He's been out a year

On October 21st Rich has been out of the Army for a whole year. Wow. Somedays it feels like we never even had that life, then some days it slaps you in the face and makes you remember.

Personally I'm glad he's out, he was unhappy with a lot of things that he was going through, and now he's got a great job - he's still doing the same thing he was doing in the Army, just without the stress of it all. He's happy, which makes me happy.

I'm glad I don't have to worry about deployments, worrying if I'll get a phone call or jumping when my doorbell rings, ignoring the news - it's something that I remember doing, and I feel the pain of the ones having to do it now.

Iraq '05, second deployment.

Where they stayed.

One of the guys on a "walk of faith".

One of the caches they blew up.

And the cloud.

I had other pictures to post, but Rich didn't want them going up. They were of some cars damaged from an insurgent who'd blown himself/car up and they had to take pictures/video/clean up.

There is also another picture I can't find on our hard drive of a cell phone that displayed "2 Missed Calls" on the screen - Rich and his team leader where out dealing with it and the insurgents were trying to set the phone off. I'm beyond thankful it didn't work.

So... a year out. A new life without the Army in our hair - and it's not bad. But there are days when he misses that comraderier I think, and there people we both miss.

704th EOD, Iraq 2005 deployment.

Rich is right behind the flag.

One of my all-time favorite people in the word is on the back row, far right. :) He was the First SGT there, he's now a CSM in Cali. (I still call him Top) We adore him and his family and miss them - it's been too long!