Kimberly A. Cook

Military Romance Author

military

Can You Be A Veteran Detective?

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by Kimberly A. Cook           (Twitter@ WarriorTales)

With the holidays only hours away, perhaps you can be a veteran detective this year. What’s that? If you’re with family members or friends who are veterans, see if you can get them to tell you a story or two. Some may not want to talk about their experiences, perfectly okay, but if you can find out their military unit and what years they served, you can do research on your own.

Maybe someone will remember a stash of military letters this holiday season, like these found by my family in my Dad's dresser drawer. Gold mine!
Maybe someone will remember a stash of military letters this holiday season, like these found by my family in my Dad’s dresser drawer. Gold mine!

Many times we don’t ask people about their military stories and they are lost forever.

When journalist Mark Bowden interviewed the soldiers and wrote the book about Somalia  titled “Blackhawk Down,” he found that out first hand. When he asked the military personnel involved why their amazing stories had not been told before, they replied, “Nobody asked.”

If you have time this holiday season, ask some questions and find out a few stories you can write down to keep for memories and t0 honor the veteran who told them, whether she or he even thinks they’re important. Truly listening to someone is an act of love. What better way to celebrate the holidays?

Update: Promised to let you know how the great military records hunt turned out. I filled out the forms and sent them off for my Dad’s World War II records. Found out his were in the fire which destroyed many WWII Army records. I paid $25 to have copies made of what they had and it turned out to be about six pages, two items we already have. So now, more hunting. I’ve actually got more than the archives from Dad’s personal record stash.

We requested my Mom’s military records and she received those. Now I am waiting for my grandfather’s and uncle’s.  Here is the link to the blog post I wrote about how to request military records. https://kimberlyacook.com/2014/07/22/know-how-to-request-military-records/

Wishing all of you a safe and wonderful holiday season.

Blog Programming Note: I’m posting an early Quirky Friday blog post on Christmas Eve, so I’ll be posting again next Tuesday. Thanks for reading!

 

Unleash The Pie Baking!

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by Kimberly A. Cook                              (Twitter@ WarriorTales)

My favorite time of year arrives again, Pumpkin Pie baking time. One of the great things about Thanksgiving is being grateful for all the people, family and friends in our lives; sharing pumpkin pie seems the perfect way to celebrate.

Pie logistics! Moving troops or pastry, you've got to have your supplies. Unleash the bakers!
Pie logistics! Moving troops or pastry, you’ve got to have your supplies. Bunny cookie jar and Match Dandy are on sentry duty. Unleash the bakers!

I’ve gathered my ingredients and will be in a baking frenzy tomorrow night. So while I am mixing pumpkin and pouring in evaporated milk, eggs, spices and sugar, it’s a good time to thank everyone who reads my little blog here. At last count there are 69 twitter folks and 161 WordPress folks following my activities.

Thank you for your kind attention to my work. Thought I should have a name for us. When I was volunteering for the USS Ranger Foundation I decided to use Team Ranger to describe our volunteers, board and staff. At the time the whole vampire “Twilight” thing was going on, so it wasn’t a far stretch.

I thought perhaps we should be Team Quirky. Then I realized that might lead  to all kinds of trouble I didn’t want to deal with online, down a slippery rabbit hole so to speak. So in the interest of keeping this relatively clean and fun, I’d decided on Team Cookie. My nickname in the Army was Cookie and so was my Dad’s when he served, so I feel it’s a family tradition. But I tried Team Cookie and Google told me someone else has the name. Figures.

Perplexing problem. Will have to think on it some more. But thank you all for being a part of Team to be named later with a high draft pick choice, I hope.

Since I can’t send crumbs through the digital media, how about pie? For those of you who live by a Shari’s Restaurant, they have this new program the Shari’s Café Club. I was so excited to find out about this since I’m not yet eligible for an Honored Citizen card for several more years. They’ve merged the two programs and now anyone can get a Shari’s Café Club card at Shari’s.

When you register you get a piece of free pie in that month and then another free piece of pie for your birthday. I’m already up two pieces of pie! So if you want free pie, trot over to Shari’s and get one of those cards. You earn points for every dollar you spend at Shari’s. I’m thinking earning future pie dollars….

No matter what is happening in your life right now, know I appreciate your support and did my best to get you free pie as a thank you. Hugs all around. Have a great Thanksgiving everybody!

www.mysharis.com for info.

(I am not getting pie kickbacks for this either. Rats!)

 

Coping? With The Holidaze?

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by Kimberly A. Cook         (Twitter@ WarriorTales)

On Saturday, November 1st, I dashed into our local Freddie’s store to pick up some items I forgot the day before. Stopped short in my loafers – Christmas had exploded in the store. Looked around and did a mental double-take. I was eating Halloween candy YESTERDAY, right? The orange and black decorations were all gone and it was full press holiday overload. Like the elves and a thousand minions re-did the entire store overnight. Must have been some good spiked eggnog.

For the wild children out there, try this no fail scratch pie crust recipe. It's a friend's high school home economics recipe. Pretty sure that makes it vintage!
For the wild children out there, try this no fail scratch pie crust. It’s a friend’s high school home economics recipe. Pretty sure that makes it vintage! (Click on the photo to enlarge)

In the military when something expanded or moved up we called that mission creep. Now we’ve got Christmas creep or Kwanza Creep or Holiday hustle. Pick your personal celebration. It’s enough to make my frazzled brain ask for a holiday time out. Seems buying bathing suits in January isn’t bad enough, now we lose out on the discount Halloween candy! Is there no justice?

Each year I surrender earlier to the holidays. Really reduces my stress level. Lower your expectations, it’s a great thing. We’ve even decided to have pizza for Christmas and friends are cooking for us on turkey day. A first. Fabulous!

I used to slave over making the pie crusts from scratch for turkey day until my brother-in-law’s mother confessed she used Pillsbury pre-made pie crusts. The family was stunned and shocked. I had no idea her amazing pies were not scratch crusts, so I decided to do the same thing. (I think mixing up the Libby’s pumpkin pie recipe and pouring it in the pie pans counts as cooking, don’t you? I add evaporated milk, eggs AND spices. )

In this season of “everybody looks happy on tv” (it’s fantasy) and “everybody has tons of fun festivities to attend” (who has time for all those parties? Fake tv people!) it can become a bit overpowering if we’re not in the same mind-set or personal situation.

So besides lowering my expectations and surrendering to the holidays, here are a few things we can all do to make the holidays easier to cope with, besides chugging hot buttered rum.

Do one fun thing for yourself each day. Take time to blink. Or breathe. Give yourself a foot rub with lotion or Crisco – whatever works for ya. Watch a favorite movie. Smell a holiday tree. Sniff cloves or cinnamon – sniff not snort, safety first here. Cuddle with a pet or person – either/or need to give their permission first. Wear those comfy raggedy lounge clothes at home while watching football. (Just because my 300-year-old sweatshirt has blue paint on it does not mean it’s worn out.)

Do one nice thing for someone else each day. Smile at people; a nice smile not a vampire on steroids scary smile. Comb your cat or dog or parakeet, if they’re okay with it. Open a door for a fellow human. Give someone a compliment. Donate some canned food to the food bank if you’re able. Take your friend, pet, spouse or kidlet for a nice long winter walk. Send someone a snail mail card for the fun of it.

One of the driver training videos by our Sheriff’s Department talks about how you will drive where your eyes look; so if you focus on the holiday crazies that’s where your brain is going to go too. Try evasive maneuvers if you start to get the holiday blues. For me this is a time to cuddle up at home, write, read and bake in the warm comfort of my toasty house and comfy LaZBoy. Especially since our Oregon weather temperatures are rising again; I am SO SORRY for the rest of the country on Arctic Cold Outbreakageddon- the sequel.

Feel free to bake cookies or cupcakes or pie crusts. Go online and listen to my current fave radio station www.island985.com on iheartradio for some Hawaiian reggae music. Or eat baked goods – just not ALL of them. The holiday season is still young – pace yourselves!

Got any holiday coping tips?

Happy Veterans Day To All Who Have, Are Now And Will Serve

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by Kimberly A. Cook                         (Twitter@ WarriorTales)

Happy Veterans Day! To all my warrior sisters and brothers who have served in the Army, Navy, National Guard, Marines, Coast Guard, Air Force and Merchant Marine, active duty and reserve, thank you for your service. While we are veterans everyday, it is nice the nation sets aside one day to say thank you.

Our fabulous pink (me) and purple (Karen) fleece outfits before the 5K walk. Notice my first ever bib race number!
Our fabulous pink (me) and purple (Karen) fleece outfits before the 5K walk. Notice my first ever bib race number!

In honor of this day, I decided to do something I had never done before. This past Saturday I entered the first ever Veterans 5K Run/Walk at Camp Withycombe in Clackamas, Oregon.

My power walker sister Karen agreed to go with me and we were registered and off. The Nov. 8 race was 3.1 miles on the Camp Withycombe grounds with luckily a flat as a pancake course.

We got there at 8:30 a.m., got our race numbers and swag then hit the course after the kids. For some reason there were more walkers than runners, but works for me. We got to walk by the display tanks, through the motor pool, a fun time was had by all. They even had a fabulous drummer halfway through the course to help us keep a beat.

Coming attractions: Re-opening August 2015.
Coming attractions: Re-opening August 2015.

Now we did stop and take our pictures with the tanks. Since $10 of each entry fee went to the Oregon Military Museum slated to reopen in August, 2015, you know I was happy to support the tanks and their museum.

Once you’ve served in an Army mechanized division, you always love the tanks. It was a fun event and now we have to plan for next year. Maybe I can reduce my time by a minute or two.

 

A girl and her tank,,,, a true love story.
A girl and her tank….. a true love story.

I’m not a runner, with old joints and big boobs it’s just not a good thing for me to do. But walking is for me! Think I am going to frame my race number, we never got those when we did the PT tests in the Army or Air Force Reserve.

I also earned the coveted dog tag by completing the course – jewelry! My friends will faint when they’ve learned I competed in an organized athletic event. I’m not known for group games and competitions ever since surviving combat volleyball in the Army.

I’m lucky to have today off from the day job, so I’m going to meet with family for a Veterans Day lunch to honor my Marine Mom, my Army brother-in-law Gordon and my sister Karen for putting up with all of us. We will also have in our hearts my Army Air Corps Dad, my Marine Uncle Rod, my Army Grandpa John, and my brother-in-law’s Army brother David for their past service. We’re a joint service family!

Thank you to all who have served, those currently serving and those who support us. Today is your day!

Karen gets her own tank too! Best sister ever!
Karen gets her own tank too. Best sister ever!

Did You Eat “Military” Candy On Halloween?

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by Kimberly A. Cook              (Twitter@ WarriorTales)

Some folks are amazed how easy it is for me to find military connections for my writing and blog posts. The history of the United States revolves around our men and women patrolling and fighting around the globe and in space to protect our freedom. One of my favorite research topics has always been the role that candy plays in the military.

Part of my patriotic candy stash!
Part of my patriotic candy stash!

If you ate M&Ms, Hershey chocolate bars, Tootsie Rolls or Necco wafers this last Friday, you ate candy either developed for and or supplied to our troops in their rations. American troops in Iraq prized the Peanut M&Ms since they didn’t melt in the heat. The Marines at The Chosin Reservoir in Korea were air dropped Tootsie Rolls and it saved their lives. World War II soldiers were given Hershey chocolate bars, Tootsie Rolls, Mars Candy bars and Necco wafers in their rations.

Aside from being treats and sugar for energy, candy was also a way to connect with locals. My Dad told a story about being in occupied Japan on patrol in the neighborhoods. Since he was among the first troops in after Japan’s surrender, locals were afraid of what the American GIs might do to the Japanese.

He said they came down a street and kids were outside playing. The children stopped in fright when they saw the soldiers. Dad called one kid over and gave him some of his Necco wafers. Dad ate one himself and then showed the child through pantomime to share with the other kids. The young one did as he was shown and the kids all scattered inside their homes. Later on, the children would come out to get the treats when troops came by, beginning détente after a brutal war.

Who knew the power of candy for improving world relations? One never knows how one single gesture can affect so many lives. To the Hershey company who produced more than a billion ration candy bars during World War II and Necco wafers and Tootsie Rolls who did the same, I feel it’s my patriotic duty to support these companies year-round.

The astronauts even chose M&Ms as the first candy to go into space.  If there is one thing we all have to do on this planet, it’s eat, so it might as well be patriotic candy. Especially on Election Day. Got any military candy stories?

Pachyderms, Pumpkins and Holiday Movies?

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by Kimberly A. Cook                            (Twitter@ WarriorTales)

Today is a very special Quirky Friday Halloween holiday two-fer. First up is Oregon Zoo pachyderms pulverizing pumpkins in the annual “Squishing the Squash” event. We’ve got elephants versus 1,200 pounds of giant pumpkins. Guess who wins? Miss Lily is even practicing for soccer or football using the pumpkins and plastic grey cans. She’s a little several hundred pounds cutie!

Next up is the Hallmark’s Channel launch of their Countdown to Christmas movie series on the link below. On Halloween. Yeah, I don’t get the timing either, except maybe they had too many new movies and not enough weekends? Also, know there are many other holidays out there to celebrate besides Christmas, so everyone can start their countdown for the holiday of their choice. Because the holiday decorations have been right next to the Halloween candy for several weeks now.

Have a great weekend and a Happy Halloween Quirky Friday! Don’t eat too much candy….

http://bcove.me/wjibmr9v