Donut of Misery
This post is just a quick plug for the Donut of Misery. Created by members of the military, the donut is used as a countdown to when deployment ends. I’ve modified it slightly to countdown the end of my surgery rotation. I’m already at the 50% mark.
Half MD.com 
military wife said,
April 25, 2008 at 2:24 am
i want one
kristen said,
June 20, 2008 at 12:57 am
i would like one 🙂
Oorah Wife said,
July 7, 2008 at 10:09 pm
If you google “donut of misery” you should be able to download an excel file, then just put in the start date and the end date and itll tell you everything. But you have to save it when you exit, or itll stop counting!
serving in the military said,
September 4, 2008 at 3:45 pm
I’m currently in the military and i heard about this from one of the docs that i work with. I modified it to when i leave my current duty station. It’s a great thing!
lori said,
September 10, 2008 at 8:08 pm
how do i get the donut?
halfmd said,
September 11, 2008 at 1:02 am
Click on the link in the article.
kristen said,
September 16, 2008 at 5:34 pm
i hv tryed the google thing but its not workin not to sure how to get a donut
halfmd said,
September 16, 2008 at 5:55 pm
Download the Excel chart from this link
Lizzzard said,
December 8, 2008 at 12:38 am
My husband is in Korea and we’ve been using the Donut of Misery since the week he got there. It’s been a life saver. . .especially when it started actually making it look like it w as SOON when he was coming home.
We talk about it all the time. . . it’s a great and fun thing to have and his son and I look at it often to remind ourselves how much time has passed and how long we have to go till Daddy goes home!
alisa said,
January 22, 2009 at 12:26 pm
just got it. my hubby left only a week ago. so i have a long time. till i see him again.
pa girl said,
February 9, 2009 at 9:44 pm
what if u dont have excel?
Half M.D.: Microsoft has a free reader to look through Excel charts.
Joann said,
February 13, 2009 at 6:55 pm
Then you aren’t able to download it, I believe you have to have Excel
marg said,
February 20, 2009 at 7:22 pm
It works with openoffice.org (the freeware office suite made by Sun Microsystems), too.
Arlene said,
March 10, 2009 at 11:53 am
Thanks for sharing this; my husband just told me about it since he’s deployed, and I was having trouble finding a link to the xl file until I found your post. 🙂
heidi said,
April 13, 2009 at 6:44 pm
hi my hubby is getting deployed soon and i would like to get one of these started for me and my son, can you send it to my email please!!!!!?
Half M.D.: You can just download it right here.
Sailor's hunny bunny said,
May 11, 2009 at 4:07 pm
I use it even for the short underway periods. I love it.
SSG's Wifey said,
May 17, 2009 at 6:15 pm
i just downloaded this, although he will be home in October, it actually does look like we’ve accomplished this deployment. thanks for it, i found out about it just now from a friend who’s husband came home last week. we will be pcs’ing in january so i’ll use this then too. yay!!!
Ami said,
June 6, 2009 at 1:51 am
Everytime I try to download this I get a read-only file with Open Office. Am I doing something wrong?
Half M.D.: Try right-clicking the file –> “Properties” –> and unclick “Read only” to see if that changes anything. I don’t use Open Office—so I’m not sure if the program has some incompatibilities with the Excel file.
Amazia said,
April 5, 2010 at 6:19 am
why wont the % come out
David L. Petty Sr. said,
April 23, 2010 at 12:43 am
My name is David L. Petty Sr. and I wanted to let you know that I developed the Donut of Misery when I was MSgt David L. Petty and deployed to CENTCOM after 911, in April of 2002. The story behind it is that I was scheduled to retire in Dec 2001 from the Air Force after 21 years. I had a retirement date and everything was set and then the planes started crashing into the World Trade Center, the field in Pennsylvania, and the Pentagon. During the immediate mobilization that followed everything including retirements were frozen. I din’t want to retire then anyway and immediately volunteered to deploy to support CENTCOM. I expected to go to the deseart but was told that I would be a backfill and stay in Tampastan. Most people would have been happy to spend more than 9 months in Florida courtesy of uncle SAM but I wanted to be in the fight. When I first got there we were very busy and I was happy. After we developed the continuity books, op-plans, and training manuals, there was only enough work for 2 people to do and it only took 15 min each day to do it. When you are wokring 12 hours a day and have literlly nothing to do and can’t go anywhere because the bus onlr runs every six hours and you weren’t allowed to bring a car, you eventually get tired and cranky. You learned to put up with it though, elevated your concerns of waste, but knew fellow soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen were fighting and dying. After my fourth involuntary extension of what was originally supposed to be a 90 day deployment, and with nothing better to do, I sat down one night and developed the Donut of Misery. When I deployed to Afghanistan in January of this year (as a civilian having been retired from the Air Force since 2004) I was delighted to see that the Donut had survived. There have been a few cosmetic changes but the code is still pretty much in tact. Originally the Donut was one whole donut with its color gradually turning from red to green as time to go home got closer. Now the donut is two pieces and I knod of like the modification. Now thats the whole story and I hope you liked it ….. Diode out.
“Diode” Dave Petty
Herat Afghanistan
Elysia said,
May 26, 2010 at 12:01 am
The link isn’t working anymore. Can you fix it or is there anything link? Thanks so much!
Elysia said,
May 26, 2010 at 12:02 am
is there another****
SpaGirl said,
August 21, 2010 at 2:28 am
Diode – Thanks, man! This rocks. Used it the first time my hubby left, and will be using it again. Glad to hear the back story. Thanks for your service!
Christina said,
September 5, 2010 at 12:51 pm
Thanks “Diode.” This is awesome! My hubby and I have FINALLY reached the halfway point of his deployment. It’s nice to actually see it in “black in white” or in this case, red and green! It will be great watching the green fill up the donut from here on out!!
Emmy said,
September 12, 2010 at 11:52 am
how do you modify the comment at the bottom to say different things?
Brandie Desso said,
December 13, 2010 at 2:43 pm
How do you download the DOM if you don’t have Microsoft Excel? I need help, please if anyone knows, could you help me!!
sam said,
January 13, 2011 at 1:17 am
how do you do this when you dont know the date they will be home?
Donut Of Misery (@DonutOfMisery) said,
August 12, 2013 at 3:44 am
We created a free online Donut of Misery for anyone who doesn’t have Excel, it’s free and we tried to make it look as nice as possible. Check it out at http://www.miserydonut.com