Wit, Wisdom & Wonder

Josh has been in contact on a regular basis, to which I am most grateful. He did have some specifics for us - his cranial has Cookie printed on the back bottom, along with 5T on the front and back, his green vest and a blue jacket with a red stripe along the left sleeve. He has not yet been up on deck for helio packing, but his turn is coming. They are taking shifts of volunteers to minimize exposure. *sigh*

Tonight, the VAQ-139 Squadron is hosting a Town Meeting to discuss the entire situation. There's a lot of rumor, I assume the signal to noise ratio is minimal at best.

Meanwhile, I'm out of dog food (the horror) and need more poultry feed, which means I must go to the feedstore. Where they might have chicks. Beautiful, fluffy, sweet little chickies. Pray for me.

Senator Murray,

I wish to enlist your help in encouraging the Military.com website to update their decade old gravemarkers order form. I have contacted them requesting they do so, as the religious symbols of many minority faiths are not represented on this out of date form. As I'm sure you know, these symbols were added only recently due to multiple lawsuits against the VA.

On 3/21/2010 I received a reply from the Military.com site (Bugs specifically) assuring me that the site's decade old gravemarker form would be brought to the editor's attention for updating.

Unfortunately, as of today, April 17th 2010, it has still not been updated. I have sent them another reminder, quoted below:

"I'm sure, serving as you do the military community, this is of utmost importance to you to ensure the faiths of our fallen soldiers are respected in their choice of religious symbols on their gravemarkers. Every single day, more service members are killed serving in Iraq and Afghanistan and their spouses come to your site trusting they will find complete and updated information. I sincerely hope this will be done by the 21st, as 30 days seems more than sufficient to do this."

For your review, this outdated (2000) form is posted here:
http://images.military.com/Resources/Forms/40-1330.pdf

Senator Murray, you have always show your absolute dedication and support to our service members and their families. I hope that you will continue to do so by assigning a staff member to contact Military.com and request their action in updating their site to benefit our military families in their worst days after the loss of their beloved service members by making this information available to them.

Thank you,
Trista B. Cook
Proud Navy Wife
Island County, WA