Bravery from the Home Front: Top 50 Blogs for Army Wives (or Spouses)

Doc in the Box was just listed as Number 27 on the list of helpful blogs for military wives or spouses, some good info here.

Master Sergeant Kenneth Earl Maddux, Retired

My first obituary with my wife as the editor..

He was born July 9th, 1922 in Watsonville, CA, died February 16th, 2011 at 88 years old.

Kenneth joined the Marines on September 10th 1942, and following bootcamp, was assigned to 5851 Seacoast Artillery Battery on Eastern Island where he served in the fire Control section for 18 months. Upon returning to the states, he married his fiancée and high school sweetheart, Nita Pavan. In 1945, he was honorably discharged and moved back to San Jose where he worked at J.C. Penneys. In 1950, the Korean War started and he joined the Marine Reserves, 12th Amtrac Battalion. Just four days later, his unit was activated and he went to Camp Pendleton for training. Kenneth was later shipped off to Kobe, Japan then Inchon, Korea.

He returned to the states in 1951, was stationed in Alameda, CA and was promoted to Staff Sergeant. The following year, he attended Recruiter School and served in San Francisco as a recruiter and Public Information Officer until 1955, when he was promoted to Tech Sergeant. Following recruiting duty, he was stationed at Camp Pendleton where he was assigned to the Camp Pendleton Scout newspaper where he eventually became the Editor. Following the assignment at Camp Pendleton, he was stationed in Okinawa in 1958 where he worked for the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service until 1960. From 1960-1961 Kenneth was the Press Chief at Marine Corps Air Station El Toro, and from the years 1961-1964 he was Public Relations NCO for the 14th Marine Corps District in Hawaii. During the next two years, 1964-1966, he was the Information Chief at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point. Finally, from 1966-1967, Kenneth was the Information Chief at Camp Pendleton and from 1967 to 1968 he was the Manager, Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, Press center, Danang where he supervised a restaurant, two cocktail lounges and a 58 bed hotel. When he eventually returned stateside to his family in San Jose he had retired as a Master Sergeant.

His next career at the Keystone Coffee Company would last from 1968 to 1983. After 5 years of retirement he began his third career at Penney’s and retired once again.
Kenneth never met someone who didn’t like him and he was a natural storyteller.

During his time as a Marine, he raised a son, Jan and daughter Deborah. Kenneth is survived by his wife of 65 years, Nita Maddux, son Jan Maddux, daughter Deborah Diggins, grandson Max Maddux, granddaughters Heather Diggins Dustman and Liesa Maddux Manson and great grandchildren David and Maria Manson. He also leaves behind his brothers Dick and Bill Maddux.

A viewing will be held on Friday, February 25th from 5pm to 9pm at Oak Hill Funeral Home & Memorial Park, 300 Curtner Avenue, San Jose.

The funeral service will be held on Saturday, February 26th at 2pm in the Rose Chapel, also at Oak Hill.

Yosemite

We made a trek to Yosemite for Valentines day with the dogs and for those who haven't experienced it, I made a small video because I thought it was interesting.

Marines will be Marines

I miss being a full time Corpsman of Marines, last night I discovered Terminal Lance, which gave me a reminder of where I came from. It's a web comic, one of my former Marines, Jay, posted this clip on my Facebook wall and introduced me, thanks brother!

After spending hours just reading the comic's I started down into the story's beneath them and saying to myself, I've been there. Maximilian Uriarte is a genius in catching the details of things that are giggled at for a second then forgotten later because you think no one else will think that's funny. Good job man!

Speaking of Marines, below was made by another genius Marine catcher of details, I laughed till I choked. Instant classic!

You know your Famous when...

...Someone impersonates you on Facebook. The other day, I got a friends request from a someone who shared no friends with me there. So I did the normal thing, sent her an email asking did I know her? Took a look at her profile and saw that she had a post that said, "Jean and Sean Dustman are now friend", huh? I didn't accept her friends request! So I clicked on Sean Dustman and found my picture which was taken in the Coffee Shop at the Hotel St. Michael in Prescott AZ, I was helping a friend with some computer stuff. I didn't realize that I worked at the U.S. Army or studied at California State University, Northridge (if so, I want those credits!) Obviously this evil twin has different tastes then me, his music, blah, books, alright, I admit, I did like the Da Vinci Code and Transformers was cool but who hates the Transformers?

I put a complaint into Facebook last week using the "Report/Block This Person", then clicking on "Fake Profile" and on the draw down menu "Impersonating me or someone I know" and typing in my name. There is a new law in California that Criminalize's Online Impersonations which was really a step at taking out the cyberbullying that goes on online. Not that I feel bullied but it does bother me that someone is using my name and image to pick up on girls (all 8 of his friends are females from the Phillipines). Next thing I know, one of them is going to be coming after me for child support!

This guy doesn't seem to be defrauding anyone like in this story, but if any of my readers her get strange request from me, it probably wasn't and I'm fairly easy to get a hold of even though I haven't been blogging as much lately.

This might be the best Christmas Video ever..

Wishing you and yours an excellent holiday season! Be safe and be kind to each other out there.

Corpsman.com Telethon

My buddies over at Corpsman.com are trying to raise money to keep their site on the air. For the largest rate in the Navy, they offer everything that you need to make it in this rate, study guides, forums and the latest news. The corpsman world is a much better place with them in it and if I have any corpsman readers or supporters out there, drop by, check them out and if you can afford it, drop a couple bucks. Thanks!

Veteran's Day

I have an old friend, he's a veteran of 3 great wars that took place well before my time. He's still carrying the scars from battles that I can barely comprehend, today an old memory festered up and he had a break down and his daughter brought him to the local VA for some help. His last last war was 4 decades in the past, half of his lifetime ago yet the wounds that were left in his mind are still fresh. Two strangers came up to him to wish him happy birthday, you see, he's a Marine, one of these people was a young man who had only been in the military for 5 years, extended for that fifth year got injured and was now getting treatment at the VA. He walked with a limp and his military time was cut short, showing the visible scars of a more recent war. With a handshake, they both knew that they were brothers.

Veteran's Day is made up of ranks and files of people like these, people who have been willing to lay their lives down to protect those at home. War leaves behind many scars and costs that at the time we don't add up till later (or sometimes sooner) in life.

My friend Darrel who runs Corpsman.com writes in his latest post "In war, there are no unwounded soldiers". I might not have agreed before I started my whorl wind tours of Iraq but I've seen to much, lost too many friends and carry my own wounds. I agree, they're not much now but I wonder in 40 years, if my child will be taking me to the VA because I've had a breakdown over something that I've repressed from today?

So tomorrow, call that Veteran in your life, shake their hand, give them a hug and be thankful that they were will to stand up when the call was sounded.

Super Margot!

Our new dog Margot's favorite thing to do, fetch toys that I throw across the room and make a massive leap onto the pillows on my battered couch, to think, just last month I was thinking about getting a new one. I think I'll hold that off for a while.

Margot

My wife is going to grad school up in San Jose and she got this idea in her head that I'm too lonely down here in Lemoore by myself during the week and needed some company. So after a couple of weeks of searching around online, we went out with Gatsby (our 5 year old faithful mutt) to check out some of the selection she had found. I figured I would let Gatsby make the final choice since he's really the four footed boss around the house. We met the first two dogs on the brides list, Venus, who was a was a shy little black and white dog who had a great liking for eating cat poop (3 pieces while we met) and Margot, an Australian Cattle Dog, who was a bundle of energy just a little bit smaller the Gatsby. Gatsby and Margot got along like 2 peas in a pod so the choice was made.

Since then, they continue to get along good, it took less then a week to get her potty training back (which was better then Gatsby) but she has a real problem that I'm really trying to shake. If it's an object small enough to lift comfortably, she'll chew it up. This list includes, books (all of Sherri Tepper), wires, power supplies (one of my externals), shoes (2 sets of Vans, my killer bunny slippers and an old pair of my wifes boots), CD's, white out, medical tape and the total destruction of stuffed animals. Bitter Apple doesn't seem to work so instead of despairing, she's given me an excuse to make some lifestyle changes. My house is becoming doggy and baby proof and neater at the same time, good changes but I do miss the use of that external.

Here's the latest family picture.

Old Stomping Grounds

One thing about being in Lemoore, it makes it harder to get home. It's right at the cusp of being too far to drive and too close to fly. 9 in a half hours makes huge difference in how I schedule thing but when I finally get to the end, it makes it that much sweeter seeing the smiling faces at the end of the journey. In my elder age, I'm not the fly by the wire speeder that I was at 20, now I ponder my moves and am fearful of what tickets can do. When Google maps says something is going to take a certain amount of time to drive, its fairly close to the mark I hit.

We just got back from one of my fly by trips to Arizona, a week isn't much time when you have friends and family scattered across an entire state and considering that I do come by a couple times a year, I don't expect them to drop everything when I'm driving through their town. Never the less, our trip was packed, spent the first couple of days in Chandler staying at my uncle Larry's, he has an apartment at his hanger which he makes available to family such as I when we're in the area and we are really appreciative!

Part of my uncles collection of Things

Where we stayed

While there, got to see my oldest friend in the world, Leslie and her husband Scott. I met Leslie the summer before 6th grade and she was the coolest person on the block because she had a couple of quads and an empty field besides her house that had a track. We went out to dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings where she met my wife for the first time and seemed delighted with the company. Good people!

The next couple of days were spent hanging out with the pop, my step mom Diane , Uncle Larry, Aunt Michele and Aunt Mary and Uncle Gordo had just flown in from Australia and there was a good night of tale exchanging.

From the left, May, Gordo, Larry, Michele bride at the bottom

Bride, Dad and Diane

Next Prescott where I got to hang out with my bald but beautiful sister who was in good spirits even with the tough times she's going through.

I spent an afternoon updating her computers and setting up her audible.com account (which is my account and has entirely too much money sunk into it). I went over to my second oldest friend Jason's house and passed on my old 30 gig Zune (I had 4 Zunes but only room for 3 on my account). He's a music freak and had yet to own an MP3 player, me giving him the Zune was my coin tossed into the pool of karma. I couldn't think of anybody who would have got better use out of it then him and I just installed a new battery. Hmm, maybe I need to blog about my love of Luddites sometime soon.

While hanging out with my mom, her neighbor came by with a laptop that was made in 2000 that was new still in it's plastic that he picked up at some auction that he wanted to use to track his different jobs and wanted me to make it do that for him. Hmm, a spreadsheet would probably be albe to do that. Excel was out of the question because it cost money so I figured I would plug it into my sisters high speed internet and update everything and find something free. Alas, I get to my sisters and find the laptop only had a phone line. So I went online with my computer, found a great free spreadsheep program called Gnumeric, read the directions and used a little bit of computer savvy and downloaded the program to a disk and installed it on the dinosaur and placed a different file with the names for each month of the year on the desktop, it would track the job, with names, supplies, add the money and miles traveled at the end of the month and his accountant should be happy.

Sunday, I introduced my favorite city girl to some light climbing at the Dells with Larry and Jennifer. At first it was a little spotty, it's hard to introduce someone who's walked of flat ground 99.9 percent of their life to clambering over rocks, by the time we left, she was getting her footing. Both of us being not used to that sort of exercise felt it the next day.

The above picture was taken using the Canon setting Color Accent

Me and Larry

Larry and Jennifer

Finally back to work on Tuesday, it's hard to cram all of the people that I wanted to see in just a week. Hopefully next time I can get a little more time out there.

112th Corpsman Ball NAS Lemoore

What happens when the color guard isn't guarding their weapons:)

We had a great time

Some of my Lemoore Crew, HM1 Lochowicz, Me, HM3 Kirkeeng, HM2 Mattson, HM3 Gordon.

Key West

I’m out in Key West for a couple of weeks of training, well my unit is training and I’m providing whatever medical coverage they need and perhaps fishing when I get a chance. This is my first time to the Keys and on first impression, it reminds me of Guam, white buildings, palm trees everywhere and the humidly. Medically, so far, all I’ve had to take care of are sunburns and some other minor ailments. It feels like I’ve fallen into some strange time warp were everyone is running around in flip flops and get off at 3. Not us but the rest of the island.

Downtown is sort of a cleaner mini Bourbon St, except there are a lot more string bikini’s and bikers both on bikes and motorcycles. Key West might be the best designed bicycle city I’ve ever been in, just about every rode has a bike path besides it, often abnormally huge bike paths so people can ride side by side. Sitting down on the side of Duval St. It was strange seeing mini parades of bikes with people in costume riding by playing music. Some odd ducks out here not that I mind, there are days when I’m sort of one. Everyone seemed laid back, it must be the heat telling the lizard part of the brain that it was alright to hang out and chill on that rock over there. Like Bourbon St, there were come clear lines where the gay and straight bars are, not that the customers were paying attention to such lines. Overall, I give this place top notches for places to people watch.

The military bases are scattered to the winds, one base is the airfield, another has the clinic, one the exchange and another, the billeting office, I couldn’t imagine trying to be stationed here without a car. Our unit has duty vans that run on a loose schedule with phone numbers posted of the drivers but it’s still not that easy getting around.

Much of my off work time has been taken up with fishing, something that I don’t get to do much in Lemoore since I spend much of my weekends hanging out with the wife and she’s definitely not the hunter/gather type. While she likes exploring, she likes to leave the wildlife where they’re supposed to be, in the wild. Myself, I grew up poor and my mom took us fishing every weekend and if I would have thought about it, would have realized that fishing was another source of food for the family. I just enjoyed doing it. Send me to a place with water and lots of fish, I’ll find a way to put a pole in the water.

Last weekend, I got myself and some of my fellow sailors on a liberty program. The military partially sponsors single sailors and geographical bachelors E-6 to go out have fun, for a nominal fee, if you meet those criteria, you can get out on a trip. I saw on a calendar that there was a deep sea fishing trip going out last weekend for 20 bucks, I passed the word, gathered the names, money and arranged transportation and off we went. At the end of the day, I was worn out. Good times.

After eating fish at least once a day for the past week and a half, I would have never thought it possible but I might be reaching the limit of how much fish I can handle. In closing, I’m looking forward to seeing my wife’s florescent locks and breathing dry air, I’m looking forward to showing this off to my wife someday soon.

Drink Water and Breathe

If you would have told me a couple of years ago that my luddite little sister Sarah would have stepped in the world of blogging. I wouldn’t have believed you. But she has, in some part of her mind, like me, she wants to leave a mark on the world in case something happens. I know the feeling, it’s the same feeling I had before heading out into a far distant and scary war zone. In case I died, I wanted to leave a record of me behind so I wouldn’t be forgotten.

Now she is going into her personal war zone, she went in last month to get an excisional biopsy (which means they take out all of whatever it is they found) on a mass in her right breast and when she woke, the doctor told her in that gentile voice they use to say such things, that she had cancer. On April Fools day she drove down to Phoenix for a follow up and learned at she had stage II or III ductal carcinoma which is the most common kind of breast cancer. Weeks pass and more tests show that it has moved into some lymph nodes and there’s something on one of her ovaries.

Suddenly, she is scheduled for surgery and tonight, she’s alone in a hospital room taking blood thinning medicines and she’ll be under the knife tomorrow where that kind sounding M.D. is going to put her on the chopping block and core her like an apple in hopes of getting that alien presence out of her body.

Just yesterday she turned 36 and it seems like it was just yesterday when I was letting her drive my car for the first time and the day before that when we used to sneak out of the house together. I love you sis and we are all pulling for you to pull through this, I’m here for you as I have always been but this time, don’t crash the car.

If you want to read her blog, it's at Drink Water and Breathe