From time to time, Lubbock Left will feature links to and summary of a West Texas progressive blogger. There are three main goals for this project: (1) to grow the progressive netroots community by getting to know each other, (2) to showcase the talent and diversity of our progressive stars, and (3) to illustrate that we are not alone in West Texas — there are more of us than the wingnuts would have us believe.
To that end, we begin with Deanie Mills, a very talented writer who lives out in the wide open spaces near Snyder. She has written ten suspense thrillers that have been published, and she has a new true crime novel out callled Faces of Evil: Kidnappers, Murderers, Rapists, and the Woman Who Helps Put Them Behind Bars, co-authored with Houston P.D. forensic sketch artist Lois Gibson.
Deanie is also a Marine Mom. She conveys great emotion and insight into the very real family situation she and many others like her must deal with because of the Bush Administration’s policies. It’s a perspective I appreciate, and it’s one that I believe deserves more attention from the old media.
Some of my favorite posts of hers include:
Trapped in the O’Reilly Cage
Not since my teenage days when I was being lectured for some boomer act of rebellion or other have I sat so cross-armed and clench-jawed in front of the TV. As if it weren’t punishment enough that I was being forced to watch O’Reilly, it turns out he had Michelle Malkin on as his guest.
Homecoming
For the most part, though, our family has been deeply blessed this homecoming. Our son has not had to deal with the more serious and crippling forms of post traumatic stress we’ve read and heard about. He has had some long-term health problems related to the war: back trouble from hauling around 90 lbs. of weight all day long for months on end; skin problems from the horrific heat; some hearing loss from driving over an IED.
These are common problems that, again, you don’t read much about in the news. They’re not Walter Reed-scale problems, but they are pervasive and common to the soldiers and Marines who have cycled through this war multiple times.
A Black Matter for the King
It’s not enough that they are exposed to intense combat conditions 10-12 hours a day, seven days a week, for months on end, but this is the first war in our history where they have not been permitted to rotate in and out of a rear area where some measure of rest and recreation was possible.
This is the first war I know of in our history where you don’t just serve your deployment. You serve it knowing you will have to go back, and the whole time you are “home” you are training for more combat for your next deployment, and then you have to go back.
And then you have to go back.
Please take a few minutes to check out her work.
Deanie’s blogs:
deaniemills.com
huffingtonpost.com/deanie-mills
tpmcafe.com/blog/deanie_mills
democrats.org/page/community/blog/deaniemills
