I was sitting in a coffee house in Sullivan, Illinois (the only coffee house for miles) and I looked down at my cell phone with SEVEN missed calls in rapid succession from Tracy.  "Hmmmm" I said "That must be important."   I called Tracy back and nearly the first words out of her mouth were "I'm PREGNANT."   Well that was interesting news.  Apparently, the relationship strengthening of the previous month had an unanticipated consequence.  As regular as clockwork, whenever God strengthens us financially, spiritually and emotionally, there is about to be another challenge thrown into the mix.   I should be expecting it by now that the "other  shoe" is always going to drop!

Tracy is 38 and I am 37, so it is not like we are too old to have more kids, but both of us had envisioned moving into the next phase of our life and that will now take some radical revision, but such is the Christian life lived in faith.  After the initial shock, I have to remember that when I look at Eleanor (another surprise), I cannot imagine not having her in our family.  We were a little bit freaked out upon news of her arrival, but it was well within the providence of God to bless us with Eleanor.   Now we will have children born in every place that we have lived:  Carbondale, Tolono and Louisville.   The strangest thing is that more than one doctor has told Tracy that she should not be able to have babies.  I look back on the first year of our marriage when Tracy was unsuccessfully trying to get pregnant with our first child together and have to laugh at the conversations that I had with Tracy trying to reassure her that one way or another, it was going to work out. 

Now we are full on into the naming game.  If,  (and I am praying for this) the baby is a boy, he will be named Dietrich Allen after Dietrich Bonhoeffer the Lutheran theologian/Nazi resistance fighter and my Father, Allen Kroencke.   A girl name, however, is up for grabs.  The current list is Charlotte, Violet, Vivian, Gwendolyn,  Greta,  Virginia, or Claire.  Any opinions or suggestions?   With three girls already, we are pulling for a boy, but I refuse to get my hopes up and be will be thankful for whatever God gives us. Its a good thing that I am not going on this deployment this week!  I am not sure Tracy would be hot on the idea of having the baby without me around!  If the timing works out, the baby will be about 2 before I am qualified for a deployment and Eleanor will be starting kindergarten.   Tracy would be able to stay at home, if she chooses, while I am deployed. 

I have just returned from attending a Family Readiness Group meeting and talked to many spouses that are just starting to feel the pain of having their soldier down range.  After we finished with all the official business we had a time to talk about what they were going through.  I was also able to share some observations with the group and try to pull together many of the comments that I heard into a common theme.  That theme is the lack of military community for National Guard Families. 

The lack of military community manifest itself in many way.  Many parents were having troubles with  school districts who have little understanding of the needs of children with deployed parents.  I would like to think that this is mostly from ignorance of the issue, but I have heard a few stories that have had more than a little malice to them as well.  I commend those school districts out there that have taken the time to understand the issue and how best to serve these children.

Many of the spouses have told me stories (including my own) of how upon stating that their soldier was deployed, found themselves defending the war to good intentioned people who were expressing sympathy by bashing the President.  There are military families that are for the war and those who are against the war, but the fact is that most of those families do not want to hear a political diatribe from people on either side of the issue.  There is an understanding in military communities that the politics of the war do not matter as much as the fact that all the families and soldiers are in this together.  The civilian government makes the decisions and the US Military follows those orders. 

Guard families do not usually begin a deployment viewing themselves as an "Army family", but most families quickly realize that they speak a different language than their civilian friends and even some of their close relatives.  It is hard to explain, but their is a real sense of connectedness between military people and military families that is not shared by the outside world.  On active duty Army, this connection is strong and quick to form, but the in Guard and Reserves in takes more work due to the fact that our Guard families are spread out among all of the communities of Illinois.  Guard families often feel alone and misunderstood. 

People  treat you different when your soldier is deployed.  They act as if you are somehow incomplete. Everyone who talked to Tracy seemed to be more interested in when "J was coming home" instead of being interested in her.  This was often accompanied by an "I will pray for you."  Guard spouses are not marking time when their soldier is gone, they are living their lives.  Continue to pray for their families,  but also take their kids out for ice cream and a movie now and again.  Go over and change the oil in their car, listen to the strange noise that it is making when you put it in reverse,  Mow their lawn,  clean out their gutters, take their son to his Cub Scout meeting and most importantly don't give them your pity. They might be having a difficult time keeping it all together, but they don't have a disease.

I said in the title that these are the challenges of being a National Guard family, not absolute road blocks.  We might have to work harder at it, but our families can seek each other out and build that community that the Active duty families already have.  We can use the Internet, the telephone and special events to get together with people who are suffering the same things that we are.  It is not to commiserate with one another, it is to support one another and be around those who understand what we are going through.  In this way our families can get a glimpse of the bigger picture and learn that their soldier (and they themselves) is part of something much bigger than themselves.  When I go into public I always receive praise from those who are proud of me and thankful for my service as a soldier, but I say that I am proud of my family and the families of all our soldiers who suffer and sacrifice right along side every one who puts on the uniform.

Let's recap...

1.  Don't make Military spouses defend their soldier's service to their country.

2.  Understand that their children have special needs during the deployment and might act up at school or act differently in general.

3.  The US Armed Forces are making sure that the soldiers have three hots, a cot, clothes on their back, a vehicle that works (and that is armored!) and a job to do.  The National Guard family might not have that kind of quality attention.

4.  The greatest support you can give a solider is the piece of mind that there is a community of friends and family that have come together to take care of their family while they are doing a dangerous job.

Supporting the troops takes more sacrifice than a putting a yellow ribbon on your car.  Our nation is at war and most people feel absolutely none of the effects of that war.  It is easy to forget about the deep sacrifices that our Military personnel are making.  

Back in July of 2006, one of the first post that I made in this blog was about my physical fitness.  At that point I was 235 lbs and I soon went to an even higher all time weight of 252 by January of 2007.  Since that shocker of a weigh-in and the decision to go back into the Army,  I have been changing my eating and exercise habits.  I have yo-yo-ed a bit in my fitness level and weight, but the trend has been downward.  As of this week I am at 210 lbs and 21% body fat and I increased my APFT (Army Physical Fitness Test) from a pathetic 142 in May to 211 at last month's test.   the real test is whether I can improve on that score without someone forcing me to get out of bed at 0430 every morning to run or do muscle failure.

There are several more considerations that I have included as part of my physical fitness routine.  First of all, I have to fit it in with the tremendous amount of school work that i have to do and the responsibilities I have to my family. Second,  and this is probably the most important, I need to create a fitness regime that will get me to a 300 PT score without killing me.   The Army is filled with guys my age that have done too many sit-ups, jumped out of too many planes and ran on too much concrete.  Now they have lingering injuries.  If I am going to be ready for the physical strain of a deployment (wearing body armor 16 hours a day in burning desert or high altitude mountain regions), and do so will in my 40's  (coming up fast),  then I am going to have to rethink the mindless pounding out of sit-ups and knee wrecking miles on the road to pass my APFT.  I have never been injury prone, but I do not want to push my luck. 

I have been looking at (and actually tried) Pilates as an exercise regime that will help me achieve my goals.  Despite many of my Army comrades saying things such as, "dude, that is kinda gay",  I think it might be a good way to improve my functional strength,  prevent injury and do it all for the long term.  I am also going to resist doing the long distance runs like marathons.  You do not have to run marathon distances to max the 2 mile run! I am only 2 minutes off my max the way it is, so I am not going to hurt myself to shatter that max by a minute or more.   I am not much of a swimmer, but that is another  low impact way to build strength and improve my cardio. I will also go back to weight lifting, but do all of my exercises on a Swiss ball with dumb-bells.  This is a hint from my XO and it will keep me from trying to go for bulk and keep me focused on functional strength.

So,  it has taken two years, but I have dropped 42 lbs.   I have an ultimate goal of 189 (so I can pass the weight limits without being taped for body composition), but for now I am going to shoot for that magic number of 199.  210 has been a giant plateau for me in the last year, so I need a special effort to bust through and then I have just 10 lbs more to reach my goal.    Chaplain school was another big wake up call for me.  As far as I have come, I have a lot more to go to be a 40 something chaplain that is deployable and can be deployed without wrecking my body.  I want to be able to retire from the Army without knee or hip replacement surgery!

I was studying Sunday afternoon when I noticed that the wind was picking up a bit.  I checked weather.com and saw that hurricane Ike was moving up through Illinois and I figured that this wind was from that disturbance.  Within an hour of checking the weather, the wind really started to pick up.  Although there was not a drop of rain, the winds in Louisville were gusting up to 80mph according to the Bowman Field metrological station and trees started to come down all around our apartment complex.  My Saturn got a branch through the windshield and other cars in the complex were totally covered by debris.  As I drove into the entrance of the Village Manor, the road was blocked by an enormous tree that had come up at the roots.  The first tree pictured here actually fell on, or rather around, a guy who was running to move his truck.  Out of nowhere he found himself surrounded by this massive tree!  There were about five or six of this size tree around the apartment complex and many more pieces of tree laying about after the storm. 

It was not long until the power went out and I knew that it was going to be some time before it was restored.  We broke out the candles, drank all the milk, and waited for the lights to come back.  Monday morning came and we found that the power outage was city wide and 350.000 people were without power.  LG&E had a Press conference that morning stating it would be 10 to 14 days before all the power would be restored!  Apparently our water heater has an electric pilot light, so instead of searching for a shower for two weeks, I packed up the cars and went to my parent's house in Mattoon.  I had some Guard duty at the end of the week anyway, so I will just stay here and, hopefully, Tracy and the kids will head back on Sunday.  Until then, I will get a head start on some chaplain duties ahead of my units deployment and Tracy can visit some Illinois friends.  Strangely enough, no one in Mattoon even heard about the damage in Louisville.  All the news has been focused on Texas, I suppose.

J:

Monday morning I picked up Tracy at the Charlotte Airport and brought her back to Fort Jackson for a Wives Seminar that the Chaplain School is putting on for their benefit.  For the past three months (actually, the last year),  I have had a huge part of my life that Tracy was not privy too.  Whenever I have talked about my National Guard duties or my Chaplain School activities, it was usually met by blank stares from my wife.  She had never even been on an Army post, much less have an idea of what Army life is all about.  Considering that I am 99% sure that I will be going active duty eventually, this is kind of a problem.  Tracy, to her credit has gone all in with my decision with no more information than what I have described to her. 

Tracy:

As of Monday J's and my world have collided.  I have been in the dark about what he does when he leaves to enter his military world.  He has tried so desperately to get me to understand, but you never can fully know until you experience it first hand.  I have had my eyes open to his world at Ft. Jackson and of the Military life.  It is a world that I am happy to be apart of now, although it is very difficult to learn the nuances and language amongst everyone here in this community.  I felt very intimidated and like a foreigner when I first got here, but I am starting to feel more comfortable as I learn more about this military world.  It is one that I am excited to continue to learn about and be apart.  It is an amazing feeling when getting together with the wives of other soldiers and having that instant bond in just understanding the difficulties of being apart of this military world that most people don't understand.  I am not scared of what is to come anymore, I go where my husband goes and my home is where our family is.  I am excited to see where God takes and what work He has for us to do!

J: 

Another great thing about the wives seminar is the buffer it will provide as I reenter the home-front.  After the elation of our first contact in the airport it was obvious that we were actually pretty awkward around each other. We even reenacted this scene, because Tracy left her suitcase on the Tarmac and had to run and get it!  So after our second embrace, it was still awkward!  A month ago I surprised the family with a visit just after the baby was born and though they were glad to see me, K confided with her mother that though she was really happy to see me, she wanted me to leave so things could get back to "normal"  While I have been away, the family has established a new normal and I was not part of that.  This seems harsh at first, but it is actually a good sign for two reasons.  The first reason is that it shows that my family can adapt and get along without me for a time.  The second positive about this is that my eleven year old girl was able to express this feeling to her mom and they could talk it over.  K felt guilty about feeling this, but again, it is the normal reaction.   Tracy and I are using this time to get reacquainted with one another and plan out what we are going to do once we drive home on Saturday.  I think that it is going to be much easier coming home now that Tracy and I have eyes wide open about the potential difficulties that lie ahead.   It would be great if units and families could work out this buffer time of 3 to 5 days before dads and moms get thrown back into the family unit.  

Tracy:

This week together was the thing we both needed before J came back home. Even though we had talked pretty much every day while he was gone, it just wasn’t the same. The kids would always be over my shoulder and wanting to talk to him. I was excited for the kids, but I need my time with my spouse with no interruptions. If J would have just come home when his time was done, we would have never got our uninterrupted time together. We were able to use this time to discuss things in our marriage that we never could communicate before in our 12 years of marriage. It was as if we were meeting for the first time all over again and trusting each other to let one another into our worlds that we have kept closed off for so long. J and I have always had a strong marriage, but there was always a small portion of our marriage that was kept closed off and this week enabled us to open up that “closed off” area and brought our strong marriage up to a different level and brought us even closer than I though possible. We had the time to go out for coffee for a few hours one night and just talk and enjoy each others company and then we were able to continue that same conversation and closeness on the way home. We talked the whole way home with no interruptions and no radio! When we arrived home, the kids were at his feet and in his arms with excitement and wanting to show him three months worth of things. It was a time that was exciting for me to see and enjoy in their excitement, a time that would not have been so exciting if we didn’t get our time in first. I couldn’t imagine trying to fight for that time all at once when he walked in the door, how overwhelming that would have been for him and frustrating for me and the kids.

J: 

I have also appreciated the time I had with Tracy to talk about our marriage.  We had nine hours of driving from Ft. Jackson and we never turned on the radio! I have always been highly satisfied with my marriage and I dig Tracy more and more, but there are always those persistent issues that marriages seem to have that take more time to deal with than a few minutes of pillow talk at the end of a long day.  When I planned for Tracy to come out here I did so with the intention of using the time to really talk.  My time away and the challenges that I have faced, and the reality of what lies ahead has dredged up all kinds of personal demons that I have to get a handle on for the sake of may family and the sake of my mission.  I am not sure about Tracy, but I had a specific agenda of items to discuss with my wife and I am set on some finding some resolution before we leave.   When else will we have this kind of time together?  Last night we had dinner together with coffee afterwards and that was fours hours spent talking to each other about things that we had never said out loud before.  When you have absolute trust in one another,  you can do this with no fear of alienation.  You cannot have a great marriage unless you already have a good one.  The PREP marriage enrichment materials that the Chaplain Corp uses is predicated on the idea that unless you have fundamentals you cannot build the kind of marriage that you want. 

Technorati tags: Army, Deployment, Reintegration, Chaplain School, Strong Bonds, Marriage Retreats, Kroencke, Tracy Kroencke, Chaplain Candidate

Particle physicist performed the first full power test on the CERN particle accelerator yesterday resulting in France being engulfed by a vortex of dark matter.  It was 22 hours before anyone seemed to notice and it was not until France's daily disapproval of US foreign policy failed to appear on the Al Gezira nightly news before inquiries were made.  When asked about the plan to restore France to our dimension,  UN scientist were quoted in saying "We initially decided that a focused Tachyon pulse from the main deflector dish might repair the rift, but then we discovered that we do not have a main deflector dish or even know what a Tachyon pulse is, so its back to the drawing board."   Sources within the State Department have no official comment, but went further to say "France has been metaphorically sinking into a black hole of non-influence for years, this event seems like a fitting climax to French culture.  Our thoughts and prayers are with the French people and wish them well in Dimension X.  Sometimes you just need a fresh start..."