fruzicle | Entries tagged with eric

Seven months in the Iraqi desert.
One hundred and twenty degree days.
Blowing sand.
Sharing a tent with a bunch of other lonely Marines.

Night shift. Stars overhead are incredible.
I've never seen so many.
I tell the guys everything I know about the stars, the constellations, the space shuttle.

Daytime. Trying to sleep in the tent, in the desert, without any air-conditioning.
Someone knocks my gun over while I sleep. I leap out of bed in a panic, ready to kill.
I try to go back to sleep.

Working twelve hour shifts without any days off.
Incoming!
Running, scared shitless. Taking cover in the underground hangar when the mortars come flying in.
Emails from home, but keeping it all in: the bad days, the days when somebody died. The days we took the mortars.

Working with Iraqis. One talked about his wives. Another was a kid. Thirteen years old.
We joked. We traded hats, coins, smiles.
They were ambushed.
Killed.
Thirteen.
I am eighteen..

Some photos inside my cap -- Stacie and 3 year old Marcus. I look at them and dream of the future.
If I get there.

And then it's finally here!
Home again!

And the one touch I've been dreaming of these seven long months.

(L - R: Grandma of Marine, girlfriend of Marine, Marine, random guy wearing a Swedish soccer jersey, the author.)

My son joined the US Marines when he was seventeen years old. At 2 am, the Monday morning after high school graduation, he was on his way to boot camp. One year later he was in Iraq. Ultimately he served two tours of duty there. Now when I do the motherly job of reminding him to take a jacket, he responds, "Mom. Been to war, Twice." No other comment is needed. I know that he can handle whatever comes his way. Even frigid Southern California evenings outdoors.

I was talking to Eric on the phone yesterday about his consultation with the surgeon from earlier in the day. The latest is that they DON'T feel he needs surgery, they think that everything has moved a little and there is enough bone contact that it will all join up properly without the surgery. That seemed like really good news. Maybe these past five days have actually been effective.

As we were talking, he interrupted to say that he had to take a call; his surgeon was calling.

About thirty minutes later I figured the surgeon must be done; they don't have that much time to spend yakking on the phone. I called back and asked what the surgeon had said.

"What?" he asked. "I wasn't talking to my surgeon!"

"Yes, you told me you had to take a call from your surgeon."

"No, Mom, not my surgeon, my Sergeant."

"Oohh. " (whoops.)

"He says that they don't have any desk jobs for me. I'll be out of work for five months."

That seems really extreme, but what are you going to do. The police department certainly doesn't want a guy going head to head with a bad guy, re-injuring themselves on the job, and then needing workman's comp. I suggested Eric start up his e-bay business again. I had also previously (like last Friday) suggested to him that it would be a good time for him to take that one last class he needs to get his AA. At the time, he pooh poohed the class idea. "I can't be writing when I can't use my arm!" he retorted.

Yesterday he told me that he was intending to do the e-bay thing. "Oh, and I'm thinking of going back and taking that class I need."

Aaah, the mom in me succeeds again. I may have planted the seed of the idea. Heh, heh, heh. No, I don't ask for any credit. Maybe it was meant to be.

Yesterday I visited Eric. I had just had a nasty looking growth* removed from my shoulder and thus was wearing a hospital wrist band. He is hanging out in his apartment with a rotating bevy of girlfriends, well two, anyway, attending to him. He has impressive road rash scrapes across his shoulder, elbow and hip. His collarbone area is a sickly yellow color and bulges ominously in one place. (Not too bad, but you can tell where the break is.) Because of not being able to lift his arm, as well as the oozing scrapes, he doesn't wear a shirt. I, of course, am basically fine. He is just sitting tight, waiting for his visit to the surgeon today, who will evaluate him once again and set up a date for surgery. It's frustrating knowing that he isn't really making any progress until he gets the surgery.

His buddy Monty is seeing the same surgeon. Monty's surgery is the 15th. He has two breaks in one clavicle and one break in the other, so I guess it's only fair that they take care of him first. (And it turned out that Monty's breaks need the pins, too.)

Both guys are still able to play x-box. When Eric goes online, he sees another of his friends playing, too. I told Eric to call up the other guy (Ryan) and say, "I have a broken bone, what's your excuse?!?"

I, on the other hand, am going to go back to my cleaning frenzy, since Janike is coming today. Calling it a frenzy is absurd. I just can't get too dedicated. There's too much to tackle! She and I swore years ago that we wouldn't do anything Herculean to clean when the other visited. I realize, however, that since I work full time, I have no housewife other than O. He's pretty good, but he's not a full time housewife, either! Unfortunately, spring break is pretty much the only time all year I have to catch up on serious housework. Forget the other holidays, there's too much other stuff to do.

I think we'll settle for clean sheets and dinner on the table.

* keratoacanthoma : don't look it up unless you have a strong stomach!

Took the chicks to school on Wednesday. The kids went bonkers. I love their questions.

Can you eat the eggs the chicken lays?
(Note: You have to realize that, as stupid as this question sounds, when a kid is looking at a real live chicken, with feathers and personality and sounds and poop coming out of it, eating an egg from the chicken doesn't sound nearly as appetizing as it does when Mom puts one down on a plate in front of you.     ...Stilll... When you say, "Yes, you can eat the eggs," the kid looks really, really disgusted.

If you can eat the eggs, how come there are no chicks inside.
   I have had long conversations with very smart kids explaining all the details of roosters, hens, boy, girl, fertilization, etc, etc. It's a very foreign concept to them. And that's not even going into the mechanics of fertilization! One boy suggested that the rooster could just come along and fertilize the eggs after they were laid. This is the same boy who, since he is adopted, insists that he actually really does not have a father.

Where did you get the chicken?
   Somehow this was a difficult concept for the particular kid who asked it (about 5 years old, I think.) I finally gave up and told him it came from a pet store. He accepted that but still kept asking if it were a real chicken.

Past favorite questions about a pet snake:
   Does it poop? Does it pee?

The big news of the week is Eric's graduation from the police academy. He's so relieved that it's over that he hardly knows what to think. He's relieved in the sense that it was a ton of work, a monumental time commitment, and was very important to him. He starts work with CMPD on Tuesday. In the last six months he has had one 4 day weekend, a few two day weekends and a whole bunch of one day weekends. He's excited to get a three dayer right now.

Eric was the one who sounded the cadence as they marched in to the ceremony. Even though he has done that daily for the past six months, this time it blew out his voice and he has laryngitis. He did very well in the class, coming in at fifth place out of 32 with an average of 92%. However, Stacie and I have voted him the best cop in Orange County according to our very specialized two person poll. (No disagreements, however, from other Fricke bystanders.)

His finest moments from the academy were

When the instructor guy who taught the tricks of the trade of fast car driving and evasive maneuvers asked Eric if he was a professional driver.

Winning the best marksman in the class award

And being surprised when he was called to the front of line during formation, mid-way through the course, expecting some hazing for a minor infraction, but instead being awarded his hiring patches from the city of Costa Mesa

(above) First Day of Class

Graduation Day. Please notice the shiny new accessory on his left chest.

Ever since returning from Iraq, Eric has been surprisingly welcoming in inviting me to participate in his daily life. Yesterday he asked me if I wanted to accompany him to Camp Pendleton as he took care of some errands. Since I'm on vacation and Pendleton is always a pleasant escape from the metropoliton crush we live in, I agreed. He makes the trip in civilian clothes, incognito, if you will.

We arrive at the PX. A woman (about my age) sees that he is carrying a load of uniforms over his arm and inquires, "Looking for dry cleaning, Hon?"
At the dry cleaner window Eric learns that his uniforms would not be finished until Monday, which would be cutting it close for the event he wishes to wear them for. He realises that he will have to find another cleaner and turns to walk away.

I then go to the window and ask if they can recommend an alternate dry cleaner.

As we leave the PX. Eric is irate. "Don't say anything. Just follow me."
I keep my mouth shut. (I know how these things go.) It takes him about 40 minutes and a Pedro's burrito to cool down.

Later that evening I get filled in.
"I'm a corporal! I can handle my own business. All those lance corporals in there were looking at me with respect until my mom started taking care of business for me! They're going to think I'm some kind of private or something!"
(I'm remembering the motherly sales clerk and the shorts and T-shirt he was wearing in the store. Perhaps when you're a corporal you just exude prestige and underlings just know.)

Moral of story: When on your offspring's turf, stay low. Very low.

When Eric went to Iraq I put yellow ribbons in the tree out front. We also put the Marine flag up in front of the house--another obstinate show that we had someone over there and everyday was a dicey day.

A few months later I actually wrote names on the yellow ribbons of people we knew over there.

When Eric came home, I didn't have the heart to take the yellow ribbons down. After all, I knew lots of other Marines and soldiers were still over there in the heat and dust, dodging mortars, or sometimes not.
We even had to get a new flag; the original one had faded from a brilliant red to a weathered, grayed shadow of its former self. Yet every day it waved in front of our house. Sadly symbolic, I thought.

So today was Memorial Day. Yes, we spent the day enjoying the perfect summer weather. But it is with a new sense of sadness that I face each of these veteran holidays. I wonder when I will ever be able to take down the yellow ribbons.