Get a  clue! Or take a lesson from NBC Nightly News.

On Tuesday, our local news on NBC ran a story. Eight soldiers killed in Afghanistan, now here’s the part that makes me mad. FROM FT LEWIS. In the list of things you shouldn’t announce until it’s confirmed, and families are DONE being notified that is a big one. Do you have any idea what that sentence did to me? and likely SEVERAL other families here that heard it? It terrified us!

NBC Nightly news had the respect to NOT mention the brigade, OR even the KIND of unit (local news take note, even just saying "Stryker Brigade" tells us it’s ours…we’re the only damned stryker brigade in that country). They simply said Eight soldiers were killed in Afghanistan. Nothing that would cause the fear that the local news stories did. You see, we don’t get told it wasn’t OUR soldiers, until the families have been notified of their loss. So until we got that email…I was a wreck. I was sick to my stomach, shaking, my anxiety was through the roof. So thank you King 5 news for the most horrible 24 hours of this deployment so far. No idea what the other stations said, I wasn’t watching them. I wouldn’t even have been watching King 5 had I remembered to change the channel at 5:00.

Sometimes getting the story out fast is more detrimental than getting the story out right. The good news is, my husband is ok. The bad news is it was his unit. Again. So while we’re at it…

Dear Mr President,

Please approve that troop surge. The longer you wait, the more dangerous this deployment becomes for our soldiers there. I appreciate that you want to be careful, I do. But the longer you wait, the harder it gets for the guys fighting there that need the support. Including my husband.