[…] Normal has changed for everyone. Be patient–it takes time to get into a routine. Soldiers haven’t been on a vacation. Expect your household to be different. Keep life as routine as possible. Take time to re-adjust to one another. Go slowly. Communicate feelings. Anxiety is normal. Discuss frustrations. Accept that we are all different. Initial discomfort in adjusting doesn’t mean your spouse is unhappy with you or the family. Communicate ahead of your spouse’s return about radical changes in your physical appearance (once a redhead now a blonde). Communicate about changes in discipline of children. Assume you’ve both […]
[…]time when Jerry had to leave, this time only for a week, but no sooner had he left than our eight-year-old son, Kevin, came down with an upset stomach. The next morning I took him to the base hospital where the diagnosis was acute appendicitis. He was taken into emergency surgery almost immediately. I considered calling Jerry as soon as I had the diagnosis, but I knew that there was really nothing he could do about it, except probably be frustrated because he could not be present. When I did call after the surgery was completed, I could tell him […]
[…]didn’t feel like one. It was an awesome responsibility to raise two little girls alone for a year. Laura was almost three and Beki was then nine month old. Other mothers had shared with me some of the pitfalls they’d been through. Their advice was to prepare for the fact that our baby wouldn’t even know her daddy when he returned. She’s just too young to remember, they warned. Don’t expect too much, another said. It’ll take time, but they’ll start all over again. With that advice, I purposed in my heart to be different. I would do all I […]
[…]old set of Vietnamese jump wings. And pictures of young men. Hal Moore said it best, “We were soldiers once–and young.” We were soldiers for a lot of reasons. One of them was the “bully syndrome.” Many years ago, as a young boy in a cozy little neighborhood in central Washington state, I learned a valuable lesson. Our neighborhood bully, Jimmy C., would never stop throwing dirt clods and using strong-arm tactics to terrorize smaller children. Yes, we complained. In fact, we begged. But time after time “negotiation” failed. Nothing seemed to work. Until one day one of us gathered […]
[…]your labor in the Lord is not in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:58). Al retired from the Army after 27 years of service, was a Commandant of Cadets at Culver Military Academy for 10 years, and currently lives in Carlisle, PA, where he and his wife, Sandra, are active in OCF and the U.S. Army War College chapel. He has been active in OCF since coming to Christ as a West Point Plebe in 1960. Address by Colonel Alexander Shine, United States Army, Retired, at the USMA OCF spiritual commissioning ceremony, USMA, 29 May 2005. Adapted from the August 2006 COMMAND […]
