The Lost Art of Letter Writing

We, as Ranger School wives, girlfriends and fiances, are intimately acquainted with a tradition long out of practice - the art of writing love letters.  At this vantage point of Day 54 (36 to go! Hooah!) synthesizing all I would share about day-to-day life, our hopes and dreams, and how much I miss my other-half into a peppy little letter of encouragement has gotten quite natural.  But for me, it’s been a learning experience. 

After about two weeks without a response I began to feel as though I were writing into a void and I wondered if M did receive my letters, or if he was even alert enough to read them.  Let's be real here, it's hard to write "I love you! Stay strong!" a thousand and one different ways. 

Needless to say, as his only contact with the outside world, those letters and cards are far more important than I realized.  So I want to add a little letter writing, and specifically “love letter,” inspiration as well as come up with a bit of a letter writing resource for those with husbands just starting Ranger School. 

Inspiration! 

I came across this amazing movement the other day: "the world needs more love letters."  I cannot possibly explain it better than the site's creator, Hanna Brencher said herself: 

I’ve discovered that no matter how tough we act, we all still need a love letter from time to time. That even in a world crammed tight into 140 characters and constant status updates, there is a still a great craving for the handwritten note. But most of all, I learned with certainty that the world needs far more than just my own love letters.

Her site is a recipe for love-lettering, and when my creativity began to wane, this guide to The Art of love lettering revived it in a heartbeat! 

I’ve heard some really great ideas over the last month, like sending funny pick-up lines (was that you, Ashley?) and of course, sending the upcoming weather report, news articles, and jokes (right on, Courtney!)  Please contribute your brilliant ideas! Add an idea in the comments and I’ll update the list, to your credit of course. :)  Those of you who've been through deployments, I'm sure you're pro's at this!  What got you through it?  How did you stay positive in your communication?

I’ll try to backtrack a bit and make this list a resource for creative Ranger School letter writing: 

• Addresses for each phase 
• At the beginning of Ranger School when you don't know your guy's Company or Roster number, just put the class date (like Class 1-13) in and the letter should get to him. 
• Gum: a stick or two of gum in each letter is usually allowed.  Some RI's may take it away, but to date I haven't heard of anyone getting in trouble for receiving a few sticks of gum in their letters. 
• In the last bundle of letters I sent a feast: Spearmint ("Freshen up smelly!"), Mystery 5 (because life is a mystery as a Ranger Student), ("You're sweet as") Apple Pie, and good old Mint Chocolate Chip.  Carried away? Perhaps.   
• Send Seasonal Cards 
• Raid your mother's stash of old greeting cards.  
• Is this normal?  My mom had a huge stack of cards.  Soo funny!  She pulled out a graduation card, and as I was saying some snarky remark about how that must have been one she forgot to give me when I graduated high school 5 years ago, she said "hmm. I think this was for a French Horn student" (when i was 3 yrs old!) Trumped.   Some of her 20 yr old cards are tacky as heck but M will certainly get a laugh. 
• Perfume
• Seal with a kiss
• Sports Recaps & Scores
• Photos
• Laminate a wallet size photo or photos for wet & soggy Florida Phase
• Print photos of fun memories together as a happy distraction
• Isn't there some way to send a photo from your phone as a postcard? Sounds super relevant :) 
• Number your letters 
• So your guy can sort them out if/when they get delivered out of order or all at once
• I'm totally not organized enough to do this consistently....but it makes sense!
• Dream together. 
• For us, it helps to write about our future and all that it may hold.  Our next PCS, trips we'd like to take, sitting by the fireplace at Christmas together...whatever it takes. 
• 
  
• 
  
• 
  
• {your advice here}

{As my Mom so helpfully pointed out, it's a little hard to comment on blogger. Just click on the title of the post and a happy little comment box will appear below!  I also just added a subscribe button, so if you'd like to stay in the loop and get notified when we have new posts, check that out!}

Read More

Ranger On

Hi Friends!

How are y'all hanging in there?
For those of us with guys in class 11-12, we've only got 23 days until the first graduation week pass! Yeah!!!

Sorry to be so absent lately, but we've had one hellofa week.  In short, my dad-in-law had a medical emergency, in fact, his heart completely stopped, and we had some tough choices to make in regards to Ranger School.  I'm not usually keen on divulging personal details like this, but if my mother-in-law herself wasn't a retired Army Captain with an older son just out of the military, I'm not sure that I would have had any clue what to do.  

In the midst of all this, I've had some time on my hands.
This is a card I drew for my hubby/superhero; our last name begins with S.

For the record, my dad-in-law made it through and is making a remarkably great recovery, but when M's mother called last week, she shocked me with the news that his dad was in critical condition and wasn't expected to make it through the night.  His heart had actually stopped beating several hours earlier, and it took them an hour and a half to find a pulse and bring him back (!!!) but she waited to call and potentially pull M out of Ranger School until every doctor and nurse there confirmed that his sons needed to come NOW.

At a previous FRG event, a senior spouse mentioned that she asks her husband some critical questions before every deployment, like if anyone is sick, do you want to know?  If anyone is dying do you want to know?  Will you want to leave?  As impossible as it might be to answer that, it's good to ask, apparently.  I wish we had discussed it earlier, but I simply couldn't keep that information from him. 

So in case of any situation like this that may require emergency leave 
(when your soldier's deployed or otherwise off the grid, like in Ranger School) 
contact the American Red Cross:
(877) 272-7337
http://www.redcross.org/find-help/military-families/emergency-communication-services

Be sure to have the Hospital name & phone number, and ask family to give the nurses permission to release information to the Red Cross.  The Red Cross representatives were beyond helpful, kind, and compassionate.  I cannot thank them enough!  

In my case, I thought I knew my husband better than anyone until they asked questions like if he may need cadre support or to receive the message from a chaplain since it would come as a shock...to which I had to answer, maybe cadre support, but in that state of sleep deprivation he might punch the chaplain...

To make a long story short, M decided to stay in Ranger School (his Dad's wishes) and finish strong with the extra motivation. He asked that I go in his place and be there for his family, so I unpacked the bags I'd so hastily thrown together for both of us, threw together clothes for a wedding and a funeral, an AMAZING friend drove me to the Atlanta airport last minute, (Shannon, you're a lifesaver!!!) and I hopped the first plane I could get on back home.  

His dad shocked us all again by pulling through, then coming off the breathing machines  (please excuse my medical ineptitude) in a matter of days rather than weeks, and then getting up and walking about in less than a week!  He's not much of a fan of hospitals...or rehabilitation facilities (I would want to get the hell out of there too) and today I actually visited him at home!  Walking around! Climbing stairs!  You'd never know his heart's been there and back again a few times this week.  

M's been through the ringer dealing with all this while at Ranger School, especially the uncertainty of thinking his dad had passed for a whole day, but cadre has been really fantastic about allowing him to call intermittently for updates and even talk to his dad for about 15 minutes last night.  For those of you who saw my vague fb updates or heard the news, thanks so much for your thoughts and prayers!  I truly believe that made all the difference in his dad's recovery and M's peace of mind to Ranger on!  

Read More

Ranger School Breakdown!

Hey all! Just one more quick post -- I'm hearing that some of y'all are getting letters from your man! That's so great!!! Any correspondence is a lifesaver, isn't it? Makes the whole week better.

However, I did read somewhere that some RI's hold back mail from some Ranger candidates (and of course now that I'm looking for it, I can't find it to link up). I'm not sure if this is true, or false, or exaggerated, but I imagine if it is true, it's to make the guy feel isolated, unloved, discouraged. He may even write "why aren't you writing me?" in his letters. If you were expecting support from him, and it appeared he didn't care, wouldn't you feel the same way?

Don't freak out. Snail mail will get him the freakout five days later, or longer, and there will be a huge cross in communications. Calmly write that you're writing him daily (or however often you're sending out letters), and that you hope they are delivered soon... then go on with your message.

Secondly, something I thought I'd post:

Postcards from Vistaprint! I created these as he was leaving, and received them in the mail a few business days after he left. I then addressed one to me, one to his family, and stamped them. This way, if he has no time whatsoever to sit down and write a letter (and I hope he doesn't because he's choosing sleep over writing), then he can at least check the boxes and write a quick note.

I think after shipping and handling, and buying additional envelopes (something I'd probably leave out next order), the whole thing cost me $17. Plus, I made them sort of generic, so he can use them after Ranger School, maybe for Air Assault or Pathfinder or whatever he tries to do next.


Oh, and the blog I was reading from my first post yesterday can be found here. Be warned though.... It's gripping.

Read More