Wall Street Journal: Happy Hanukkah to Marines and Marines Still Deployed on Christmas

The Wall Street Journal had two poignant stories this week about Marines.

The first one, on December 20th, titled "Happy Hanukkah, Marines! Jewish Leathernecks Light the Way," by William McGurn begins:

When Jews begin their Hanukkah celebrations this week, they will commemorate a 2,200-year old revolt led by Judah Maccabee against a Greek empire attempting to crush the Jewish faith. For some, the holiday holds an added resonance, linking their military service to one of the greatest Jewish warriors of all time.

These are the Jews of the United States Marine Corps.

In the popular mind, a Jewish Marine may sound exotic. In fact, Jews have their own chapters in the history of the Corps. In his book "Semper Chai!" Howard J. Leavitt explains the compatibility with a refreshing lack of nuance: "[M]any Jews were—and are—Marines, and the basic and lofty precepts and spiritual underpinnings of the United States, the U.S. Marine Corps and Judaism are one and the same, without any differences or conflict."

The second article, on December 24th, titled "Military Families Soldier On: Christmas Homecomings From Iraq Touch a Nerve for Kin of Troops in Afghanistan," by Tamara Audi begins:

This Christmas, Donna Jones is doing her best to avoid heartwarming scenes of military homecomings. It's not easy: Thousands of troops are reuniting with their families in a blur of on-camera kisses, and she works on a military base.

"There are all these holiday homecomings, and I'm happy that people get to see their loved ones. I just can't watch," Mrs. Jones said. "It hurts when the situation is: Your Marine isn't coming home."

Mrs. Jones's husband, Marine Maj. William Jones, is still deployed in Afghanistan—along with 91,000 other U.S. troops.

Thousands of service members have come home from Iraq, with the last U.S. troops exiting from the country in mid-December. But tens of thousands are still deployed elsewhere, many on the front lines in Afghanistan.

That means many families are facing a holiday season with a loved one still in a combat zone. As the nation celebrates the holiday homecomings, some fear these family members are being forgotten in the frenzy.

The second article also includes these statistics:

2.3 million -- Combined total of U.S. service members deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan

164,000 -- Peak number of troops based in Iraq, reached in 2007

91,000 -- Troops remaining in Afghanistan

The one thing we back home can do is grant the wish of a military spouse reported in the second article:

We can acknowledge this holiday season that U.S. troops -- men and women -- are still in harm's way serving our country. And we can be grateful for their service and sacrifice as well as the service and sacrifice of their families.

Read the entire "Happy Hanukkah, Marines!" story now.

Read the entire "Military Families Soldier On" story now.
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Phyllis Zimbler Miller is the author of the novel MRS. LIEUTENANT and the co-author of the eBook technothriller LT. COMMANDER MOLLIE SANDERS. Phyllis is the co-founder of the marketing consulting company Miller Mosaic LLC, which works with clients to attract more business. Read her posts at the company's social media marketing blog.

Coping With Combat Stress: Book Review and WSJ Article

Theodore Knell’s book “From the Corners of a Wounded Mind” is a moving and powerful memoir of a soldier’s life.

The power of Knell’s story comes from what he writes about as well as by including his own poetry as part of his reflections. You can read one of his poems in the guest post he did – “Ex-British Special Forces Soldier Talks About His Experiences and His New Nonfiction Book”

This one poem doesn’t do justice to the amazing ability Knell has to capture the essence of his years as a soldier, including the effect of combat on soldiers.

His book concludes:

I hope that the next time you see a serviceman or woman, or the old man sitting on the homeless shelter steps, proudly brandishing a chest full of medals, you will pause for a moment and try to look beyond that confident, sometimes brash, some would even say arrogant exterior, to the person that lies within. A person who has worked hard, seen things that none of us should ever see, and in some cases suffered horrific injuries without complaint, someone who will continue to suffer in some way, either physically or mentally, but mostly in silence for the rest of their lives.

Only a few hours after reading the ending of Knell’s book, I read the Wall Street Journal April 2nd front-page article “Rx for Combat Stress: Comradeship” by Michael M. Phillips:

GARMSIR, Afghanistan—The morning after Chad Wade died, nobody wanted to walk point.

The Marines in Cpl. Wade's squad no longer had to imagine what would happen if they stepped on a buried bomb. Now they had seen it, and the fresh memory of their friend's shattered legs froze them in place.

When their squad leader, Sgt. Albert Tippett, lined them up for their next patrol, no one would pick up the metal detector used by the point man to clear a path through the mines.

The article goes on to explain “the new approach to combat stress that the Marine Corps wants to institutionalize.”

This new approach appears to be an antidote to what Knell describes so powerfully in his book – the reluctance of soldiers to talk about their horrifying experiences.

Read the entire Wall Street Journal article now. Then read Knell’s paperback book on Amazon or the Kindle version.

And for information on PTSD and its symptoms, see www.insupportofourtroops.com/ptsd-info/

March 22nd tweet on Twitter from @VeteranJournal: Suicide hotline available for deployed soldiers: http://ht.ly/4jJve

CBS News Reports on Wounded Marine Fighting to Get Medical Care

Read this article by CBS News national security correspondent David Martin on Marine Casey Owens, who lost both his legs in Iraq in 2004 and suffered brain injury.

Be sure to also read the comments on the article.

Read this now!

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Phyllis Zimbler Miller is the author of the novel MRS. LIEUTENANT and the co-author of the Jewish holiday book SEASONS FOR CELEBRATION. She also writes articles as a National Internet Business Examiner and she is the co-host of the BlogTalkRadio show Your Military Life.

Phyllis' company has launched the monthly program WeTeachWebMarketing.com to help people promote their brand, book or business online. Her company also does Twitter tutoring -- see TeachMetoTweetNow.com

Wall Street Journal Article About Marines in Afghan Ghost Town: What Is This Article About?

The May 23-24 article “Stalemate” by Michael M. Phillips about the abandoned village Now Zad in Afghanistan was promoted this way:

A single company of U.S. Marines is slugging it out with the Taliban in Afghanistan’s toughest ghost town. The battle shows how limited troop numbers have hurt the war—and why the U.S. is changing its strategy.

I read the article carefully, then had my husband read the article carefully. Both of us were perplexed. We didn’t understand the U.S. military strategy at Now Zad – it really makes little sense.

Both of us were left with the impression that The Wall Street Journal ran this story for this exact reason: To beam a spotlight on the situation at Now Zad and get someone high up in U.S. military circles to take note and decide on a military strategy that makes more sense.

Read The Wall Street Journal article now on the Marines at Now Zad and then leave a comment if you have an opinion on what the article is really about.
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Phyllis Zimbler Miller is the author of MRS. LIEUTENANT: A SHARON GOLD NOVEL and the co-author of the Jewish holiday book SEASONS FOR CELEBRATION. She also blogs as a National Internet Business Examiner and at Operation Support Jews in the Military and Fiction Marketing, and she is the co-host of the BlogTalkRadio show Your Military Life.

Her company Miller Mosaic LLC builds call-to-action websites that get people to say yes to your brand, book or business. Her newest project is the book/website project In Support of Our Troops.

Military Recruiting Today

Below is a guest post from weekly contributor Andrew Lubin. Read more of his writing at TheMilitaryObserver-OnPoint.com.

Lost in the noise of the football games this weekend was an announcement that the Marine Corps is three (3 !!) years ahead of its recruiting schedule.

When President Bush announced “the Surge” two years ago, he also ordered the four services to increase their manpower, with the Marine Corps growing from 177,000. The Pentagon estimated that it would take five years to do so, at an unheard of rate of finding 5,000 recruits annually.

The Army (told to increase their size by 65,000) and other services were also tasked to increase, but warned gloomily that “wartime conditions” would make meeting even their old recruiting standards impossible.

Perhaps it’s not the “wartime conditions” that makes young American men and women reluctant to join the other services, but what those services offer?

Look at the recruiting advertisements on television. When was the last time you even saw a Navy or Air Force advertisement? Only recently did the Army even drop its “an Army of one” campaign. When I’m embedded, the last thing I want to be out there is alone…maybe our young 17-18 year olds feel the same?

And accepting felons? And forget a high school diploma or even a G.E.D. Now the Army will take kids without even a GED – referring to these dropouts as having an “alternative education.” Who’d want to go out into combat with them?

All four services offer the same bonus plans, the same pay scales. Yet the Marine Corps gets the dirty jobs (winning Anbar Province) as Air Force deployments only last three months, and Marine recruiting still sets records monthly.

Let’s look at the Marine Corps advertisements. Over the years they don’t change. It’s “Honor – Courage – Commitment” – if you’re good enough to be accepted. Forget the Army promising to teach you how to drive a truck, or the Navy teaching you repair skills. Marine ads show old photos of Iwo Jima, Chosin Reservoir, and Vietnam. Now here is something over which a young person can be proud.

And maybe it’s the message for which these young men and women are searching. Life is too easy these days – what does one do to differentiate himself/herself from the boring pack?

The Marine Corps has an answer: stretch yourself … become a part of something larger and more important than yourself … be part of a tradition of fierce excellence that earns you worldwide respect for the rest of your life.

Like Brigadier General Robert Milstead, head of Marine Corps Recruiting Command, said this weekend: “Kids don’t join the Marines because they’re tired of flipping burgers. They join because they want to be Marines.”

Well done, and Semper Fi.

Help the Marines Provide Toys for Tots

I’m pleased to announce that Andrew Lubin is now a weekly contributor to this blog, and we’re aiming for Tuesday as his regular slot.

As I noted for his two previous guest posts, Andrew is the author of the award-winning book “Charlie Battery; A Marine Artillery Unit in Iraq”, and as an embedded journalist has spent 12 of the last 30 months in Iraq, Afghanistan, GTMO, and Beirut writing on our Marines and soldiers. You can learn more about him from his website.

2003 -- Reader’s Digest names Marine Corps Toys for Tots Foundation America's "Best Children’s Charity"

There are few charities that have accomplished as much as Toys for Tots, and it all started with a Raggedy Ann doll in 1947 Los Angeles.

Diane Hendricks handcrafted the doll and asked her husband Bill to give it to an organization delivering Christmas toys to needy children. To Diane and Bill’s surprise, there was no such group. So after Diane informed Bill that he needed to start one … Major Bill Hendricks, US Marine Corps Reserves, enlisted his fellow reservists. They collected and distributed 5,000 toys that year.

The program was so successful that the Marine Corps promptly adopted Toys for Tots and in 1948 made it a national program. The reservists ran their early campaigns in every city or town in America that had a Marine Reserve Center with the announced goal to “bring the joy of Christmas to America's needy children.”

While Major Hendricks was a Marine reservist on weekends, his day job was that of director of public relations for Warner Brothers Studio, and he used his Warner Brother connections to advance the Toys for Tots program.

In 1948 Walt Disney himself designed the logo (still used today), along with the poster used in the initial national campaign, and later Nat "King" Cole, Peggy Lee, and Vic Damone recorded the Toys for Tots theme.

The Hollywood connections continued, with Frank Sinatra, Bob Hope, John Wayne, Tim Allen, Kenny Rogers, Clint Eastwood, and Billy Ray Cyrus as only a few of the long list of celebrities who have given their time and talent to promote Toys for Tots since 1948.

Organized as a 501(C)(3) tax-deductible public charity, thousands of America’s corporations and dozens of thousands of individuals donate money, toys, and time annually. First Lady Nancy Reagan served as the national spokesperson in 1983, as did First Lady Barbara Bush in 1992.

Even in 1990, as Marine reservists were being mobilized for Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm, Hollywood and corporate America stepped in to assist. Merv Griffin’s popular “Wheel of Fortune” TV show teamed with Pizza Hut for a three-week promotion of Toys for Tots that raised in excess of $3 million – and the deploying Marines still distributed 7.9 million toys.

The number of toys donated is staggering, as is the number of children who receive them:
• 1995: 8.1 million toys collected and distributed to 4.2 million children
• 1997: 10 million toys distributed to 4.7 million children
• 1999: 13.7 million toys for 5.9 million children
• 2000: 15.8 million toys for 6.3 million children
• 2003: 15.1 million toys for 6.6 million children
• 2004: 19 million toys for 7.5 million children
• 2006: 19.2 million toys for 7.6 million children

And remembering that the Marine reservists were called up in 2001 to fight in Afghanistan and later Iraq, all of this has been accomplished with 35% of the reservists deployed.

These are the most difficult economic times in memory – which makes it even more difficult to be a child. Take a few minutes this week and donate a wrapped new toy to your local Toys for Tots barrel. Or even better; visit ToysforTots.org and donate $ 20-30 via Paypal.

Keep faith with the Marines fighting overseas; it’s the right thing to do.

Semper Fi

Read my PZ the Do-Gooder Scrooge blog post about the USO and “coming home.”

Read Nancy Miller’s blog post about all the guests interviewed to date on our new BlogTalkRadio show Your Military Life.

Married to the Military – Part II

The following is the second and concluding part of Summer Watson’s guest post about being a military spouse today.

I felt like I was back in the 1950s, where I should have been wearing the dress, pearls (oh yea, I did wear pearls), and the high heels with dinner ready for my husband each evening. Many of the women on the island felt the same way.

Very few of us worked but were involved with the Marine Officers’ Spouses Club. We volunteered for various functions, we played a lot of Bunco, and tried to fill our time with various other things like tennis and lunch. This was nice but it was not overly fulfilling for me.

The second year of our tour in Okinawa the orders came and my husband was going to be sent to Iraq. This was almost too much for me to handle. I thought, “How could this be? I am in a foreign country; I can’t just pick-up and move home.”

My husband was gone for two-three months of training and was in Iraq for seven. I did not want to be in Okinawa without my spouse. I was angry, afraid (not only for myself but more so for my husband). I had to be strong for him but I felt so alone.

He left and I found my way. I pulled from that semi-forgotten independence that was stripped from me when I married a Marine. I say “stripped from me” because I had to somewhat conform and understand the military culture to continue to have a loving relationship with my spouse.

The military culture still idealizes the values of the ‘50s, meaning relationships are more traditional with such expectations like dinner on the table every night, being the supportive stay-home “wife,” and putting your life and many of your own goals aside for the success of your husband’s military career. Remember, “if the military wanted your spouse to have a wife, it would have issued him one.” I was not standard issue but I was willing to give up a lot of what I considered my natural self for the love of a terrific human being!

I pulled myself together, stayed in Okinawa with my dog, got involved, and tried to support my friends. Many of my friends, who were also married to a Marine, were left on the island while their spouse was either in Iraq or Afghanistan. One example of this crazy situation was during my birthday lunch. I was out with 11 girlfriends and eight out of the bunch were without their husbands due to their husbands being deployed. It was a challenging time, a time of growth and reflection, and a time to regain some of my forgotten-self.

I felt a little less camouflaged by the military than I had in years. I may have been one of several wives with a husband at war, but I finally felt somewhat actualized by the experience. It gave me back strength that I had but had forgotten was there. I, again, had balance. I was there for my husband, and the experience helped me develop into a person who was healthier and wiser.

We are back in California. I, again, am ready to conquer some of my goals. However, I have a marriage with a phenomenal bond; I have more of an understanding of how to graciously pick my battles with this military culture; and through it all have regained a fair amount of my independence.

Additionally, I have gained some very valuable knowledge from the Okinawan people, and that is to “live in the present.” I no longer feel so camouflaged by a system I viewed as restrictive and overbearing.

Thanks, Summer, for sharing your military spouse story.

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Married to the Military – Part I

Those of you who have read MRS. LIEUTENANT know it is from the point of view of military spouses in 1970. I am often asked how the experiences of the women in the novel relate to the experiences of military spouses today. Marine spouse Summer Watson graciously provides her take on her current military spouse experience in the following two-part guest post.

I am a military spouse. I am a partner, who supports her husband in his daily life. I do not live my life based on what my husband does since I have a life that is independent of his career. I am not enmeshed with my husband nor do I try and live vicariously through him to define myself or my status. I have always been a person with an independent nature.

I met my husband during our senior year of high school. I went to UC Berkeley for my B.A. degree. I went off to Connecticut to study law and a year later returned and married my high school sweetheart. He joined the Marine Corps and my life changed.

I had dated military men while in high school, but it was nothing like being married to the military. The military is not just a job but a lifestyle; a unique sub-culture that turned my world in many different directions. I was not only married but I had a new parent – the Marine Corps.

The Corps had my husband under its spell, and I was trying my best to individuate him from this unhealthy paradigm but he wasn’t having any of it!

My growth within this culture was difficult. My husband joined the military at 24 years old, where young men and women join at an early age. So I was living, shopping… amongst a crowd of babes. I felt like I had more experience in life and was in a situation where several of the people I was around never went to college or lived away from their family-homes – this was their college experience but with a very strict parent!

As time went on, I found my escape in school. I went on to get a master’s in human services with a specialization in community counseling and then onto a Ph.D. in clinical psychology. I yearned for educational stimulation. I felt restricted and confined in the military culture that I lived.

Eventually I had a chat with my husband and explained that he should research some of the officer programs. He did and is now a Chief Warrant Officer 2. He got his B.A. while in the Marine Corps and he has always done very well within this system.

About three years ago we got transferred to Okinawa, Japan. This was a significant transition for me. I had just graduated with my doctoral degree and was ready to move on professionally and then we got our orders. We had to move and it would be a three-year tour in Okinawa.

We got to Okinawa and I was unable to get a job on any of the bases and I was struggling. I had worked, since 15 years old. I did not know what to do with myself. Furthermore, whenever I went for a job, I always nailed the interview and got the job I wanted. Well, this was not the case in Okinawa. You actually had to know someone to even get noticed. I was not given the chance. A qualified, willing individual with experience and several degrees was out of a job for three years. I volunteered, helped friends, shopped, and hosted a lot of parties.

Stay tuned for the second part of this guest post to find out what Summer Watson learned from this experience in Okinawa.

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The Pride of Americans

The “Tell-Your-Own-Story” military spouse contest sponsored by www.YourMilitary.com in connection with Lifetime TV’s Season 2 of ARMY WIVES has announced the contest winners. Their names and the winning essays can be read at www.YourMilitaryBlog.com.

Here’s the essay by Pamela B., one of the five grand prize winners, reprinted with permission from YourMilitary.com:

I have always been proud of the fact that my husband is a Marine (he joined the Corps shortly before we were married). I knew that what he did was important for our country and for the world.

However, two incidences early in his career really opened my eyes on a more personal level to the significance of Marines and all military members and their role in the lives of Americans.

After completing a marching performance at a local cultural festival in Southern California, my husband, his fellow band members, and their spouses were enjoying some treats provided by the event hosts. In mid-bite of his hotdog, a small boy approached my husband and, without saying a word, took a good look at his uniform and saluted him.

My husband hesitated only long enough to put down his food before returning the salute.

About that time, an anxious-looking woman ran up to claim her grandson. She mumbled a quick apology and was about to steer the small boy away when she saw the looks on our faces and knew that we had been moved.

Pausing, she explained that his grandfather had been a Marine and, even though the youngster was only three, his grandfather had taught him about Marines. "Now," she explained, "every time that he sees a Marine, and trust me, he knows the uniform well, he salutes."

We thanked her and her grandson, but even after all of these years, I still remember that small frame with the reverent look and the big salute.

Later that same year, during a performance at the Rose Bowl parade, my husband saw an incident that had a deep impact on him and which moved me when he shared it.

On the outside column of the unit, my husband had a clear view of the bystanders crowded along the parade route. He kept an eye out ahead to avoid any collisions with parade-goers. While scanning the audience ahead, he noticed a person in a wheelchair.

As the band got closer, the individual struggled to rise out of the chair. Two people on either side noticed what the disabled person was trying to do. Each took an arm and helped the person to his feet so that he could stand straight and tall as the Marine band and color guard passed the crowd.

These two incidents, and many others over the course of my husband's career, have given me a broader perspective, beyond my initial personal pride, of Marines and of all those that proudly serve in the armed services.

It was the actions of these two individuals that demonstrated the impact that military members make on the lives of ordinary citizens. How the uniform and those that wear it give pride, hope, and respect to Americans of all ages everywhere.

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HBO’s Mini-Series GENERATION KILL Tells of the First 40 Days of the War in Iraq

After reading the review in the July 10^th Daily Variety about HBO’S seven-part miniseries GENERATION KILL starting July 13, I really wished we got HBO so I could watch the series. (And, yes, we finally got Showtime to see SLEEPER CELL and then kept it for THE TUDORS, but I don’t think we’ll get HBO now.)

The review by Brian Lowry praised this mini-series that tells of the first 40 days in 2003 of the war in Iraq. The movie is based on Rolling Stone journalist Evan Wright’s first-person account of being embedded with Marines of the First Reconnaissance Battalion.

Lowry says: “Writers [David] Simon and [Ed] Burns (and directors Susanna White and Simon Cellan Jones) engender sympathy toward the warriors without flinching from the innocent lives taken under the ever-fluctuating ROE, or Rules of Engagement.”

Yet, it’s the sentence following the one above that gave me pause: “War fatigue has already been blamed for dwindling news coverage from Iraq and tepid box office performance by several related movies …”

I re-read this line, then circled it in the review. As I recall, during the Vietnam War there was nightly news coverage of footage from the battlefields. Now my memory may be somewhat faulty because I didn’t watch that news so as not to worry about my ROTC boyfriend/soon-to-be husband being sent to Vietnam.

Was there more coverage because, with a draft during Vietnam as opposed to an all-voluntary army now, there was more national concern about what was happening half-way around the world? Or is it because we now have so many more “channels” of entertainment – from the internet to cable television to our cell phones – that traditional news coverage seeks new topics rather than covering a years-old war?

I had a moment earlier today when I was completing a mundane task – and what flashed through my mind was, at this exact moment, a U.S. soldier could be getting killed in Iraq or Afghanistan. Regardless of dwindling news coverage from Iraq, we Americans need to remind ourselves that those men and women representing us are in harm’s way.

Also today I got an email from an Air Force wife with a book blog who wants to review MRS. LIEUTENANT. She wrote: “I can also relate to the feelings that these women in the book are having; my husband has been deployed many times and you always have that fear that something will happen.”

For those people who do have HBO, GENERATION KILL will hopefully remind people of what’s happening halfway around the world.

As for me, I’ll have to content myself with buying the book to find out what happens.

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