McClintock would have been awesome.

And to think I worked on these.

‘Welcome Home’–For Years His Family Waited for His Return. Now, He Waits for His Daughter.
APRIL 24, 2024| IVAN F. INGRAHAM
 
My wife and I sit in a large auditorium in El Paso, Texas, waiting in anticipation, along with other families, for our daughter’s return from deployment. Upbeat music fills the air and the feeling in the assembled crowd is of a group of fans awaiting a rock band to take the stage. This isn’t far off. The main characters are our own family members—the balloons, signs, and flowers overt displays of affection marking the safe return of mothers and fathers, husbands and wives, daughters and sons.

I watch young children playing and dancing to the music. Each is more interested in the other kids than in sitting patiently next to their nervous parents. Children have an innate ability to find fun in anything, even if it’s just running around together, or making up some game whose rules don’t matter. I glance at young mothers holding very small babies, likely for the first introduction to their fathers since deploying nine months earlier.
 

Through a side door, a crowd of soldiers is seen forming up, faceless in an amoebic mob dressed in MultiCam utilities, yet comprised of individuals, each with their own experiences and desires. The air comes alive with anxious expectation, but, like most things in the military, this prolongs the waiting for their arrival. Hurry up and wait goes both ways.

https://thewarhorse.org/veteran-welcomes-home-deployed-daughter-who-waited-for-him/

‘Invisible’–More Women Veterans Are Dying of Suicide and VA Still Lacks Resources, Advocates Say
APRIL 25, 2024| ANNE MARSHALL-CHALMERS
 
Active-duty service members and veterans thinking of harming themselves can get free crisis care. Contact the Military Crisis Line at 988, then press 1, or access online chat by texting 838255.

When she joined the Navy in 2001, Jennifer Alvarado wanted to excel, to be, in her words, a “stellar sailor.” After boot camp, she worked as a hospital corpsman and pursued extra medical and weapons certification courses to prove her work ethic.

Her home life on the military base was a different story: She hid the stress and increasing danger of her relationship with her husband from everyone. One evening in 2005, with her two small boys in the apartment, Alvarado argued with her husband and the altercation turned violent. He beat her, she said in a recent phone interview, and then stormed out and took her car. She called the police on the military base. “My secret was out in the open,” she said. “The shame just came out of my pores.”

Jennifer Alvarado is a Navy veteran. After separating from the Navy, she experienced a difficult transition and suicidal thoughts.
Jennifer Alvarado is a Navy veteran. After separating from the Navy, she experienced a difficult transition and suicidal thoughts. Photo courtesy of William Hendra Photography/DAV.

 https://thewarhorse.org/as-more-women-veterans-die-by-suicide-va-lacks-support/

For some reason I am reminded of what a friend did just the other day. She took her aged, ailing dog to the vet to be euthanized.  Shortly before his death, she let him try chocolate for the first time in his life. Weak as he was, he gobbled it up - a little pleasure in his last moments.