Military Communication Part 1: How Often Do I get to talk to Dan?

I get this question a lot. If everything is going well, he and I can shoot some emails back and forth to one another, and one of the big reasons my blog is filled with so many details that most of you wouldn't care about is that Dan is able to check my blog. He can see more pictures than through email, and it's the only way I can show him video.

Each branch of the military has its different pros and cons. These days the Army and Marines (and Reservists) are really getting the short end of the stick, but in peace time the Navy's schedule is pretty nasty. Hopefully, Obama will bring our soldiers home, but our sailors will be gone just as much.

One negative for Navy now is that we don't get to speak to our service members often. I know people who talk to their loved ones in Iraq almost daily. And since I DO NOT want Dan in Iraq, I'm happy to opt for no verbal communication. However, it is tough to go a month or longer without hearing his voice.

But imagine life without email? How did those military wives do it years ago when they had to actually depend on snail mail for communication? Yikes! Dan and I rely heavily on email, and the system does go down which makes us wait a day or so. So I laughed when I received this from the command of Dan's ship this morning!

Throughout this deployment there may - probably will - be times when connectivity is lost between the ship and our loved ones back home. This can occur for a number of reasons - operational necessity and equipment casualties to name just two - and it may last from a few hours to a number of days. You'll know this sort of thing has happened when our usually reliable e-mails stop arriving. If/when this happens, please don't fret: we will reestablish communications as soon as possible. In the mean time, please don't overwhelm the system with countless emails asking why we don't respond. If you don't get a response after an email or two please stop sending them. Too many emails may overwhelm the buffer that is holding our incoming email and that may cause it to crash and permanently lose all those messages you sent. You may not like it - and trust me we don't either - and it may be hard, but just wait a bit and as soon as possible we will be back in touch.

We've gotten so spoiled! I sent a package the first mailing day after Dan left and 9 days later he doesn't have it yet. It goes through the normal mail service to the aircraft carrier. Then once it's sorted there, it gets flown over to Dan's ship. Of course it's going to take a while! Two days is nothing compared to that! I really try to remember that it could be so much worse.