Proud To Be An American

Being so far from home is hard. (We now know this for a fact!) But I guess probably no one knows it better than our military. They are separated from their family for months on end, all in the name of serving their country. Since Singapore is an island with a huge port (and possibly because it's a cool place to visit??), US naval ships stop here regularly on their way to other locations. The American Association in Singapore does a great job of reaching out to the sailors that come through here. When a ship is coming in, they ask for American families to host the sailors by taking them out to dinner, showing them around Singapore, cooking a dinner for them, etc. Something that will give them the sense of home and "American hospitality" since they're so far away from family.

Colin and I had the awesome opportunity to host three sailors a couple of weeks ago. We were assigned to Dustyn, Zac and William from the USS Shoup (a destroyer that accompanies the aircraft carrier USS Lincoln on its way to the Persian Gulf). These guys obviously drew the short straw when they got stuck with the Martins, but I'll tell you what, they were good sports! Most of you know that my cooking is atrocious -- surely there's a stiff penalty for poisoning government personnel?? -- so it goes without saying that I wasn't going to cook a meal for them. We gave the guys the choice of a few restaurants and let them decide where they'd like to eat. They chose to go to a seafood restaurant to try one of Singapore's favorite dishes: peppered crab. First, though, we took them shopping for electronics and then took them to Chinatown where they found some souveniers to take home. (I'm going to leave out the part where Colin almost got us all killed by mistakenly looking to the left instead of the right before pulling out into an intersection. You're welcome Colin!) Then we were off to dinner. We got the chance to hear about why they enlisted in the military, about their families and what it's like in the Navy. We had a great time. I wish I could tell you how many pounds of crab they ate, but things are measured in kilos over here and I'm still struggling with the conversion. All I can say is...they can put away some crab and probably could've eaten even more! After dinner, we took them back to our house so that they could use the computer and our phone to call home. Then they all got involved in a fierce Guitar Hero and Super Smash Brothers competition with Cameron on the Wii. We had a good time and before we knew it, it was time to take them back to the base before their curfew.

I feel like I need to acknowledge the dedication these guys have. To give you an idea of what they're sacrificing to serve our country, here's who they bought for in Chinatown: Dustyn bought something for his new wife Stephanie, William bought something for his girlfriend who he had met just a couple months before shipping out, and Zac bought something for his wife, Christine, who is pregnant with their first baby. These guys will be gone for six more months. Zac won't even be back from this tour until after the baby is born. It really hits home to see the sacrifices that these guys and their families make to serve our country. And these are only three of the thousands that are serving in our military. Just think of all the babies that are born without their fathers in the delivery room and the wives that are without their husbands because of their service to the US. No matter what your stance is on what's going on with the war, you have to admire our servicemen and women. I'll tell you, I was really proud of these guys.

Since taking them out, they've sent a few emails to let us know how they're doing and each time they've told us thank you for taking them out. But we should be the ones thanking them! It was an honor meeting them and treating them to a night out in Singapore was hardly enough thanks for what they do.

Here are some pictures that I thought I'd share...



In Chinatown. William is in the Packers jersey (Colin, the avid Titans fan, decided he'd let William come along for the night despite his misguided allegiance to the Packers), Dustyn is in the red and Zac is kneeling in front.


Eating With Chopsticks 101 -- Hey Zac, it usually works best when the chopsticks are in the same hand!


Cracking the legs was a group effort.


Now this is the look of a military guy who is going to show his food who's boss.


And this is the look of a military guy who uses his hands to break the crab legs instead of the crab cracker. Messy little suckers!


William had just used his camera and set it down on the ledge next to him and two minutes later reached over to get it and this giant snail had crawled up on the lens of the camera. I probably would have freaked out to have this big, nasty snail on my camera, but William posed for a few pictures before prying it off and putting it in the bushes. Yuck!


When losing at Guitar Hero, employ any tactics necessary to distract your opponents. Moose antlers is always effective.


See Zac's tongue sticking out? I told you it was an intense game!

More later!