun N8 has had on an outing since being there. Here N8 is having dinner with RP3 B. They are having bratwurst.



This zombie was like one of the guards at Buckingham Palace. She didn't move or blink or anything. It was so creepy!



A guy dressed like this guy was following everybody out and hitting them with a rubber arm. He hit N8 upside the head and he hit RP3 B on the shoulder. He continued hitting people and the whole time Sylvia was saying, "Ha! Ha! Ha! He is hitting people with a rubber hand and they can't get mad at him because it is not his hand." Just as she finished that sentence, we heard a loud SMACK! and she grabbed her bottom and went "Ooowwww!" She then turned around and started to curse the guy out in German.



The next few are some fun pictures of the castle and the characters there.