Well, here we are again...

David is on his way to Iraq again -- his third trip in 11 years along in addition to a deployment to Afghanistan -- this time for about nine months.

I should be used to his "business trips," as he calls them, but I never am.

And this time, things are different; he has Alex, his 16-month-old son, who is going to miss Daddy very much. We're all going to miss his Daddy very much -- and I suspect Daddy is going to miss Alex a whole lot.

We'll do our best to help Cindy as grandparents, visiting Watertown, NY (where David is based) and we'll try very hard not to drive her crazy at the same time. She's my hero; she has the care of a toddler and a full-time job alone.

David has reassured us that he'll be in a safe location in Army headquarters in Baghdad, away from fighting and bombs. So far, he's been lucky on his deployments -- no injuries, mental or physical. This assignment is good for his career path as an officer.

I just don't know why he can't be deployed to Belgium or Germany or Washington, DC.

But then no place is safe anymore, is it?

A beginning

The phone call came Wednesday morning, during the middle of deadline for the weekly newspapers I work for. I immediately grabbed my cell phone out of my purse, put down the proofs I was editing, and answered. I knew it was from David, my son, in Baghdad.

He was heading out to Baquoba, about 35 miles north of Baghdad, by helicopter, that night.

By night, I asked? I tried to imagine flying over the surface of the desert, which he had said looked like pictures of Mars, in the night.

Yeah, that's the way we do it, he said.

I grasped then the safety of flying at night, lights low, making them less of a target. But I also thought of the copters that had been shot down. I did not say that.

I asked instead if he felt ready to go.

He had heard me ask this before, and had his answer rehearsed.

He felt well trained, he was ready to meet up with the (platoon? sorry, David, if I have the term wrong) of Stryker team members he'd be guiding. This is his first tour of duty, and he is joining a team from Ft. Lewis, Wash., that has already been in Iraq for at least eight months.

I told him, unhelpfully I'm sure, it was OK to be afraid, that fear would keep him sharp.

He didn't want to hear that, so instead we talked about movies, Tony Soprano, bit torrent software, and that his grandfather had been in the hospital briefly but was back at the assisted living facility where he resides.

Then there seemed little more to say. I told him, I loved him, to stay safe, and that we would send him things when he got a permanent APO. He reminded me that in the Army, no news is good news.

And since then, no word, no e-mail, no post on his blog. It is now late Saturday night. I don't to hear from him for a while. Too say he is busy is some kind of understatement, but the definition is unclear. I don't know yet what he is doing. Did the Army send him out to fight right away in the active Diyala Province? Or, is he doing what he has done each time he goes to a new post: fill out reams of paperwork and sit around and wait?

I just know it is past 10 p.m. here, which means no one in a chaplain's uniform can knock on my door until the next morning.