We love to talk about ways we relieve stress during deployment. My personal favorites are exercise, watching too many seasons of whatever show on DVD and, oh yes, please pass the ice cream. I wish I could say I do something more productive with my nervous energy, but I don’t.
There are spouses out there, however, who do. A friend at our last duty station spent all of her time knitting giant piles of gators (which look and function like a big sock for your neck) and sending them downrange.
Knitting, as it turns out, isn’t just relegated to the home front. This fun story today on Military.com talks about those who knit to reduce stress while downrange.
From the story:
The Combat Knitters, as they've been dubbed, are in their early 20s and mid-50s and when they're not creating something out of yarn, they're doing their jobs as Navy corpsmen, nurses and physicians, or security forces, decked out in Kevlar and toting rifles. Some wear Combat Knitters patches -- the crossed needles over an outline of Afghanistan in the country's red, black and green national colors -- on their uniforms.
Kudos to those who do something productive with themselves in their down time! Now, where did I put that season of “Friends” ....
