The surrogate
It begins with a woman who yearns for a baby and another who is willing and able to give her one. You can imagine the motives of the prospective parents. But what about the woman willing to carry a baby, give birth and then walk away?
Friday Night Rewind It doesn't matter which team you cheer for. We've got video previews of every high school football program in Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco and Hernando County.
Last Thursday at 9:03 a.m. I walked out on to the balcony of my office. I looked up at the sky and I imagined a jumbo jetliner careening across the horizon, about to crash into the World Trade Center or the Pentagon or a field in Pennsylvania.
On that day, the seventh anniversary of 9/11, I thought about the ways that America has changed and yet how many Americans have moved on. And how the families of the 1.4-million men and women serving in the U.S. military don't have that option.
I thought about the year my husband, an Army Special Forces officer, spent in Iraq. I thought about the news we heard last week — that he'll likely deploy again next year.
On 9/11, nearly 3,000 people died. It altered the lives of the victims' families forever. It changed the way the rest of us travel and it made us more aware of our vulnerability. But the effect on military families is especially profound.
We face the reality of 9/11 and its aftermath every single day.
We rock our children to sleep when they cry for Daddy, then lie down in our own beds and cry ourselves to sleep.
We count the days until homecoming, then brace ourselves for news of the next deployment.
We have buried 4,741 of our own.
Many of us have hit rock bottom. Our marriages are strained. Our jobs have suffered. Mentally and physically, we are exhausted.
Many of us, too, have been made stronger by our experiences. We've become more independent and self confident. We've realized the importance of family and never taking anything for granted.
But all of us wonder: When will this end?
Contact Jan Wesner at jwesner@sptimes.com or (813) 661-2439. Read her blog about military life at blogs.tampabay.com/standingby.
[Last modified: Sep 15, 2008 03:32 PM]
Comments on this article
by Capt. Robert Young, USMC
Sep 15, 2008 3:32 PM
Don't pretend to speak for the military. Your husband should be ashamed of you. You demean what he and the rest of us do. We all volunteered for the military. You write your "stories", we'll kill terrorists.
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