Welcome

Hello, and thank you for visiting the MEB Parent’s Blog! I want to welcome you and let you know a little about “our” space right off the bat. The purpose of this blog is for parents of Marines in the MEB to get in touch, keep in touch with one another – whatever the case may be – to connect with one another all over the country (hopefully) while our sons and daughters are in Afghanistan during the coming months! I'll do my best to have have every link that I can think of on this site to help us (especially a link to our Family Readiness Officer), but mostly I want to keep this a place for us all to share stuff! Cool stuff; my hope being that you'll want to come back here again and again to be motivated and energized! A kind of landing and launching pad of sorts.

This Blog Policy: When posting on this blog, please pay special attention to what is called OPSEC (this stands for Operation Security) and remember that it’s a violation to post about anything having to do with specifics (i.e. when, where, names, etc.) We’ve been concerned with our kids safety since they were babies, and it’s no different now! See, it never stops, does it? Let's be very careful with our words, especially when writing about anything to do with the mission. My personal policy after over 24 years in the military . . . When in doubt? Don’t!!



Blog Purpose: As I stated earlier, this is a way for parents to get in touch with one another. This is NOT the place for any official information! We have other resources for that. And a place to share positive ideas. Like what might be working well for you. What your son or daughter liked in that latest care package, questions you might want to ask me (my son was in the exact same area of Afghanistan for 15 months just a year ago), or maybe even things like what our churches and friends can do to help? My husband should be able to keep a read on that for all of us. Anyway, these are my thoughts right now. But this is my first day of blogging on this site. The deployment brief is tomorrow and I wanted to have this up and running before I drive down to Camp Lejeune in the morning, so that I could pass out this blog address to some of your sons and daughters (big *grin* ).

Ok, before I go, let me tell you a ljust a little about myself. My husband and I have been married for 36 years and have two boys. They are both married with kids of their own. The youngest (now 33 years old) graduated from West Point in 2001 and we thought he was going to make the Army a career, but his plans have changed now. The last 15-month deployment to Afghanistan probably had a lot to do with that decision. John was with the 82nd Airborne at that time, so as we were moving back from Japan and moving to Camp Lejeune we decided to move closer to our granddaughter (oh yes, our son and his wife too - ha!) Unfortunately for my husband . . . that was all the way up near Fort Bragg! But, we thought Chaps (my husband) was deploying right away anyway. Of course he didn't! (big surprise), so for the last two years he's been a geographic bachelor as the 2nd Marine Logistics Command Chaplain, driving home on the weekends. The really cool thing for me, however, is my parents and my other two grandchildren (oh yes, and oldest son (35)and his wife - ha. . . it's all about the grandchildren now! They are such a joy!) have all moved from California to settle here with us in North Carolina. It's very, very wonderful! And now, of course, my husband is deploying!
And, just in case you haven't figured it out yet, he's the MEB Command Chaplain. Or as the Commanding General so aptly put it when introducing him the other day, the "shepherd of this huge flock!" I liked that. There are many other chaplains as well, but his main job is to make sure they're all in the right place at the right time with eveything they need to do their job well.

I have an Australian Cattle Dog named Sherman who is my constant companion and the smartest dog I've ever trained. I enjoy reading, writing, birdwatching, gardening (my newest hobby), and organizing. My husband and I love boating and look forward to more and more of that as we get closer to retirement.
Until next time . . .


(((hugs))) and blessings,


Tamera Pelikan
mebparents@msn.com