New hair, red lips

Here is a picture of me with my new hair cut and color.

You can't really tell the color. The lighting in this room is awful. But, it's a new do, similar to my old one just longer, and I've tried red lips for the first time ever. Probably won't be wearing the lip color much but I'm in love with my new do. 

Opsec, from a Marine

This post is from my husband. He feels like we need to understand Opsec from a Marine's point of view and how they understand it. So here it is. 

Opsec: What you can and cannot disclose should usually be common sense but, as I read blogs there are more and more people getting bashed because of stupid little things and other people that don't have the common sense to not post sensitive information, I feel the need to write a little something. 

If you feel as though I am wrong and I am too loose with my interpretation that is fine you have an opinion just as I do hence why I am in Afghanistan right now, so you can use your opinion freely. I am going to start with the book definiton of OPSEC and why it is place both should be obvious but for my opinion/interpretation to be relevant we have to start somewhere. Operations Security is keeping potential adversaries from discovering our critical information. Even though information may not be secret it can be considered what we call critical information.  Critical information deals with SPECIFIC facts about military intentions, capabilities, operations, or activities. 

Now to be specific you would have to use things such as times, dates, number of vehicles in a covoy, capabilites of weapons, what weapons we are using where, location of troops.  Now I don't think my wife has mentioned on her blog where I am located or even what I do.  She has said that I have a desk job which is partly true.  My job is actually what brings your men home.  I know what can be said over a non-secure phone and what has to be said over a secure phone line, hence my educated (I feel its educated based on the training I've recieved) opinions on the matter. 

Now I havent been to a spouses pre-deployment brief so I'm not sure what they tell you you can and cannot say and the information you give is still up to you.  I know of wives that didn't care anything about opsec and some that I feel take it a little too far.  One thing my wife told me she felt was too much was one wife had a "countdown callender" on her blog.  I don't think that is too much because if you really know the date your husband is coming home 6 or 7 months beforehand I wish you wives would let us know because up until our bird lands in the US there is never a sure thing.  Sure you know when your husband left, how long the deployment is, and when he is supposed to be back, but that math never works out and you might be a month off.  

I know my wife edited her last post saying I would be home in 11 months.  Is that specific?  Not at all in my mind.  I might be home in 10 months, it might be 12.  She doesn't know, and until my plane takes off from Kyrgystan and lands in the US I won't know when I'll be home either.  To me a violation would be telling the world that tomorrow at 1030 my husband is finally landing back at Beaufort, South Carolina from deployment.  Or my husband is running the .50 cal in the turret of the lead truck in his convoy tomorrow, and by the way he is in Leatherneck.  

That is what opsec is about.  Don't give up specifics that will get us killed but you don't have to sensor yourself so much that you have to think about everything you are saying.  Blogs are very public I understand that, but so are flight schedules.  You can find flight schedules on the internet believe me and that is alot more specific than you saying your husband will be home in 7 months and you are excited.  Now don't get me wrong I think Opsec is very important.  I take my job seriously and I'm not going to tell you when a flight is going out over a nonsecure net you can ask me 20 times what time and I'll probably hang up on you lol, but I get annoyed when people take it so far as to say that something as broad as a month is a "violation" of Opsec.  

Afghanistan isn't what you think it is.  You probably think your husband is on the only plane with the only flight out of here that day or week or month so it would be very easy for a terrorist to track him down, at least thats how I feel when I read some of these posts.  There are hundreds if not thousands of flights around this country every day. 

Lets do some math.  You say your husband will be home in lets say 10 months.  He could come home early "probably not he's a Marine," or what most likely will happen he will be here longer than that.  So lets say that leaves a 6 week window the month you think he'll be home 2 weeks for before that, because who knows there may be a miracle that he comes home early and I am using two weeks after hes supposed to be home which is probably when he will show up.  Now lets say there are 500 flights a day across Afghanistan.  This is a very low number as there are at least a hundred a day, just fixed wing, flights where I am.  So here we go get out the calculators 500 x 42(6weeks x 7 days) = 21000 possible flights.  Is One in TWENTY-ONE THOUSAND specific?  I don't think so.  If you do that's fine I am not telling you to do any different, just use your head, don't give out specific times, dates, numbers of troops that type of thing, and don't go crazy or drive other people crazy over it.  

One last closing thing that was just brought to my attention,  If the terrorists really wanted to get at this flight your husband is on there is a website right out on the good old internet that tracks flights into the US.  Right now you are seeing what I think is Opsec.  Im neither going to tell you the website or tell you which bases it tracks flights to.  But I will tell you that it tracks military flights and you don't need any kind of clearance to get on it. If they wanted to know what flight your husband was on too late they already do.


"They think they are the stupid guys praying all day wearing weird hats but they are probably smarter than these wives who think they are oh so awsome bc they don't disclose any information that might hurt their man.  That information is already accessible.  They can go on soldiers facebooks and talk to these locals we have on base and get all of that information.  We got an email about opsec the other day it was a soldier he posted pictures from the air of the whole base he was on and labeled pretty much everything but you can't say that you're happy I'll be home in 11 months maybe they should talk to their husbands about opsec not other wives." (Inserted: From my husband when explaining why he was so blunt. haha)

Now, I know my husband is a bit opinionated and straight forward... I have to admit it's one of the many reasons I love him<3 I don't want this to become a comment war or anything negative. This is simply another view point from the other side of Opsec. I know personally I have only read things based on the homefront point of view. I found it helpful to understand Opsec from my husband's point of view. 

& Mr. Sykes <3

Things I miss about NC

Besides the fact that it seems like once I leave NC all the entertainment on base starts happening there are a few things I miss about living down south.

NUMBER ONE: Not having annoying Jehovah's Witnesses knocking on my door. I just had to dive onto my kitchen floor to avoid being seen. No one should have to do that in their own homes. I am now currently making a no soliciting sign for my front door.

NUMBER TWO: The weather, duh. If you haven't lived in NY you probably don't know how crappy our weather is. I didn't even realize how crappy it truly is until I lived somewhere else.

NUMBER THREE: Sweet Tea. They just have no idea how to make it properly up here.

NUMBER FOUR: The ocean. *huge sigh*

NUMBER FIVE: Not having to wash my car every damn week. It would be every day if I didn't understand how completely ridiculous that is.

That's all I've got for now on missing NC.

Oh, I thought I would be getting away from the constant sight of marines but boy was I wrong. Obviously they aren't every where I turn but I do see one every single time I go to Target and I have to pass a billboard when I go to my dad's house. The one's at Target are always so adorable though. They look straight out of boot camp and all proud and excited. The ones out in public in Jacksonville are usually loud and annoying so I'll take the exchange.

Got to go, baby girl is crying. Such is my life now...

OH! We got R&R dates! We'll see if they actually stick.

This is how adorable my daughter looks while crying... hahaha. 

One month down!!

Today marks one month done from this deployment! I can't believe it's been a month already. Part of me feels like it's been forever and the other part feels like it's flown by.

I love that we are done with this month but it's so sad to think that the last time I saw my husband in person was a month ago. Boo :-(

I Love You Papa Bear <3

I like all of you, love some of you, and am here for every one of you.

Like most of you I woke up today, jumped on blogger and was punched in the face with blogs about this lady,

You can go ahead and read that yourselves. I'm not putting my two cents in.

I want EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU to know something. Even if I have never talked to you in my life I am here for you. If all you need is someone to listen to you, get ahold of me. I will sit on the phone with you for hours or chat back and forth on email if you need me to.

You could never burden me with anything that could be essential to your well being.

If you read my blog and have wanted to get ahold of me, even just to chat, here is my email.

bresykes@gmail.com

I'm serious when I say I like all of you, love some of you, and am here for every one of you.

Oh just this and that.

I am being spoiled. Extremely spoiled. So much so that I almost feel bad about it...almost.

No, it has nothing to do with how much money is spent on me or anything materialistic.

I'm being spoiled with communication.

I'm knocking on wood for even saying this out loud but I get to talk to my husband at least once a day. Usually for hours or so at a time. I know this is extremely rare during a deployment which is why I knocked on wood.

I don't know how I would get through this without talking to him. I know that if he were infantry it would be no where near this frequent. That is one thing I have always considered myself blessed for; That my husband is a POG and not a Grunt. Thankfully we were together when he joined the military or else he most likely would have been a grunt. I salute any wife of an infantry man. You are tougher than me by strides.

We have almost knocked a month off of this extremely long deployment. I am praying that things keep going this fast and are this "easy." Nothing about this deployment is easy obviously, but the communication makes it so much easier to get through my days without breaking down.

Unfortunately I know that I am very close to a break down. I feel awful even thinking about it knowing how fortunate I have been comparatively. What reason do I have to break down? I can't imagine being able to make this deployment much easier, minus getting to spend time physically together. I guess nothing is ever really enough though.

It's enough to keep me going but it's not enough to keep my heart from breaking whenever I think about how much he is missing. Every day Abigail gets bigger and little changes happen. He doesn't get to experience any of this except through pictures. What is the positive side of that? I've been trying to figure it out so I can focus on it but I end up with nothing.

This isn't even about me getting to see my husband. I would give up all of my communication with him this year in exchange for him getting to be with our daughter and enjoy her as much as I get to.

This is what is going to cause a break down. I feel it every time I look at her.

 One day

One month. 

The last 25

I can't believe I'm actually about to finish this. It's really hard to come up with 100 things about yourself. Sorry if I bore the heck out of y'all. If any of you even read these lol.

1. Incase you didn't already know, I'm a mommy. 
2. Another incase you didn't know, I am a Marine wife and damn proud of my husband. 
3. I am currently going through our first and last deployment which is lasting a year. 
4. I Love country music. Did I say this one already? Well if I did it's ok because I love it that much. 
5. Josh Turner is my favorite artist. 
6. Having a daughter with the man who has my heart makes me the happiest person in the world. 
7. I'm really nervous about going back to college to finish my bachelor's degree. 
8. Once I get my mind set on something, such as getting my hair cut, I have to do it asap or I get antsy. 
9. I really love pizza. Not Pizza hut fake pizza. I'm talking a big, NY style, delicious pizza. 
10. I'm extremely self conscious about how I look without make up on. I blame the fact that I danced as a child for 12 years and they loaded me with make up for every competition to make me look "beautiful."
11. I am finally getting over my number 10 thanks to the constant reassurance of my husband. And a baby girl who doesn't let mommy take more than 5 minutes to get ready :-)
12. I love Arnold Palmer. Not the golfer, the drink. 
13. I believe that a little bit of patience goes a long way. 
14. I met my husband my freshman year of high school. He was a senior but I knew there was something special about him when I first saw him. He'll say he though I was a fox but I think he's just trying to make me feel better ;-)
15. Time flies when you're in love. I have to catch myself from saying 2 years when people ask me how long my husband and I have been together. It's already close to 4 years!! 
16. I have a heart shaped Uterus. It's almost 2 separate uteruses but they are connected, just slightly. It's called uterus didelphys. I'm a mutant. 
17. I'm almost a whole foot shorter than my husband. We look kinda funny but I love how tall he is and I'm perfectly happy with how short I am. <3
18. My mom's a psychic. I'm not 100% sold on the whole psychic stuff but I will admit she has amazed me more than once. 
19. My favorite smell in the world is my husband. He always smells absolutely amazing. Except when he's been in the field for a couple days and hasn't showered. That's kinda nasty. 
20. I love my dog almost as much as I love my daughter.
21. I have amazing in laws who probably don't even know it but have helped me become a better person just by being who they are. 
22. I'm jumping on the zumba bandwagon this month.
23. I just picked my daughters nose and I'm not grossed out in the slightest.
24. I love when my daughter poops. No one else's kids though.
25. I have the most amazing little family <3