This old mug...

I have had this coffee mug for eight years or so now, I got it sometime just after I started working full time with the Guard. For the most part it has been back and forth to work with me over the span of those eight years. I drank the hot sweet coffee from it on my early morning drive to work; pouring coffee into it, along with the milk and sugar is usually the last thing I do before I head out the door.
When I am in the truck or the car, I put it right in the center console with the handle turned to the right, so I can easily grab it and take a long slow drink.
Over the many trips to work I have drank from it thousands of times, and several gallons of coffee in it, I usually listen to KUER FM 90 (the local NPR affiliate) and have heard many wonderful news stories as I driven to work. I can't begin to remember how many stories I have heard that involved Soldiers. Soldiers leaving their families, Soldiers preparing to go to war, Soldiers at war, Soldiers on leave from war, Soldiers who have been injured, families dealing with things back home while their Soldier is at war. There have been other stories of course, but it those stories that I will remember the most.
I am in my last days of being a Soldier, and in the last days of working at the job I had before I was mobilized. I have only been there a few weeks now and as you probably know will only be there for a few more. I am grateful that I have something to come back, even it if is only for a very brief time, at least I have a job, even though I wish was at a new job, but that will happen soon though!
On my commute to my new job, I won't be using this old mug anymore; it will be time for a new one, just like it's time for a new job for me.
Mirinda got me a new one, the one hiding behind this old mug, but I want to wait until to use it for that first commute to that new job...