Daily Life of a Marine Mom

I hope all of the mothers that come here had a wonderful mother's day!

Here's a letter written by a Marine to all mothers out there.

Semper Fidelis and God Bless you all.

Sent: Thursday, May 8, 2008 8:09:18 AM
Subject: Mother's Day letter from a Marine in 2/24 to all the Mom's

Well,

Another Mother’s Day and I’m not home.  It’s not for a couple days, but who knows when I’ll have another chance to write.  Makes me feel rotten.  The one day out of the year that I’m supposed to treat her like the queen she deserves to be and I am not there.  Not that she won’t have a good day with Lisa, my sister, but come on, when your favorite child isn’t going to be there can you really get all that excited?  But as I’m sure my Mother says, she’s better than nothing.  Anyways, she recently had asked me what I wanted out here and I tried to take a minute to think of all the things she is doing for me right now while I’m away.  It turned into thinking about all the things she’s done for me for years, and then all the things she has always done for me even before I realized it.  There is a selfish stage I think in most everyone’s life when your Mother does so much for you and has you so protected from everything evil in the world that it is impossible to take it for granted.  She is your whole world.  And you still find the time to argue with her over things that have absolutely no consequence.  You might even stay mad at her for it for a long time.  And she doesn’t care.  She doesn’t care because she loves you just as much in your stubbornness and your ignorance as she did when you were in the cradle.  Then you grow up.  And that’s her whole goal, to keep you safe, to make you happy, to have you grow up and become as good a person as she will always believe you can be.  And the only tool she has to build you is love.  As you grow up you begin to comprehend a little bit what it is she means to you.  My Mother means if I get in trouble it’s better to let her know right away, because she is going to find out about it anyways.  She means that even after the time I grew taller than her, that I would always feel safer in her shadow.   She means that even when I let the weight of life bring me to my knees, her love is strong enough to carry me forward.  She means that if I ever lose myself down the rocky, long road of time, she will be waiting for me to ask her the directions back, because it turns out she may of taken that same turn once upon a time.  She means I’m going to get a great home cooked meal prepared with butter, bacon, and every other heart stopping food as soon as she sees me, and without any regard to any diet I might be on.  She means carving pumpkins on Halloween, coloring eggs on Easter, and unwrapping gifts on Christmas.  She means my holidays.  She means what is behind my smile.  She means the person who will wait for my call, and always answer with surprise and love no matter how much pain life brings her, or how tired she may be.  She means the person who gave me my beginning and will be there every step of the way until my end.  She means every accomplishment and milestone I have ever completed, because I have never been without her in my heart.   She means that for the rest of my life I will strive to be a good enough person to earn the love and support she has unquestioningly given to me.

And in turn, I give her another gray hair for each day I put her through the things I do.  From breaking bones as a little punk to roaming the streets in Iraq right now, I have single handedly kept the sale of Tareyton 100’s steady for thirty years.  So today, with about 4 days left until Mother’s Day I have gathered up my squad and confirmed their plans to send home cards and chastised those who haven’t even thought about it yet.  I asked “Who loves their Mother?,” and every hand was raied without hesitation.  Then to the best of my ability I tried to make everyone feel guilty about their selfishness because of how much their Mother loves them (even though they don’t deserve it.)  Like many things, it will take many years to be at my Mother’s level on the whole guilt trip thing, but I lay it on pretty thick. 

As Marines we adopt a somewhat dangerous role in our world.  Our mottos reflect that we are the defenders of our nation’s freedom by air, or land, or sea.   We say we are the warriors who walk into the night, without fear, to catch and destroy the enemy where they sleep.  We walk through the sand and climb the mountains of foreign lands to keep the enemy off our own beloved shores.  Along with these stoic recruiting poster descriptions we give ourselves, we all share another common bond.  We are all the sons of women back home whose sleep will never be satisfying until we have returned safely home.  Women who take pride in telling everyone that their son is a Marine who is serving their country and wears the Eagle Globe and Anchor t-shirts to the store.  Yet on the inside are dealing with the dread and agonizing concern for the health of their little boy.  You nervously caught us as we first learned to walk, kissed our scrapped knees on the playground, and skipped uncounted heart beats with every broken bone you rushed us to the emergency room with to be casted.  And after all that when you were pretty sure things would slow down… we told you about boot camp.  And now, Iraq .  And as much as you want to hug and hold your son to keep them out of harm's way…you can not, for they are thousands of miles away sleeping next to their rifle or walking through the rubble covered streets of a town you may only ever know through clips on CNN.  And it causes every maternal instinct to scream out in distress because everything you know is telling you to protect us.  I imagine at some point many of you even thought about joining up, even if it was because you were jealous of our Drill Instructor’s ability to actually get us to clean up our rooms.  But each and every day you do continue to care and nurture us.  There is not a Marine who is not happy to receive a letter from his Mother during mail call.  And there are few that haven’t called home for your help with bills, or phone cards, or requests of their favorite things for you to fill packages with.  After they have talked to you, or read your letters and opened your packages, they are whole again, even if they do not realize why.  Their minds are clear and their attitudes strong when they are reminded of who they are and what is most important to them.  Few things are as effective at this task as a Mother’s love.  And above all I am confident in the fact that our success and our safety is in no small way contributed to by all the unseen prayers that you have said for your sons and for everyone who fights beside them. 

I wanted to write this to all of you Lady’s because it is your day as well.  And I know each one of you as not only as the family of my fellow Marines but as loving and strong Mother’s whose smiles reach a little farther and whose eyes shine a little brighter when you talk about your sons.  And I see the trials and challenges from time to time through their stories, be they surgeries, arguments, or loss of family members.  I see the worry and the concern.  I see the pride and hear the laughter.  Now, there is a good chance I will never be a Mother.  Like a really good chance.  As far as the military knows anyways.  And I don’t have any children, so I cannot speak intelligently on parenting.  What I do know is that it is a job with more responsibilities than I can fathom and requires more love and patience than a monk.  I also know that I do have a fantastic Mother who has two children who will always look up to her, no matter how tall we are.  So I have near 29 years of experience on what wonderful Mother’s are like.  And although you may never ask for much in return, if anything at all, I just wanted to wish a Happy Mother’s Day to the other wonderful Mother’s I have come to know, and to thank you for being able to do the hardest job of all each and every hour of every day.  So please enjoy your Day.  You all deserve it.

Semper Fidelis,

-Sgt. Mark E. Gannon

Well ... for the first time yesterday Eric got to see Nugget.    So you may be wondering do we know now if Nugget is a boy or girl?

Scroll down for the answer to that burning question :)

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And the verdict is ...

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It's a ...

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BOY!!!!   hehe

Definitely a boy, no doubt about it.   Eric is going typically Marine and strutting around like a rooster saying 'HA ... I make boys!' hahaha 

Knowing that he is a he and hearing his heartbeat makes it a whole lot more real for my son.   Both Eric and Patty are ecstatic.   Although something Patty said had me cracking up yesterday.   We were talking on messenger a little bit and she said 'Ewww ... I just realized I have a penis in my stomach!'  roflmao ... Patty!   I do love her hehe.

Congrats Eric and Patty!   Now we just have about a three and a half month wait to meet the little guy!  As soon as I get the new pics of him I will definitely post them.

Semper Fi and God bless you all as He is blessing us!

So much to say and so little time.   Isn't that how life goes for most of us?

First of all ... please keep our deployed Marines in your prayers even harder this week as they advance in Afghanistan through Taliban territory.   You can read more about that at this link:  Marines launch massive assault in Afghanistan

Secondly ... our little 'nugget' is growing fast and reached the halfway point in his preparation for entering the world yesterday.   Patty is scheduled to have another ultrasound on May 7th and believe me when I say there will be PICS!   Hopefully they will find out the sex (although Eric and I are both convinced nugget is definitely 'Eric Junior' at the rate he is growing) since Patty is on pins and needles waiting to find out so she can buy color appropriate clothing for the little Marine.    Now if 'nugget' just cooperates and doesn't hide those body parts during the ultrasound LOL!  Here's couple pics of Patty, the first one is during her 18th week and the second is at just over 19 weeks.   I don't really think 'nugget' is actually just a nugget anymore!  But isn't Patty just the beautiful picture of a glowing new mom!

And lastly ... for those of you who are really interested in scientific discoveries as I am and heard about the capture of a 'Colossal Squid' last year ... the New Zealand museum that the large chunk of frozen calamari was donated to is about to unfreeze and examine it before preserving it for posterity and display at their facility.    They have LIVE video cams showing it defrosting at the moment but sometime today they are going to unfold it and do the examinations.   For those of you not in the know on this amazing discovery - it weighs in at 990 lbs and is the largest and ONLY adult colossal squid to ever be examined although they have had what they believe to be juvenile colossal squids to examine before.   There are a lot of great stories about how it was found and stored available at the museum site as well as links to the live webcams.   The Discovery Channel is going to be doing a whole show about the entire thing later this year.   I am definitely hoping to catch the webcam just as they are unfolding this huge sea creature (it was folded and stuff into a container before being frozen so they could transport it).   See the highlighted text below for the museum and cam links: 

Museum of New Zealand

Live WebCam Link

Stay tuned for the news of nugget's sex and if Eric and I are right about nugget being a boy!   We'll be happy either way but we are betting on boy!  

Semper Fi and God bless you all.  And keep all our troops in your prayers as I do please.

Take a ride on an F-16 with this pilot and check out this unbelievable video from military.com.   Click on the hyperlinked title below.

F-16 vs Tree
When your aircraft is telling you you're too low to the ground, you might want to listen.

Hope everyone is well btw.   Hope to do an actual blog here later this weekend.

Semper Fi and God Bless you all!