A month between blogs is horrible. I know. I haven't been THAT busy, but it is weird to be down here in Florida by myself. You would think that I have all the time in the world, but I guess it just all moves by so fast that I don't take the time to do the things I should. I should be running, I should be writing. I should be working on web sites. I do all those things sometimes, but I look back and a month has gone by. I wonder if I am at that point in my life where all you do is sit an watch you life go by without you.

Well here I am again. Last time I wrote here, I was still a reservist. If you hadn't heard, I was recalled to active duty and reported on Dec 4, 2001. I will be on Active Duty until December 3, 2002. I won't go on and on about that, if you want that scoop on the web, go to dixbert.com and you can read the whole deal with updates there.
The reason I am writing here tonight is this: horoscopes. I hardly ever read them, and tonight I discovered why. On the few occasions that I do check my horoscope, like tonight, it is so eerily accurate that I just turn away. This one was so close to reality that I felt I had to save it here and share it. Here it is:

You aren't on the same wavelength as the rest of the world. Where other people see red warning lights, you see a challenge. Where they see problems, you see opportunity. When they feel danger, you feel beckoned. You're tapped into a much more interesting and different reality these days, so don't expect that anybody is going to understand your war stories. In fact, you may want to lay low and fade into the woodwork for a while, at least until you can mesh your reality with theirs.

This doesn't explain why I am in Florida, but it sure goes along with it. I think just as an experiment I will be checking my horoscope more often for a bit to see if it remains accurate. If it does, then I will write more about it. If not, well then here is a conversation peice for later I suppose.

I just read an email from a senior enlisted in my reserve unit. I'll say this first, if you are ex-active duty, or are about to become so, DO NOT file a copy of your DD-214 with your local county courthouse. For years, PSD has suggested doing so to servicemembers seperating from active duty. This makes it easy to get a certified copy later if you ever lose your original. Well, here is a clue. Don't lose your original. The story is scary, and goes like this. A retired E-9 was contacted by a large financial corporation. The reason they contacted him is because someone was trying to cash a large check written to a person with a "foreign sounding" name. It was almost $10,000, and upon further investigation, they determined that some address mismatches warranted stopping payment and contacting this person. He reported the details to law enforcement and they started an investigation. Eventually they arrested a lawyer and confiscated his laptop. On it were the names and SSN's of several thousand retired sevice members. Further research indicated that it would be very easy to get a replacement MILITARY ID CARD using nothing more than certified copy of your DD-214, obtainable at the county courthouse as a matter of public record. Guess what terrorists could do with a military ID card? Ok, don't. I am pretty sure that some things will change, especially at PSD when they are advising retiring and seperating military members. Identity theft sucks. It really, really sucks when the target is someone that spent between 3 and 30 years defending America.

Haven't had a chance to write anything here in some time. Thought I was going to be unemployed. I was wrong. Thought I was going to be deployed in support of the war on Terrorism, quite possibly wrong on that one too. Right now I am working mostly from home, going in to the client site when I need to. Isn't the internet a wonderful thing? Don't answer that. Some days I think the whole thing should be boarded up and shut down, but most days it is just what I do and I don't think about it. I have so many different things to do on the internet. Some of them I get paid to do, some I don't. Guess which ones I have been spending most of my time on? Here is a clue, I don't get paid to write blogs. Unless you want to send me some cash. If you do, you are nuts, but you can always email me here. dixbert@dixbert.com
I crack myself up sometimes.
My oldest just got home from school and shouted down to my office, "Hey Dad, I am going to go play with Brad, catch you later!"
He's 5.
Wow.

People in my small, Midwest, suburban neighborhood ask why I would want to go and join the fight against terrorism. Amid the raucous laughter of five little boys playing in the leaf-pile in my front yard, I will answer. My answer will not address why I want to however, it will address why I have to.
Imagine that you were part of an extended family. This family spans the whole country; from coast to coast and from border to border and beyond. Now try to imagine that another family that hated your family and everything you stood for maliciously attacked and killed thousands in your family right in their own backyard. I am barely speaking in metaphors here, and you probably recognize that. Let me zoom in a bit. I am a selected reservist for the United States Navy. Some people call me a weekend-warrior, others call me a part time squid. During the lulls of peace and complacency, reservists take at least a ribbing, at most a genuine lack of respect from our active duty brothers. I chose the last word of the last sentence on purpose. Brothers. When it comes right down to the details, dozens of people that were killed when the aircraft struck the Pentagon were wearing the exact same uniform that I wear. Right down to the patches. The only difference between my uniform and a few of those killed is the name tag and the ribbons.
My family has been attacked. My dedication to my wife and kids, my blood family, is not one weekend a month, two weeks a year and neither is my dedication to my Military family. It is a twenty-four hour, seven day a week dedication that in the lull between wars only requires action once in awhile. Now that we are at war, and we are, it requires more action. My dedication to my family remains, and strengthens my resolve to don my uniform, pack my sea bag and go where I am needed.
I know that I could be sent far away from my family, my friends and my civilian employment. I know that I could be sent where there is danger. But where I am going, they need me. My active duty brothers and sisters have much to do, they have new tasks that they have been directed to complete, but the old tasks remain. When I went to the active duty command for my two weeks of training a year ago last May, I was welcomed and trained so that I could return to Minnesota and train others. I have done that. We are trained, we are ready and we will help. It is not a matter of wanting to, it is our job. We aren't asking to be placed on the same pedestal as the New York Firefighters or the hundreds of rescue workers in New York, D.C. and Pennsylvania. We just want to do what we can, to do what we have been trained to do. Why? So that the boys playing in my front yard can grow up and never have to wonder who's plane that is flying overhead. So they don't have to wonder if there is a bacteria floating around in their classrooms, placed there by those that want to bring more death to the United States. I have to go because my work will help ensure that people can go to work and feel safe in their offices, in their homes, in their own backyards. I want my family to be safe and free. And if you are here in the United States, you are who I am talking about. You are my family. And I don't want to, I have to.