Maybe I'm Amazed (Formely Love From Iraq)

Update

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 17:15:32 GMT

Shalom;

We are working very hard with the updating of the new journals.

The first will go back to the beginning of our journal, Love From Iraq. It will come the period of Mark's deployment. This way, we can add entries from another journal Mark kept along with more pictures.

http://lovefromiraq.blogspot.com/

The next, of course is the one we have going now It's a Reel Thing.

http://itsareelthing.blogspot.com/

Last, but not least, We Made Our Huppah.

http://wemadeourhuppah.blogspot.com/

We hope to see all of our friends there :)

Packing the Camel

Fri, 03 Oct 2008 19:11:47 GMT

Shalom:

Well, after an eventful Rosh Hashanah (I shall share about that later), we learned that AOL was closing down its Journals. I confess I did not see this one coming and don't understand why, but I am sure there are good reasons.

Anyway, after talking to Mark about whether we should delete the journal, Mark felt I had something to say and others enjoyed reading about our lives as well as the wonderful friendships we had formed. So, we decided to open an account with blogSpot.

Now here's the funny part: when I went to open an account, I found that I had an acount already. Then I remembered several friends and family could not get to our jounral on AOL (securtiy block) so I was going to keep one here and on BlogSpot.

And then I forgot to add to that jounral.

So, we already have an account and address. So, after Shabbat, I will begin to move our journal to the address below. We decided to keep the Wedding Journal and the one that shares about the various celebrations of our faith, but a few of the others we will delete. I will keep this one going for another few weeks as we make the move.

So, just follow the camel tracks to the address below; we will keep a lantern for you.

http://itsareelthing.blogspot.com/

OK, Laini, Breath

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 20:39:42 GMT

In a few hours the New Year shall be here.

The house is almost ready; the Apples and Honey Chicken is baking, the green beans and almonds are done, the only thing left to be made is the Matzoh Ball Soup and Cous-Cous.

Because this day is considered a Shabbat, a Day of both rest and coming before G-d, there is no work and therefore, I won't be back online until after Tuesday. We are having guest tomorrow evening and my cameria is ready.

So, right now, I am taking a moment to breath.

Apple and Honey for Rosh Hashanah

So, to all our family (notice we call you family, not friends)

Where is My Head?

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 13:33:53 GMT

Boka Tov:

Right now, I am running about like a chicken with her head cut off, finishing for the Hight Holy Days. I will be back on later, but for now, I am including on another jounral about this evening service, welcoming the New Year.

Ere Rosh Hashanah

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 18:02:41 GMT

As long as there is life, there is hope.

- Johanan.
Talmud J: Berakot, 9.1

Well, we don't have to send a Dove out of the Ark, looking for dry land. This morning the sun came out and it is a lovely day.

The table is set for Shabbat and I also pulled out the things for Rosh Hashanah. I have decided to make Apple Chicken and Cous-Cous for our High Holy Day meal.

Monday at Sunset, Rosh HasHananh will begin. We will go to the evening service and then enjoy apples and Challah dipped in honey, for a sweet, good year. And why apples and Challah? Apples and Challah (the egg rich bread we eat on Shabbat) are symbolic of Life. So we eat apples and honey for a happy new year, a sweet new year.

In fact there is a song by that title and if I can find it, I will include it to the jounral.

Well, Mark has returned with Starbucks.

See you in a bit.

Tags: apples and honey, rosh hashanah, starbucks

Dancing in the Rain

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 21:22:07 GMT

After the last entry, I was thinking of the saying, "life isn't waiting for the storm to past, but it is learning to dance in the rain." I was about to add it (and did) when I notice Clyde included it in his comment. Also that it is a chicken Soup day.

Mark said Chicken Soup! great idea.

One problem; we had eaten the last of the homemade chicken soup.

So when the weather lighten up, Mark headed off to the store and brought two cans of Campell's Old Fashion Chicken and Pasta soup. Which was quite good; lots of chucky pieces of chicken and firm pasta. Not salty.

Later, one of our neighors came downstairs and the three of us enjoined cups of tea as the winds continue to blow.

I made lental soup last night for this evening's supper. Mark is getting some crusty bread to go with.

I am sitting here in grey sweats. Hope the landlord turns on the heat.

In All Things Give Thanks

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 16:44:16 GMT

Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass, but learning to dance in the rain

We awoke to the sound of heavy rain. The rainfall so heavy one can't see through the window, let alone chance driving unless one needs to. It has the feel of a NorthEastern coming in. I had clothes that needed to be washed and hung out for the High Holy Days.

Plan B: hang them on the clothes horse in the bath tub.

I awoke to a chill in the air and the words on my lips: "Yuck!"

Then repented: "Blessed Are Thou, King of The World, Who Bring Forths the Rain."

So, it is a quiest day, a day Mark and I spend going over the prayers of Repentance that we say during this time of Preparation. This rainy morning also gave Mark and I time to have one of those "Heart to Heart" talks married couples have to have from time to time.

During this time of reflection and repentance, it is a time to go through one's year and take stork. And make amends.

Mark looked into my eyes, taking my hands and said: "We have a good thing, Laini."

We do.

For thoes areas we have failed each other, we have aske forgivness and giveness forgivenss and with the help of G-d, will do better.

As the rain falls, I look across the room, watching my husband make lunch for us.

And I smile.

It's a good day.

Do You Really What is Happneing in Iraq

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 19:11:49 GMT

Posted: 15 Sep 2008 12:56 AM CDT

If you read the local paper that may or may not be skewed in one way or another, you may question yourself if you really know what is happening in Iraq. Are things getting better? I have done one tour in Afghanistan and three six month tours in Iraq as an US Marine.

Following a positive and successful tour in Afghanistan, I was deployed to Ramadi Iraq in 2004. Centrally located near the war torn Fallujah City, military bases in Ramadi were mortared, fired upon or attacked daily by suicide car bombs. My third day in country resulted in my first of many Improvised Explosive Device (IED) attacks on my Marines and my first wounded. Fighting was regular and local government conditions were still in the infant stages at best. The local Iraqi Police was corrupt and unorganized and the Iraq Army was still in their re- training phase of their growth from the harsh defeat during Operation Desert Storm. The city council did not exist nor was there any solid stable local leadership that served the people. Insurgent cells intimidated local populace were coordinated and complex which maximized their command structures in their favor to successfully attack the Coalition Forces. For the following 12 months, Coalition Forces would have a daily professional fight on their hands. The area was marginal at best.

Fast forward to 2007. Following a proper gradual fight against a counter insurgency, which would normally take 10 years according to doctrine, the timely surge and continuation of Marines in the area, successfully began to not only defeat the localized cells of insurgents but began in parallel, developing the local civilian and military efforts. Insurgents are not ignorant, they cannot afford to be. Many insurgent cell leaders bet to out wait the American forces in hope that the American people would tire of the campaign and demand US forces to be withdrawn, much like that of the Vietnam War. Insurgent cells cannot defeat Coalition Forces tactically head to head which is the major reason they prefer their weapon of choice the IED as it gives them an advantage against a superior force. Once insurgents realized this was not to be the issue as the 2007 surge was introduced and the American people supported the actual troops on the ground, Coalition Forces tactically witnessed the initial breakdown and eventual and continual failure of the insurgent command and control structure which catapulted American forces to continue to obtain the upper hand and gain momentum. This set the stage for my successful third deployment in Iraq.

In 2008, as my convoy approached Ramadi Iraq, if it was not for the boarding Euphrates River, I would not have recognized the city. A solid infrastructure had been born. Localized government, city councils established, local and Highway police were established and becoming more affective every day. The last mortar or suicide attack was well over a year ago and many sections that were under Coalition Forces control in 2007 had been relinquished to the Iraqi Army for their control. The same could be said for the northern sections of Iraq where I would spend the next seven months. Imagine that you do not have electricity, running water or safe food to eat, none the less have tyrants who want to kill you inyour neighborhoods simply because you want something different. It was an eye opening experience when I was deployed to Afghanistan to see poverty in the worse fashion. To see hate towards innocent people and now I began to see those types of idealism beginning to disappear in Iraq. In my remote area, there was no law except for US Marines. As our deployment continued, we began an Iraqi Police station to begin the building and training process to fill our role once we departed and begin a transitional phase for the Iraqi people. Unlike deployments of the past, we had hundreds of local citizen volunteers to become dependable professional policemen. This may seem typical now, but in the past, such acknowledgment would mean certain death to you or your family. However this deployment, not only where local citizens publicly volunteering but because the police station was just being established and not yet recognized, all of them volunteered to work for free. We equipped them with uniforms and food but no daily wages as of the time. When I asked why they are willing to work for free, one Iraqi said that he had to do something to make his country succeed and that he knew we would not let him fail after all we have already done so much for his people. This was astonishing to many of us that had done multiple tours in Iraq, because we would have greatly desired to find one individual with such attitude in the past. Now, we had dozens.

After establishing the law of the land for our area by locals, we continued to train them in not only police work but problem solving and public service. This quickly became infectious and the economy in the area grew at the rapid rate especially as we begin to pay them as police officers once they were a recognized organization by the government. However, now too many people wanted to be policemen, but we wanted to capitalize on the growth momentum and positive turn which initially resulted from the previous year during the 2007 surge. We did this in many ways but a popular technique was to donate water treatment purification facilities to local tribes in the area. Then we screened water facility repairmen to fix and maintain the facilities then we established local store owners where there were none, basic road repairmen and through the occupations and eventually local city council boards, and government representatives in Baghdad for the area.

The general populace was tired of the insurgency and did the most important act that I witnessed in all of my deployments, they fought back. Not us, but them. Local citizens risked death threats to inform local Iraqi police of possible enemy cells in the area. Then with Coalition Force reinforcements, the police solved the areas issues and threats. Because of the safety net of the Coalition Forces, local citizens made a difference. That is when we knew we witnessed the turning point of the people and I had seen a new Iraq being born. Local Sheiks in the area tried to monopolize tribal leaders for economic gain. A similar tactic of the “old Iraq” governed under a dictator. Sheiks would demand that all policemen be hired from sheiks instead of having the best man for the job. This is where the Coalition forces successfully regulated the economics in the area which created positive competition. Furthermore, Coalition Forces inspired general contracts in the area to include dozens of new construction contracts for schools, sewers, hospitals and government offices. This allowed the local citizens to utilize their own talents and make a positive contribution to their city with the protection of American forces at hand which continually made the economy there become stronger. Fighting and actual combat was a simple task for Marine leadership in theater, however, very little was conducted because of the rapid growth of the well trained Iraqi Army and police forces that patrolled the area and kept law in their territory. Coalition Forces simply gave small rudder adjustments to insure success at this point. The Iraqi people did the rest.

It was not out of the ordinary for us to conduct combined medical engagements where American surgeons would be stationed in secure areas as local Iraqi citizens would seek desperately needed medical attention for free. We routinely invited tribes to attend these events under our protection and at the same time train Iraqi doctors to become proficient towards the threats of the local diseases. Men, women, children would attend by the hundreds. We would stay as long as it took to attend to them all while at the same time ensuring a safe haven and secure village as the local police would prevail once again.

As my deployment came to an end, after the short 7 months, we utilized the carbon copy playbook that all Coalition Forces are using in the area and applied it with success. Iraqi Army units were successfully taking charge of their areas of responsibility, local police departments were serving and protecting their regions and at the same time economic growth in the area and the Iraqi government became stronger and stronger. As of recent as August, 2008, the entire Al Anbar province has been relinquished back to the Iraqi people control, which Ramadi is a major part of. This was something that we never expected back in 2004 as forces on the ground. The Iraq of today is not the Iraq we documented during Operation Desert Storm, nor is it the Iraq that was once under a dictatorship and viewed on our TV sets. Today’s Iraq is very similarto another country when it began back in 1776.
Following the multiple deployment returns, I have repeatedly sat at dinners and at soccer games and gladly answered curious quizzers of Iraq’s current condition. What is really happening in Iraq? They ask, and repeatedly I see the astonished looks on their faces with the answers I give them, almost in disbelief. Why don’t we hear these facts? I have no reason to lie. In fact you will get the same answers as I have given if you ask any of the several thousand Marines that have participated in either campaign. Besides, what TV news reports and newspapers tell you, you don’t hear about new police stations being formed by volunteers, hundreds of new jobs being created, new elementary schools being opened or ordinary people cherishing the opportunity to have an ordinary life in Iraq. So do you really know what is happening in Iraq?

'MEET ME IN THE STAIRWELL'

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 22:24:54 GMT

Sadly, the pictures did not come through, but the poem is still beautiful.

You say you will never forget where you were
when you heard the news On September 11, 2001 .
Neither will I.

I was on the 110th floor in a smoke filled room
with a man who called his wife to say 'Good-Bye.'
I held his fingers steady as he dialed.
I gave him the peace to say,
'Honey, I am not going to make it,
but it is OK..I am ready to go.'

I was with his wife when he called as she fed breakfast
to their children. I held her up as she tried to
understand his words and as she realized
he wasn't coming home that night.

I was in the stairwell of the 23rd floor
when a woman cried out to Me for help.
'I have been knocking on the door
of your heart for 50 years!' I said.
'Of course I will show you the way home -
only believe in Me now'

I was at the base of the building with the Priest
ministering to the injured and devastated souls.
I took him home to tend to his Flock in Heaven.
He heard my voice and answered.

I was on all four of those planes,
in every seat, with every prayer.
I was with the crew as they were overtaken.
I was in the very hearts of the believers there,
comforting and assuring them that their faith has saved them.

I was in Texas , Virginia , California , Michigan , Afghanistan
I was standing next to you when you heard the terrible news.
Did you sense Me?

I want you to know that I saw every face.
I knew every name - though not all know Me.
Some met Me for the first time on the 86th floor.

Some sought Me with their last breath.
Some couldn't hear Me calling to them
through the smoke and flames;
'Come to Me.. this way... take my hand.'
Some chose, for the final time, to ignore Me.
But, I was there.

I did not place You in the Tower that day.
You may not know why, but I do.
However, if you were there in that explosive moment in time,
would you have reached for Me?

Sept. 11, 2001 , was not the end of the journey for you.
But someday your journey will end.
And I will be there for you as well.
Seek Me now while I may be found.
Then, at any moment, you know you are
'ready to go.'

I will be in the stairwell of your final moments.

G-d

Sarah Palin and Women with Too Many Kids

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 20:37:45 GMT

As Shephardic Jews, more orthodox in our practice, Mark and I know these feeling too well. And as much as I wanted a large family, G-d saw things otherwise. Still, we keep praying....

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach - Monday, 15 September, 2008

I recently participated in a CNN forum on racism, sexism, and ageism in American society. The discussion was obviously inspired by having the first ever black nominee for president, the oldest ever presidential candidate, and only the second female nominee for vice president in American history.

Significant prejudices against all three groups still remain in America, but not the way you might expect. Today, we invite each group to be equal participants in American life so long as they conform to societal definitions of sophistication.

I do not believe, for example, that white Americans will, in any great number, refrain from voting for Barack Obama because he is black. Not because America is devoid of racism. It is not, although it has come a long way toward purging itself of racial prejudice. Rather, it is because many white people see Barack Obama, with his unmatched eloquence and Ivy-League education, as possessing the sophistication of white society. But many of these same people who are jumping for joy with Obama’s candidacy might easily pass over a resume they receive at work from an applicant with a first name like Deshawn, Shaneequa, or Jamal, as a June 2003 University of Chicago study found. This is an inversion of traditional racism, whereby blacks who do not ‘look or sound black’ are accepted into white society because they are essentially seen as white.

Obama’s own running mate, Joe Biden, fell prey to this view, however unintentionally, when he famously said about Obama, “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.” Since modern forms of prejudice so often revolve more around economic and educational status, i.e., modern barometers of sophistication, Obama was seen as having graduated directly from Harvard and into white society.

We in the orthodox Jewish community understand this kind of prejudice all too well. Assimilated Jews often treat other Jews who look ‘too Jewish’ – say, with, Yarmulke, beard, and a large brood – as more primitive. Many of our secular Jewish brothers and sisters harbor a prejudice against Hasidic Jews whom they feel embarrass them with their primitive dress and primitive ways.

Likewise, the biases against women are changing as well. Women who, for example, are professionals yet have a large family are seen as less evolved than their more enlightened, less fertile counterparts. Even if it were true that Sarah Palin lacks the experience to be Commander-in-Chief, what does that have to do with so many critics savagely attacking for even daring to play on the national stage when she has so many kids at home to take care of? What are they trying to say? That she can’t balance parenthood and profession? That can’t be the explanation, because Barack Obama, who has two young children, has been campaigning for two years and no one has called him out on the conflict. And surely Dads have to help out with child-rearing as much as Moms.

Rather, Sarah Palin is being treated as a primitive country bumpkin who doesn’t seem to know that it is impolite to have so many kids. Why, she is so backward that she even had a baby while serving as governor of Alaska. Geez, don’t they have the pill in Alaska?

To be sure, we in the West are always lecturing the more ‘backward’ people of the East – especially Africa – that if only they discovered the pleasures of tiny families and stopped popping out so many kids, all their problems would be go away. Can’t you backward people control your ovaries? Don’t you know that contraception is society’s highest barometer of progress? Educated women would never ruin their lives with too many kids. If you were really advanced, you’d understand that sex should be recreational as opposed to procreational.

I have several times in the past written of the unique prejudices that exist against families with ‘too many’ children and how, with nine children, I find myself apologizing for overpopulating the earth. Of course, we have now learned that precisely the opposite is true. The birth rate in the Western world is so low that countries like Japan, Germany, Russia, and France are slowly disappearing, as the New York Times Magazine reported in a cover story of June of this year.

But no doubt America’s greatest prejudice of all is reserved for old people. Reread those words: old people. Makes you want to skip to another article, right? America is a country so obsessed with eternal youth that women will even shove a needle filled with toxic poison into their foreheads to numb their facial muscles, neutralize their ability to raise their eyebrows and show some personality, all in an effort to erase lines. America is a country that has such contempt for the elderly that most American women today over 35 would rather be waterboarded than ever confess their age. In the Bible, the elderly are celebrated as having acquired wisdom. They are supposed to be looked up to by the younger generation who lack their knowledge and experience. But not in America where they are seen as has-beens whose long lives are siphoning off way too much of our scarce social security funds.

A society that does not respect the elderly and does not love babies is a society that has seriously lost its moorings. Likewise, a society that does not fully embrace the contributions of each of its constituent parts is a society destined to become boringly monolithic.

The Bible’s vision of society as an orchard, in which every community is rooted in its own traditions, its own soil, while still growing out into, and contributing its color, to the wider garden, has yet to be realized. But the fact that a black gentleman, and elderly gentleman, and a Mom of lots of kids are being considered for the nation’s highest offices shows that the seeds of that garden have at least been planted.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach hosts a daily national radio show on ‘Oprah and Friends.’ His most recent book is ‘The Broken American Male.’

Tags: Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, Jewish families