SCREEN: Dear John

Get the tissues ready! Tearjerker Dear John opens today:

Savannah Curtis (Amanda Seyfried) was on spring break when she first met John Tyree (Channing Tatum), a military man home on temporary leave. For the smitten soldier, it was practically love at first sight. Over the course of the next seven years, when each deployment seemed more treacherous than the last, the love letters that Savannah sent to John were one of the only things that kept him going. However, those loving and heartfelt correspondences would ultimately yield consequences that neither the brave soldier nor his one true love could have ever foreseen.

GIFT IDEA: Fort Rucker Remembered desk calendar

Shameless plug: I made the paper in Dothan AL for the Fort Rucker Remembered desk calendar that I shot and produced. Below is an excerpt of Debbie Ingram's piece:

Anne Kristoff, a longtime media and entertainment executive from New York City, has created a 2010 desk calendar with images taken at Fort Rucker.

The black and white spiral-bound calendar is a collection of some of Kristoff’s favorite images from around post. It includes photographs of a vintage airplane at the Army Aviation Museum; a soldier’s boots; a blackhawk helicopter at Lowe Field; a soldier’s salute of the flag; and a rattlesnake crossing sign near Lake Tholocco.

A portion of the proceeds from the calendar sales will be donated to TAPS.org, a 24/7 tragedy assistance resource for anyone who has suffered the loss of a military loved one. The calendar is available for $15 at http://www.poofny.etsy.com

STAGE: OOHRAH!

(Set in NC) Ron is back from his third and final tour in Iraq, and his wife Sara is excited to restart their life together in their new home. When a young marine visits the family, life is turned upside down. Sara’s sister is swept off her feet; her daughter Lacey trades her dresses for combat boots, and Ron gets hungry for real military action.

In this disarmingly funny and candid drama, Bekah Brunstetter raises challenging questions about what it means when the military is woven into the fabric of a family, and service is far more than just a job. (source)

OOHRAH! is at Atlantic Stage 2, September 1 - 27, 2009.

TODAY is Military Spouse Appreciation Day

By Tara Crooks for Military.com: May is an awesome month for military families. It’s a time when the country pays tribute to our community for Military Appreciation Month — and specifically to military spouses on Military Spouse Appreciation Day. Back in 1984, President Reagan proclaimed the Friday before Mother's Day of each year to be Military Spouse Appreciation Day. (This year it falls on May 8).

Have you ever heard that old expression "if the military wanted you to have a spouse they would have issued you one"? Aren't you glad that's not the way it is now? So am I!

You may not realize it but you’re an important part of your Soldier’s career. You’re an integral part of this military life. What you do makes a difference.

Think about all of the things you do to support your military community: running Family Readiness Groups, planning hail and farewells, hosting the coffee group, organizing fundraisers, teaching Army Family Team Building, paying the bills, running the household, and raising your children. You’re the glue that holds it all together.

Military spouses are amazing creatures, truly a breed of our own. We’re resourceful, multi-talented, and ambitious. We stick together, support each other, and we love even in absence. We are strong. We overcome. We are [or at least we like to think] invincible.

Think about your journey through military life thus far. Whether you’re at the beginning or heavily “seasoned,” you quickly realize that you have become or are becoming a part of something bigger than yourself. You live a life full of tradition, a life full of pride. You live a truly glorious life [notice I did not say glamorous] that most civilians will never understand or ever be strong enough to experience. A life full of loving madly and missing badly, a life full of adventure and change, a life that sometimes makes you wonder how you ever do it.

Can you imagine a military without spouses? I can't. What we do is so very important to the life that we lead and the community that supports it. Our contributions are what make this big operation "tick." We may not have sharp shooting skills or defuse bombs but we do save lives.

Recently, I had a discussion with a Vietnam Vet. Through his tears, he told me “you’re [the spouses] the heroes.” What he said brought me to tears. I couldn’t help but think what life was like for him and his family while he was away at war. My, how times have changed, we now have many resources available to us. We have Internet and e-mail. We have DoD-funded resources such as Military One Source, and the Military Spouse Career Network. But most importantly, we now have the support of the American people.

So here’s to you military spouses! Reach your arms out and then wrap them around yourself for a huge hug! For everything you do — Thank You!

BOOK/EAT: Putting Up by Steve Dowdney

In Putting Up, author Steve Dowdney colorfully and descriptively guides readers safely through the home canning process. In his plainspoken narrative, Dowdney explains how to put up crops harvested during each month of the year and includes 65 of the most popular and delicious recipes he produces for his successful canning business. Also included is a resource section that contains information on where all essential canning supplies can be purchased. More than just a how-to manual, Putting Up is a wonderful guide for canners and non-canners alike. It is chock full of anecdotes, stories and vignettes of a long gone agrarian south that filled the author's youth and still fills his heart and memory.

For twelve years, Steve Dowdney was the owner and chief operator of South Carolina's premiere "small batch" processing and canning company. As founder of Rockland Plantation Products, he takes great pride in the knowledge that the company's products taste exactly like the best of a grandmother's home put up stores. An avid writer with a novel in the works, Dowdney is a former Ranger, Airborne and Special Forces qualified combat veteran, and a graduate of The Citadel where he and fellow classmate Pat Conroy co-wrote the yearbook. He resides in Charleston, SC. (source)