FRG Update

As promised here is some very exciting news from my FRG Meeting yesterday:

I should start by saying my hubs left for deployment 2 Sept 08- with Main Body 2. Main Body 1 left 1 Sept 08. Okie dokie.. Now that, that is out of the way... Yesterday at the meeting our leader says that she received an email from my hubby's Cpt saying that all of the guys should be home within the next 4 months (which would put us right at the end of August). My first reaction to that was... "So? What is so exciting about that? How is the end of August anything more than an on-time re-deployment of soldiers? (based on when they left)?" Well, I said as much in the meeting and was promptly corrected: The Cpt saying that ALL soldiers should be stateside by the end of August would put the first group of guys re-deploying in July, and Main Bodies early August-ish. This is more exciting for me to think about. However... the Army being what the Army is, it's still hard to jump up and down about it. For the guys who return in July this is definitely early... however for those that re-deploy the beginning or middle of August... it's really not that much different. I mean really, if my hubs returns home the 15 of August and people ask how long he was gone I'm going to say "A year." not "11 and a half months." I mean seriously it's about the same. And again the nature of the beast kind of tells all of us whom are familiar to be hopeful but not expect anything. Early August is exciting to think about but I won't hold my breath!

Other than that we discussed fundraising and what we can do for the single Joe's return. I don't know about you but it's extra sad to see all these guys reuniting with family and some of these guys have no one there to welcome them, take them to dinner (or give then a home-cooked meal for that matter), make sure they have necessities on hand and at the end of the day make sure that their absence the last year has been noticed, missed and greatly appreciated. So that is one of the main purposes behind our current fundraising efforts. I think it's well worth it- don't you? Also, I think maybe even a little more urgent is our current lack of participation in this FRG. The first meeting I attended (with this troop; since my hubs was moved when he put on rank last December) was March 8th (read here). This meeting was just for POC's and only 6 (maybe 7) wives showed up. Than the next meeting was a few weeks later (where we received a new address for our guys) and only 7 people showed up again (some of the POC's and 1 or 2 new people). So yesterday's meeting was extra disheartening because there were only 5 ladies in attendance. I think we all agreed that we should do something for those single Joe's but that we definitely need to budget our money in order to encourage more wives to get involved. Kaitlyn and I were saying we should have BBQ's and things like that- separate from FRG Business so that the other wives that have been less enthusiastic to get involved could come out for free food a lil booze (maybe..) and meet those of us that do lend our time and at that point they would possibly like us more, create some friendships and attend meetings and such!

What do you guys think??? Is there something that your FRG has done (similar to what we're getting at) that you really enjoyed? Maybe where you met another Army wife that you liked, or where you were motivated to be more involved?? Thanks for your ideas....!!