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Christian II – Today is Christian’s birthday! Hold your
horses lol! August 5th is his
real birthday, but in the diabetic world, today is considered his “other”
special birthday. Two years ago, Christian was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes.
He was 1 year old! Please thank God with us! We made it through the most
difficult and challenging age to have the disease. This doesn’t mean that it
isn’t difficult and challenging now LOL ! It just means that this age group is
viewed as being the most problematic because the child is so young.
This morning Christian is doing well, and this after a night
of high blood sugar and high keytones. He’s’ sitting on my lap again as I write
this blog (Actually as Ethan types this blog for me) and he is the coolest
three year old ever! We snapped off a couple of pictures this morning that just
made me smile. Hopefully they will make you smile as well.
Christian I - (This Army narrative began back in the FLASHBACK?? BLOG)…..As I mentioned last time, we were captured,
and this was totally expected. It’s pretty standard to separate the officers
from the enlisted men, but these POGS had some other strange, ridiculous way of
separating all of us that I couldn’t understand (and neither could they when we
had the review of their performance). Good training!
They lumped me together with
Spc. (Specialist) Ackley. (Who was a rather large awesome individual who may
end up reading this blog- so I better be nice or he’ll kick my butt – LOL) Another
key individual in this story will remain nameless. We will call him Staff
Sergeant (SSG) X. There were a smattering of other individuals with us, but for
the most part they were just onlookers.
SSG. X and I were thrown into the holding area together. I
could not stand SSG. X. I trained with
this man all week. He was a good soldier
and a good leader, but where he was leading I’m not sure! The most irritating
thing about this man was an obvious speech impediment.
This combined with the
fact that he was punchy, inexperienced, and my superior didn’t make things any
easier. One particular thing I will never forget is what he would say during
every mission when we would see a vehicle on a road somewhere. It sounded like,
“Kaawsen…kept cha head dawn!”. Translated – “Carlson, keep your head down”.
I’m
not playing! I was plagued with this man, and those words continue to show up even
now in my dreams sometimes. But I was a very different man back then, and being
the loving individual that I am now, I bear the old fellow no malice… LOL. GET
OUT OF MY DREAMS! LOL
I gained a new appreciation for SSG X on that day. SSG X and
I were tied up next to each other, but we were able to speak. Pay close attention to this account- It
was awesome.
I hated this guy, right? Suddenly SSG X says, “Just play
along,” and starts choking and moaning! “What’s going on with this guy?” I
thought. SSG X motioned towards the POG guard and it was like ESP or something.
I knew he was faking it! So I played along as best I could.
“His pills,” I shouted. “His pills! He needs his pills!” So
over came several POGS trying to figure out what to do. After like ten minutes
of playing this game and lying through my teeth, (Remember, for the purpose of
training!) … this short skinny black man comes over… I had no idea of what to
expect.
I found myself face to face with their CSM (Command Sergeant Major).
This was one of the head honchos! Honestly, this man could of ended my military
career and had me thrown in jail! I
would have never done this in
the infantry world, but since this was a big show, might as well go all the
way, right?
So for about half an hour SSG X was moaning and choking and
I was putting on the best show in the world… trying to get them to let us go
back to the woods to “get his pills”. “Don’t worry” I said, “we’ll come back” –
Good training! LOL
I’ve got to end the blog here. Today was supposed to be the last day, but my son is telling me it is getting too long. So did they let us go back to the wood-line? I’ll tell you tomorrow. Today is our first day of homeschooling all the children – so if you have any conception of what it is like dealing with seven children, you’ll have a pretty good idea of how my day is going! LOL. This Dad-commander is having a great day bossing everyone around in his mobile throne!
God bless you friend... :)
