United They Stand

Best friends forever is an understatment when it comes to these men. They have all grown up together since wee little fellers. They always acted like brothers. When you saw one, you saw another. They all became "brothers" in a way that makes us all proud. Even though they are now scattered all over the world, I am able to keep in touch. I love these men more than words can say. I am so very proud to call them my sons even though only one is my "actual" son.

Jerod in Iraq

Frank at Camp LeJeune

Nick at Mojave Viper

Robert after Boot Camp

Jacob here at home. He has been to boot but came home on an injury. He will be headed back to boot this summer to become a United States Marine.

                                                                Cody in Iraq (Army)

These fine men all grew up together, now they are brothers in every sense of the word. This small little town is not the same without them all here. It sure is quieter!!

I miss you boys. I am so very proud of each and every one of you. I love you all more than words can say.

The Third Love of My Life

Bradley is a funny character. He has not been around long enough to do all the wild and crazy things his brother and sister have done in their lives. But then again, he is a rare bird that does not get into the same things. He is not sports inclined like the other two were. He is more of an intellectually inclined child where the other two weren't.

Bradley was my best baby. Never cried or caused me any grief. He is my healthiest kid, but he has had his moments. He never complains and is just an all around go with the flow kinda person. I will be the first to say, he is a welcome change to the every day hussle and bussle. He still loves to just walk up to mom and give her a hug and a kiss and does not care if people make fun of him!! Gotta love it.

I am sure I will be coming back here in the years to come with some complaints as he gets older. He is getting close to hitting his teenage years and thats normally when all hell breaks loose. So just give it time and I will have more to say about him for sure..

The Verdict is In

I did not have to say much of anything to the School Board. The principal was there and he took care of everything. Seems as though doctors notes were in Bradleys file that were not entered into the system (attendance ladies fault) and the 2 days that Bradley stayed home with Jerod while on leave were the principals dicretion and were supposed to be marked excused but weren't and then the TSA trip same story, was unexcused.

All has been fixed. Mom is not in jail. Bradley is not on academic suspension. I did not have to pay the $50 fine and $150 court costs (that in itself is bogus) . And all of his absences have been EXCUSED.. All in all a good day!

How could anyone be mad at that face????

Round 1.. Kim fights the School Board

Tomorrow I have to go to Juvenile Court to plead my case about my 11 year old son Bradley's TRUANCY.

See.. here is the deal.. We had not seen Jerod since April 2009. Jerod deployed to Iraq in October 2009. Jerod returned from Iraq in February 2010. And by this point we still had not seen him yet. Jerod while in Iraq volunteered to go to Afghanistan with another unit who was short personnel. Jerod came home on March 24th on pre-deployment leave. I made Bradley continue the rest of the week at school, even though I was getting flack from Jerod and Bradley. At the schools urging, I let Bradley stay home Monday and Tuesday to spend some quality time with Jerod and Daniella. The rest of the week I made him go to school.

Last week, I get a letter in the mail telling me that I had to bring Bradley and myself to juvenile court on Friday April 23rd to tell them why my son has missed 5 days of school. Although I was FLOORED when I read it, I had to sit back and laugh.What in the hell are these people thinking? For 1. The principal and the teachers TOLD me to keep Bradley home. Told me Bradley has talked about missing his brother and that they both needed the time together. I agreed. In our school handbook, it states and I quote " A one day absence for students whose parent or guardian is leaving for active military duty, and a one day absence for students whose parent or guardian is returning from active military duty" Granted Jerod is not his parent or guardian, he is none the less his blood immediate family and a service member in our military. I did not abuse the system, Bradley stayed out 1 day for his brother returning from a WAR and 1 day for his brother DEPLOYING TO A WAR. They can kiss my ass!!

To beat it all, Bradley is also involved in a School Sponsored club. TSA to be exact. We went on a SCHOOL competition field trip that I chaperoned. Those days have also been counted UNEXCUSED. HELLO!!!! Is this County lacking the brain cells it needs to operate? 

So yea, this has me a little pissed off. We go to court tomorrow and I am out for blood. There is no one in this world that is going to tell me how to parent my children. I have wonderful law abiding, never in trouble, awesome grades, respectful, kids. They do not run the streets, do drugs, hang out in parking lots, bring weapons to school, etc.. that a lot of these other under parented kids do around here. For crying out loud he wanted to spend time with his brother. A brother who is out there playing his part in protecting our Country. So in a nice way I will tell them to get off my ass and remind them that when Jerod returns in December that Bradley will be out of class once again, spending time with his brother who has returned from his second war. And if they don't like it they can take it up with some one else and leave me the hell alone. These are MY kids and I will do with them what I feel necessary. Lord willing, Jerod will come home from this war unharmed, and Bradley will get to enjoy every minute I let him stay home!

Marines Practice for Real Thing

March 11, 2010 - 5:26 PM

by: Rick Leventhal

After pounding targets in the California desert Wednesday until almost midnight, Marines with the Marines' 1st Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion spent Thursday morning cleaning and reloading before heading north deeper into the Air Ground Combat Center at 29 Palms. By midday the massive 155mm Howitzer cannons were firing again, softening targets for three-companies-worth of tanks and LAV-25s to finish off.

Air support came in the form of Cobra Attack Helicopter gunships, raining missiles, cannon fire and TOW rockets on the desert floor while fixed wings dropped real 500-pound bombs on burned-out hulks of old tanks, vehicles and other designated targets.

"Pretty successful" is how the battalion commander summed up the overnight assault, admitting there were some timing issues with artillery that needed to be addressed.

Lt. Col. Scott Leonard seemed more pleased after the daytime ops, saying his Marines made great time and reached all their objectives, navigating remote sections of rugged terrain for the first time with maps and GPS.

Sunday they'll move to a Forward Operating Base at 29 Palms and begin integrating with hundreds of Afghani actors living in a mock-up of a village nearby, learning how to interact with locals while searching for potential threats from insurgents within the community.

The commander says his men take the training very seriously, knowing full well when they get to Afghanistan, the targets and dangers will be real.

Marines Live Fire Training

March 10, 2010 - 1:39 PM

by: Rick Leventhal

Marines with the 1st Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion (1st LAR) out of Camp Pendleton, CA will soon be deploying to Afghanistan to join the surge in the fight against the Taliban (the details of their travel is classified).
Before they ship out, every Marine headed to a combat zone gets 30 days of live fire training at 29 Palms Air Ground Combat Center in the California desert, roughly 180 miles east of Los Angeles. The "Mojave Viper Exercises" are a combined-arms dress rehearsal for war, involving all platforms of Marine assets. In other words, they use infantry, Light Armored Vehicles, Tanks, Howitzer Cannons, attack helicopters and fixed wing fighters and bombers in offensive and defensive operations against an "enemy" (empty structures, vehicle hulks and other targets) in urban and rural environments in an expansive area closely resembling conditions in the middle east.

At 932 square miles, 29 Palms is the largest live-fire training base in the world. It's bigger than the state of Rhode Island. It's so large you could fit every other Marine base within it's borders, yet only 7 of it's square miles are built up so instructors say you could fire a 155mm Howitzer cannon in any direction and not hit anything besides desert.


Jerod was involved in these exercises. You can click the following link to watch the video.
http://liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/03/10/exclusive-marines-live-fire-training/?action=late-new

The Second Love of My Life

Chrissy is my second born. She was always a very active child. She did not care if she got dirty. More often than not, the more dirty she was the happier she was. That eventually changed though!

Chrissy kept me the busiest out of all of my kids. She, just like Jerod was a dare devil. If it constituted danger she was right in the middle of it. She has been the best one in school by far. I don't think the boys really cared much about school but Chrissy seems to really enjoy it. SMART, where she got it from, I have no clue.

Chrissy played softball for years and years. She played for the her Middle school as well as parks and rec. Her favorite was travel softball. All the way up til she tore her Maniscus (sp). That pretty much closed her softball career down. She played most all positions, but bending as one of the only catchers that could catch for Chelsea did no good for her knees.

Chrissy started high school and pretty much hated it. There wasn't much of a challenge for her academically. She got bored easily and was one of the only kids that would skip school and come home and take a nap and still make strait A's in all honors classes. We as a family decided at the start of her Junior year to just pull her out of high school and home school her. She had really started to get sick (literally) all the time since starting high school. So bad that at one point in her freshman year, she had to be placed on home bound for 7 weeks because we could not get her better no matter what me or the doctors did. That continued all through her sophomore year as well. So home school was the best option. August of 2009 Chrissy started her Junior year as a home schooler, and completely graduated high school in March 2010.

Now we are college bound. I have never in my life seen someone want to go to college so bad, but the college's give them so much hell. She has had to jump through so many hoops to try and get into any college, but I have a feeling the troubles are starting to come to an end. Hopefully in August she will be a college student.

New journey

I promised family members that I would keep them all up to date on what life has thrown at me and the kids. Well that was about 3 years ago and I just never got around to it. I guess now is the time to keep everyone in the loop since I have 3 wonderful kids with 3 totally different personalities. Not to mention, I have a shit load of "adopted" kids who call me mom, Nana, and a few other not so nice names.

So here is to keeping everyone updated. BUT, beware, Jerod is about to go on his second deployment and Chrissy is getting ready to start college. This blog could get very interesting!!

My Very First Love

Jerod is the first love of my life. He was such a great kid most of the time, but always liked to keep me on my toes. Who would have thought that a child who could never stand to get his hands dirty would end up where he is now.

Jerod is my dare devil. He played baseball most all of his life. At 12 years old, he was the 2nd fastest pitcher in Tennessee for his age. He pitched the winning pitch that helped win the State Tournament, and pitched the winning pitch of the only game we won in the Regional competition. That may not seem like a lot to most people, but that one single game we won in Regionals was against Florida. Florida almost had an undefeated season and an undefeated Regional Tournament until they met up against Jerod. Florida went on to win the Little League World Series, but they will have the ever lasting reminder that Jerod Upchurch screwed up their undefeated season.

Jerod left baseball for his new found love. Jerod got his first quad (4 wheeler) at the age of 13. When it was bought, it was just for leisure riding. That changed very quickly as he leared that he could race. Jerod had to get special permission from the racing authorities to race in the adult class, and I had to assume all responsibilities if he got hurt. Ok, no problem. Jerod started racing against 25, 30, and some 40 year olds at the age of 13. It started out rocky at first, but as he got used to it he started pulling in numerous 1st place wins. Jerod went on to win his first Summer Championship and gained a lot of recognition from all the "older" guys. The next season, a lot of them "older" guys went to the seniors division because they did not want to race against him anymore! A few more championships under his belt, and his racing came to an end. His quad could not hold up to his brutality and Jerods last race of his career ended with him running himself over with his own quad. Mind you, he was not hurt BAD, but just bad enough to take a break. He never went back to racing again. But it sure was fun while it lasted.

In 2007 Jerod came to me and told me that he wanted to take a big step in his life. That I could get on board with him, or he would wait until he was 18 and take the step on his own. Jerod wanted to join the Marine Corps. Being a military brat myself most of all my life, I knew what the risks were. Jerod was dead set on joining all I could do is stand behind his decisions and sign the paper like he asked. He left for boot camp a mere 3 days after high school graduation. Watching that van pull away with my oldest child in it was one of the hardest days of my life. Jerod went through boot, and all of his schooling. His permanent duty station ended up being in Californial. It was a long way away from Tennessee but nothing a car or a plane couldn't handle. In October 2009, Jerod embarked on his first deployment. He was then Iraq bound. Deployment was not as hard as I imagined. The hardest part was the prep in my opinion. I was able to keep in contact with Jerod almost constantly. Through Skype, all things were possible. Then facebook and myspace updates. Mom stayed realitively sane. There were some tense moments, but nothing we couldn't handle. Pictures, phone calls, and sending packages were my only lifelines to my first born. One phone call that I will never forget is the one that would rip my heart to shreds, but make me even prouder of the man my son had become. Jerod was coming home to go into more training because he volunteered to go with another unit to Afghanistan the following April. Jerod made it back home in February 2010 and went almost immediately to Viper training for his upcoming deployment. Jerod came home on pre-deployment leave at the end of March and stayed through Easter. I will finish up with the story and the many changes that have come to be my "new" life in the next entry about Jerod and his new journey.

New Blog

Ok.... So I forgot all about my last blog, so I deleted it. I promise I will keep up with this one as life has drastically changed since my last one. Hold on tight, it is sure to get interesting around here!