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Virtual Reality and PTSD – DoD Roundtable
Our combat veterans see things with a different shade of glasses! Their survival instincts and experiences have highly toned their ability to react when facing combat situations. These same experiences and instincts are embedded into their brains upon their return from the combat arena and would surprise many Americans with little contact with the military or their families. These responses can lead to PTSD (post traumatic stress syndrome) and the symptoms of heightened heart rates, high levels of awareness of surroundings, sweat, anxiety, fear of crowds, strong emotions and many others. Seeing or feeling circumstances similar to combat threats such as a pile of garbage along a road (IED location)…
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Winter Weather Driving
Brrrr … It is cold out across the great Midwest. It is winter after all and inclement weather is to be expected! Today my family will be packing up and driving several hours to meet the two newest members of our family: Twins! a beautiful niece and nephew. But with that comes a 5+ hour drive, leaving lots of room for a bumpy ride. What do you pack in your car in case of emergency during inclement weather and possible time stuck in the car on the side of the road? On my to to-pack-in-case-of-emergency is: Blankets Hats, gloves, jackets Some candles and a lighter. (I asked this question on…
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Coming Back After Being on the Bench for a Bit
Today is a big day for me and the rest of the team for MilitaryAvenue! I am able to return from a short time away due to medical issues. I seriously missed my communication with you our friends on MilitaryAvenue, whether on the site, Facebook or twitter! After being in top health for so many years of flying I never considered the possibility and impact of multiple surgeries, long hospital stays and pain medications. Although, the pain meds have created some great moments of humor for the family, friends and me! Always trying to find a bright spot from a bad thing can be a challenge and I use humor…
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New Car Shopping
Well we did it.We took the plunge.Our Mazda 5 was a great “mini-mini van”. It held four of us very comfortably and when there were five of us it still did the job! (It can hold up to six but with the back row not stowed there is NO trunk space.) The thought of fitting six of us (with BabyBoy on the way next month) just kind of made us chuckle and cringe in the same moment so we knew we needed to find something a bit bigger then our mini-mini van. I did some research. Figured out exactly what I wanted and we headed to the dealership. I drove it. I loved it. I…
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Women to Serve in the Silent Service (Navy Submarines Preparing for Female Sailors) – DoD Roundtable
What a great Roundtable discussion! Rear Adm. Barry Bruner, Commander Submarine Group Ten and lead for the Task Force for Women in Submarines gave the Roundtable details on the current plan to place female officers aboard the Navy’s submarines! Training will start this summer! The Admiral answered questions and explained the Navy’s needs to expand the nuclear career pool by inviting women to pursue submarine careers. Obviously, placing women in submarines is controversial and the questions touched on those issues but the admiral addressed each one fairly and explained the needs of the Navy were driving the requirement. According to the admiral, the number of males receiving technical degrees in…
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“A Little Bit of Hope, Help…” The Engineers in Haiti – DoD Roundtable
“A Little Bit of Hope, Help” … is how US Navy CAPT James Wink, the chief engineer for Joint Task Force-Haiti responded to a question on how the Haitian people are responding to their crisis and what they needed. The resilience of the Haitians according to the Captain is amazing! I have heard this comment repeatedly during other interviews with those involved in the humanitarian assistance efforts since the earthquake on January 12th. I was able to interview CAPT Wink this morning during a Department of Defense Bloggers Roundtable. He had some great facts but his description of a young boy, his own child’s age, sitting on the street, seeing…
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Aggressive Drivers really get my goat …
I just got home from a great weekend at my brother’s house. He, his bride and his one-year old daughter live about 4 ½ hours away. It is a long drive but very doable; and in all actuality very close compared to how close we lived to family when I was growing up. But as I was making our home, hubs reading a book in the passenger seat, boys all keeping themselves entertained in the back I got flashed for the THIRD time (and I’m talking the headlight variety of flashing, just to be clear). NOW you might think, “Leanne, you shouldn’t be hanging out in the left hand lane.”…
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Angels Amongst Us …
… or just some really wonderful people. It was a long weekend. The snow started Friday night. Hubs had National Guard duty Saturday and Sunday. He needed to be at the armory at 8am. Since he is about two and a half hours from his destination on a clear-roads-type-of-day he set his alarm for 4am hoping that would give him enough time to drive down even with all of the snow that was falling. He wasn’t counting on the five foot drift up against our garage. The fact that it took him over 30 minutes to just get out of our driveway and on to the snow-covered roads of our development had me worried. I knew he had…
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Peach Oatmeal Muffins
We are getting ready to go on a road trip. Dale likes to leave at 0 Dark Hundred. Earlier if he could… sigh. Driving out of our area we’ll see lots of deer (aghhh must be alert!), stars and a few farmers in the fields, but not a lot of McD’s, BK’s or anywhere that even the smell of coffee is available. So, for the first hour I pack 2 muffins and 2 travel mug of java. Have to have all the help I can to keep the eye lids UP! Last year, our farmer’s market had multiple peach booths. I bought multiple pecks of peaches. None went to waste.…
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Road Trip Tunes – Military Family Life Question of the Week
There is something about a road trip and the music you listen to while driving across country. For me, it started as making mix-cassette tapes, moved onto making mix-cds over the years & now am making music-lists for my mp3 player specific to the trip we are taking. Music keeps you awake, keeps your mind moving, sets your heart & body on fire and your feet tapping. Years ago my family PCSed from northern-Virginia to Kirtland AFB, New Mexico. I was in college in Pennsylvania so they “swung by” to give kisses and hugs before making the long journey. I made them one of my favorite mix-tapes ever as a…
