Items

• 
  2020-03

  Time to Complete a Decade-Old Project

  We had just moved from Fort Bragg (Fayetteville), North Carolina, to Eglin Air Force Base (Destin), Florida, when my husband learned he was deploying to Afghanistan this past January. Usually, when my husband deploys, I have work to occupy my time, but I did not find a teaching job when we moved. I decided to return to my hometown of Kane, Pennsylvania during my husband’s deployment. When the pandemic started, I decided to fix up a one-hundred-year-old table left in my sister’s house by the previous owner. I made my sister keep this table in her basement for ten years, with the promise that one day I would take it with me. It only took a deployment and a pandemic to get me started on this project. I figured working on the table would be an excellent way to pass the time since I could no longer visit old friends due to the pandemic. I started working on the table in my sister’s basement armed with paint scrapers, wire brushes, CitriStrip, Mineral Spirits, and an acrid-smelling varnish remover. CitriStrip smells like oranges, and that is not a bad smell to have to permeate your sister’s house for days; however, the other varnish remover was not as nose-friendly. It smelt so bad that one could say that I was using biological terrorism on my family. Imagine ten thousand girls removing their nail polish at the same time with acetone, and you have some idea of the smell. It did not take long for my sister to kick me out of my (almost warm) basement work area, and I began to work on the table in the frigid temperatures of my parent’s garage where the smell of chemicals would not reach inside. Pennsylvania is not very warm in March, and I could never get warm, especially when I was using acetone. Acetone evaporates quickly, and as a result, it kept my hands cold. Also, I found that the acetone melted my latex gloves, and that made matters worse. My hands were always dry. Removing the old varnish was laborious, and I am still not sure if it was varnish that coated the table. Research led me to believe that it might be shellac or a type of wax, and when I scraped the layers off, everything turned into a goopy mess. As I scraped each layer of the varnish off the table, I could begin to see more of the table’s features. I began to see the scorch marks from the saw, a mark where the previous owner left a paint can, and I could see the beautiful wood hiding underneath. Finally, it was time to sand. When you are sanding wood, you start with large grain sandpaper, and you work your way to finer sandpaper. I used both an electric sander and a hand sander. The electric sander made my hands numb, but the hand sander was time-consuming. As I wiped the sawdust away from the table, I felt accomplished. Now the table is a treasured part of our new home in Monterey CA; in fact, I am writing this paper on it right now. *This is the story of someone finally getting around to refurbishing an old table.
• 2020-07-16

  military response

  This is a story of how one soldier can make a difference in the pandemic.This private was recognized for her good deeds by NASCAR however the question that begs asking is why it was necessary?why during a pandemic is a shortage of masks occurring especially in the military where people are forced to work in close quarters.
• 
  2020-07-07

  Travel band lifted for U.S. Military

  This is an article about how the military has lifted the travel band it had in place due to the coronavirus.My family is personally affected by this since we are slotted to P.C.S. this fall.Not all states are cleared by the military and I fear with the country opening back up there will be many more cases and possibly more delays in PCS orders because of it.
• 
  2020-06-06

  Soldier of the 82nd Airborne Division conducting foot march to conduct Expert Infantry Badge training

  There was 1100 hundred people in a group with three groups rotating in this training and it was impossible to follow pandemic precautions.A total of about 3800 were involved in just this two weeks training.3 companies were quarantined because of this training due to coronavirus cases after the training was completed.Not everyone who was at the training was quarantined.
• 
  2020-06-22

  Military airborne jumps

  This is an image of soldiers prior to an airborne jump.While some are wearing face coverings no one is practicing social distancing and within the aircraft it is impossible to distance.Following this jump they were doing training further exposing themselves to the coronavirus which is why Fort Bragg is still having growing numbers of coronavirus cases.
• 
  2020-06-20

  Soldiers doing land navigation during quarantine

  This is a video of a training event my husband participated in.As you can see the soldiers are taking zero precautions to prevent the coronavirus.After this event 2 people in my husband's squad tested positive for the virus.While they are quarantined the rest of their company who all trained with them and interact in an intimate environment on a daily basis are still being sent to the field together without any testing.In addition to this one of the soldier's who tested positive had a roommate that they were going to force to quarantine with him even though the roommate did not have any systems and was told he could not get tested for coronavirus because he was already supposed to be quarantined.It was only due to my husband interfering and arguing with the chain of command that the decision was made that the two roommates would be quarantined separately.Had he not interfered they would have forced the roommates to quarantine together and essentially force the roommate to contract the virus.It is important to show the negligence of Fort Bragg in regards to protecting their soldiers from the Coronavirus.
• 
  2020-03-22

  Fort Bragg Shut down

  This is from when Fort Bragg first put out that they were switching to mission essential personnel for a few days.Little did we know that this would continue for the next few months.They would say in two week we will re-evaluate and then the time would pass and it would get moved back.My family was supposed to P.C.S. at this time and we were getting ready to sell our home and move where ever the army told us to go.However due to the Pandemic my husband's orders were cancelled.We did not know if they would be changed to a later date or if cancelled completely.This happened to many military families who were stuck in limbo for months as we saw daily updates further restricting our movements for an indefinite amount of time.Luckily we still had a steady paycheck from the military so did not suffer financially like many others did.
• 
  2020-05-30

  Military base mask enforcement sign

  Before entering the PX at Fort Bragg there is a sign displayed telling visitors that a facemask must be worn to enter the premises.Even though some states are opening up and facemasks are being used less and less the military base is held to a stricter standard.