"I'm leaving on a Jet Plane. Don't know when I'll be Home again" .... That song has been stuck in mind since I first heard the mention of it last week. Now it is so true in my life. Eric left on a jet, and I do know approximately when he will be home, I hope. Yes, Eric is on his way to Iraq now. He will turn 21 on foreign soil in a little less than a month (Oct. 3rd).

I am numb and sick at heart. Actually, totally numb would be better right now. The ladies in one of the support email groups I belong to (all family, mostly moms, of guys in my son's company) have been emailing of the 'final' call from their sons the past 3 days. Meaning that it is the call their sons make to home just before they get on the jet taking them out of the country. I finally had to send an email to all of them asking .. PLEASE quit calling it the 'final' or 'last' call. Sorry ladies but it was just a request since that was giving me the CHILLS reading that. Eric wouldn't (and hasn't) said goodbye to me. The closest we got is 'till we meet and hug again'. But to tell the truth I didn't know this could be any harder than putting him on that plane back to his base 2 weeks ago. But it is. I will be getting his address out to those of you that receive my monthly 'Eric Update' and please send him a birthday card ASAP. It will probably take 3-4 weeks for him to get them.

I feel so out of it being so far away from Eric's base. I know a lot of the moms and wifes spent the night there with the guys waiting in the buses before they left for the airport. In a way, that would have been harder for me I think. I still wish he was based closer to me.

I suupose that part of what I am feeling is due to the horrors that I have been hearing about from a close friend in Baton Rouge whom my company is sending supplies to. I don't know how she is holding up as strong as she is. I can only imagine that she is crying herself to sleep every night. I am glad to say that since my request that we send items to her to distribute to families down there that need help in the parrishes, my company has collected and sent a whole pallet Friday, and we have almost another whole pallet to send Tuesday. Every little bit helps. If anyone else is doing anything else like that, my friend told me that when she was working in the Red Cross shelters yesterday the only request they were getting from the adults, was that the children needed books and games. Now how sad and touching is that :( . These people have lost everything, but all they are asking for is things to ease the pain of the children (which I would probably do too). I already put up a request on our bulletin board at work for toys and things for the kids so hopefully there will be more of that type of thing to send Tuesday when we go back to work. My prayers are still with the folks down there. But half of the time my prayers are with our guys that are deploying to Iraq as we speak.

Anyway, that is about all the news I can pass on right now.

God Bless And Semper Fi