I've gotten into this really... significant habit of reading http://www.strykernews.com/ every day. Against the advice of literally everyone I know, I like reading about the goings-on in Afghanistan, and Stryker News is pretty awesome because it focuses (big surprise) on the Stryker brigades around the world.
Yeah, I go to the site today and see that there have been about a half dozen casualties from Andrew's brigade, the 5/2, in the last week. Obviously, the DoD doesn't do a press release on anything until families have been notified and all that, but it's pretty disturbing for me to see a headline of "Department of Defense identifies Army casualties" with the catagory of "5/2" before I see the name of the soldier who died. I mean, I know it's my own fault, looking at this stuff. Everyone said not to watch CNN, not to watch any war coverage really. But for those first 6 weeks or so, it was a comfort to know what was going on. It was better than not knowing anything, I said to myself. But I was kinda deluded, because I only felt that way because things were going well. Now that they are IDing casualty after casualty from that brigade, and the reality of how much danger those guys are in has hit me, I'm feeling sick to my stomach.
My last letter from Andrew was pretty disheartening. He sounded okay, really, but the thing that got to me was when he mentioned that he hadn't received any more of my letters. "You haven't forgotten about me, have you?" he asked, in the midst of his normal jauntiness.
Oh my goodness, that broke my heart. I mean, I know they moved to a new fob (Forward Operations Base---yay for me finally remembering acronyms!) recently, and it's in the middle of nowhere with no phone or internet and apparently the convoys bringing the mail keep getting attacked (lovely), but I was like "ahhhh noooooo!!! I've written you so many letters! I'm so sooorrrry babe!!"
I don't care if I never hear from him, but it is so crucial that he can hear from me. I know my letters bring him home for a few moments. They bring him a little bit of me, and it keeps him going. I've been praying like crazy that my letters start making it through, especially with all these casuality announcements I keep seeing. I know Andrew is the last person in the world to let things bother him, but six guys dying in as many days will rattle anyone, even someone who is half robot like my dearest love.
But I'd really like to hear from him... whenever I'm stressed or down or overwhelmed, I find myself saying "ohh, I just need to get a letter," because it makes everything better.
Sigh. Well, I'm living and loving and waiting as always.