Category Archives: military life

11.12.09
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Creeps in this petty pace from day to day

4: 59 am: After an hour of tossing and turning on the bed, Mary decides it is time to get up.

5:01 am: Check email. Nothing from Bill. Haven’t heard from him in over 32 hours. His last email said something like: “I’m off on a trip. I’ll call when I can. I love you immensely and if this should be the last email you ever get from me, know in your heart that I will always be watching out for you and our precious children.” Or something like that.

5:03 am Put on Pingu for Mary to watch. Brew coffee. Say morning prayers. Read headlines off my iTouch. World has not come to an end while I slept.

5:28 am No email.

5:37 am No email.

5:51 am No email.

6:11 am No email. Get dressed. Lace shoes.

6:19 am Put on Dora DVD for Mary. Consider that she watches too much TV. Conclude that pediatricians who establish such guidelines do not have toddlers who wake up before dawn.

6:22 am Get on treadmill. Ponder whether I should call my mother first with any terrible news and then have her call my sister or if I should call my sister and then have her call my mother. Decide that I would be crying too hard to make any phone calls.

7:10 am The boys are awake, and I tell the girls to get up. Open front blinds. Look outside and check for strange cars with uniformed people inside waiting for signs of life so they can come knocking on my door to deliver bad news. See none.

7: 12 am No email.

7:29 am My watch alarm goes off. “Dad’s thinking about us,” announces Billy for the benefit of those in the next room. I smile, knowing that Bill’s watch alarm is also going off. I wonder, if he were dead, if anybody else would hear the alarm and know what it meant.

“Dad should be calling any minute now,” says Billy.

“No, honey, Dad is traveling. He doesn’t have access to his computer. He’s not going to call this morning.”

7:31 am My Skype ringer goes off. I guess he’s back. And not dead. I answer. I see his face. I smile.

I tell him about looking for a waiting car outside. He smiles and nicely tells me that I’m silly. And that I’m spoiled by daily communication. I agree. I am spoiled. Seeing my husband on the computer or getting emails from him every day is a luxury.

I wish my favorite soldier a happy Veteran’s Day. I suggest he take the rest of the day off to celebrate. Alas, a day off is also a luxury. He can take a day off in January.

Tonight, I tried to do my usual Wednesday night grocery run to the commissary. They closed early due to the holiday. I had long forgotten it was Veteran’s Day. By this evening, it was just Day 134 without my husband.

10.28.09
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A breather

Me: I’m going out to lunch today, all by myself. I don’t know where I’m going, but it will be a sit down restaurant with real flatware.

Bill: (laughing) I hope somebody hits on you.

Me: I have gray hair, honey. Nobody is going to hit on me.

Crazy man.

And so I went. I ended up at a Macaroni Grill where I have only eaten one other time – right before Bill left. The host put me in the exact same booth where we sat before. I sat on the same side and ignored the empty seat across from me.

It was nice. Nobody had to go to the bathroom. Nobody climbed under the table. Nobody spilled anything. Nobody talked too loudly. Nobody needed me to cut up their food. Nobody had to be convinced his meal was going to be yummy, even if it wasn’t like Mom’s. Nobody drew stares.

Nobody hit on me. The waiter, a young odd man I dubbed “Mr. Thumbs Up,” did keep calling me “hon” but in a manner completely devoid of innuendo.

I finished the book I was reading. I sat with a napkin on my lap and gently dabbed my mouth with it when necessary. I ate dessert. I paid the bill, shocked by how cheap it was since it was lunch for one and not dinner for eight. I left a generous $3 tip.

I went Christmas shopping (nearly done now). No whining. No crying. No slow-moving children. No buckling. No distracting. No pleading. No bargaining. No bribing.

I went home. Happy. Renewed.

10.26.09
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How are you doing?

I get this question a lot. Usually accompanied by a sympathetic stare. I am surrounded by good women, many of them military wives as well. They know. I don’t know why they bother to ask.

I’m reading a book right now (review to follow) written by an Army wife as she suffers through a deployment. It is brutally honest. Too honest. I keep wanting to tell her to shut up. We don’t talk about these things.

This morning I had a very short email from my husband. He’s written similar emails in the past.

I want you to know that I’m safe and what you read in the news doesn’t involve me but it does involve those I know.

The other times he has written something like that, I picked through the major news networks. Nothing. Not a single thing.

Can you imagine your husband, son, best friend going off to war and dying and nobody hears about it? The news networks are too busy gossiping about a singer who collapses on stage or discussing which teams are going to the World Series. Important stuff that. As your world crumbles around you, nobody really cares.

Today, I did manage to find the news event to which he was referring. Helicopter crashes. My husband has been traveling and had told me he would be flying yesterday. I am grateful that he had access to a computer and could fire off that email. I would be in a panic right now. Even with his email, I am in a panic right now. That email was 4 hours old. There were two crashes – was he in the second one? Utter nonsense, of course, but this is how an Army wife’s brain operates.

There is a term: anticipatory grief. Your loved one is alive, but you have all the symptoms associated with grieving his or her death. It’s quite common in spouses of deployed soldiers, especially when tragedy strikes close to the soldier. It’s emotionally difficult to live with that grief for a long period of time. And there is no closure, because there is no actual death. You just keep spinning in the misery until it concludes – one way or another.

It’s time for me to shut up now. We aren’t supposed to talk about such things.

And how am I doing? I’m fine. We’re all fine. Only two more months. He’ll be home soon.

10.02.09
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Dinner for Eight Minus One

The only thing I remember about our first wedding anniversary is eating defrosted wedding cake. At the time, my husband was either unemployed or underemployed, so that cake was probably the highlight of that day.

I do remember our second anniversary, though. The local paper had run a review of a restaurant not too far from where we lived, located a few miles north of New Hope, PA. We decided to go there, and then walk around the quaint, trendy shopping area of that tiny town. Since the review stated that the place took all major credit cards, we didn’t worry about how much cash we needed to bring. We are not ones to carry much cash, I guess being part of the plastic generation. Debit cards are a wonderful thing, although, as Dave Ramsey points out, they don’t really help you stick to a budget.
But this meal wasn’t about being budget-minded anyway. We had appetizers, and a lovely meal and dessert. I even had wine, secretly glad that nobody could tell I was about 6 weeks pregnant with my first child. This was an elegant place with French provincial food, and I was glad that we hadn’t gone to the ATM first, because we could not have predicted what the final bill would be, and I would have fussed and fretted the whole time calculating if we had enough on hand for this entree or that dessert.
Finally, the bill came and the total was extravagant. It was okay, since we didn’t celebrate like this frequently. But then our server told us that they did not, in fact, take major credit cards. We explained, in embarrassment, that we had not come with cash because of the review. They were aware of this problem and graciously permitted us to leave, with an addressed envelope, to mail in a check at our earliest convenience.
I guess we looked honest. I certainly doubt I would remember so much about the place had this confusion not nearly ruined our evening. Although, by the following spring, our lives, changed by the arrival of our son, no longer included such quiet, unhurried, peaceful meals. It is possible that this “last hurrah” would forever be in my memory simply because of the circumstances.
Sometimes, we still do get out, just the two of us. Not this year, of course. And not always. I have begun to accept that our anniversary is best celebrated with our children anyway. They are, after all, the fruits of our love. The original Oktoberfest was a wedding feast, and the following festivals have been anniversary parties, so to speak. Our annual Oktoberfest, next weekend, parallels that theme nicely.
Outside of the Oktoberfest, we do like to have a private celebration. Even if it’s not quite as elegant as that cozy French place.

To celebrate our 14th anniversary, we had another intimate, peaceful dinner at a small, romantic bistro not too far from home.
This place takes major credit cards, and although I’m sure Dave Ramsey would tsk tsk over my use of the debit card instead of cash, he would probably approve the bottom line total which, even without adjusting for 12 years of inflation, was a fraction of the cost of that long ago meal.
09.29.09
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Going Home

I was having an OK evening, until I read this.

He was a loving, married father with six children. His children were 8, 7, 6, 4, 3 and 1 years old. He was scheduled to go on leave in two days. He was thrilled to be going home to be with his family and was looking forward to sitting on the floor of his den with all of his children surrounding him. One of his primary desires was to go home and cook a meal for his children.

Kerry, the soldier who wrote those words, has been included in our family’s evening prayers since the beginning of his deployment.

The family of this fallen soldier will now be prayed for in the silence of my heart. Some things, you just can not share with your children.

09.22.09
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Get Real

There are some truly fabulous people in the world.

Today, a woman I know slightly, a woman who knows my husband professionally, called me. She works not far from my home on Saturdays, and after work she wants to come over to watch the children for me while I go out and run errands or have dinner with a friend or do whatever. She wants to do this regularly, not just a one time thing.

It’s such a nice gesture. Just the very offer makes me all happy. It is enough. I don’t really need her to do it. But that she thought of me and came up with a plan was so very sweet.

So, as she continued to explain how everything would all work out, I rehearsed in my mind polite phrases to decline her offer. I am fine, after all. Managing quite nicely. He’ll be home soon. We’re almost halfway there.

But then the Real Me spoke up (to that Prideful Me in my mind). The Real Me is the one that dispenses sage advice to other mothers like “stay home for at least two weeks after having a baby” and “you can’t homeschool and have an immaculate house, too.” The Real Me is the one who wrote an article about coping with deployment wherein I write: “Get help. If you can afford it, consider lawn care, a cleaning service or a regular babysitter. For non-routine jobs, swallow your pride and ask for help. If friends or relatives ask if there is anything you need, come up with something. It is good to be strong, but it is better to be humble.”

The Prideful Me attempted to ignore the Real Me, but the Real Me is obnoxiously persistent and just won’t leave it alone. When the nice woman paused for a breath, the Real Me jumped in and accepted her offer before the Prideful Me even knew it was coming. (The Prideful Me thought some things which I won’t repeat here, because the Real Me is never that vulgar.)

Both the Prideful Me and the Real Me love to do nice things for other people. Doing good deeds makes everybody happy.

The Prideful Me hates to accept other people’s good deeds. It is so very hard. I don’t know why.

The Real Me sees how this whole thing is win-win: the nice woman gets to do a good deed (or two or three) and she gets to feel good knowing that she made a difference, and a big difference, in one person’s life. And I get to have a much-needed break. I could run errands in peace. I could get my Christmas shopping done. I could eat a leisurely meal. I could sit still for 20 minutes at a coffee shop. I could get a hotel room and take a nap.

And I could practice the virtue of humility, which is to say, I am fine, but I am tired. I am managing quite nicely, except my patience is wearing a bit thin. Soon is a relative thing. We are almost halfway there, but three months is still an awfully long time.

My point is that there are some really nice people in the world, and I need to let them do their thing. And I need to listen to my own advice.

09.13.09
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Only because Margaret asked

The other day my mom told me that George Will had written a column about why we should get out of Afghanistan. I couldn’t do more than glance at it. I love George Will and respect his opinion, and so I can’t bear to read his reasons why my husband is wasting his time right now and why my family is suffering for nothing.

I guess with the recent 9-11 anniversary, the whole issue is on the minds of many.

The ever wonderful Minnesota Mom emails me:

Love to you all. I am offering up my Mass today for your family. How is Bill doing? I just read that there was another outbreak in Afghanistan which made me wonder, why are we there? Forgive the dumb question, but really? Do they want us there? Are we winning?

I know you’ll have an opinion.

First of all, I know there are many of you who are praying for my husband and me and my family. I thank you all. It helps us, truly.

Secondly, Margaret knows me well. I almost always have an opinion. I have a vague recollection of not having an opinion once. It’s not a common experience.

So I respond:

Why are we there? Are we winning hearts and minds? Are we making a difference? Should we make a difference? Should we care about these people a world away? Do they want us there? Should we stay or should we go?

I can’t answer all of these with any political correctness.

And I don’t know how other wives or mothers feel. I speak only for myself.

We have a poor country whose only hope for survival is to grow poppies and sell them to the world to support its drug habit. We have a country with a government too weak to keep out corruption or evil influences that would use the land to harbor, train and support terrorists and their structure. We have a country that went backwards in development and made educated women quit their professional jobs to wear burkas against their will and stay at home.

From a social justice standpoint, is it not the obligation of the strong to help and defend the weak? Are the rich not to help the poor? Do we stop ministering to the downtrodden because THEY have lost hope? Is it not possible to teach people how to better their lives, and at the very least make a difference in one person’s life for one day? To fill a hungry belly for just today, to put shoes on one child’s feet, to show them the promise of the future by embodying all that is good in the world for one day?

Why Afghanistan? Well, from there arose the center of attacks against the US. If we leave, they will simply reestablish their bases. The Taliban is still there. They are fighting and waiting for us to go. They won’t stop until they are decimated. That, unfortunately, means death, for us and for them and for civilians who harbor them and for civilians who are in the wrong place at the wrong time. War is awful. Better our soldiers (less than 600, I believe, since 2001 – most of the soldiers have died in Iraq, not Afghanistan, although that is changing**) than our civilians.

From there is the supply of most of the world’s opium. Drug use is a serious problem in this country and in others. Drug addiction destroys people, lives and families. We can and should fight a two-front war: prevent drug use by educating people and prevent drug use by making the supply scarce and expensive.

Do they want us there? It depends. If you like making easy money from poppies, NO. If you like the Taliban, NO. If you fear the Taliban and know that if you are friendly to US Troops they will kill you and your family, then it may be difficult to welcome US involvement.

What should we do? I don’t know. We can’t save the whole world, and certainly not all at once. I am glad I do not have to make these decisions.

All I know is this: if 5 or 10 or 20 or 40 years from now, Afghanistan is a better place due to our involvement, then I will believe that my husband’s sacrifice (whether that is simply missing his family for 6 months or if it ultimately takes a limb or his life) and my family’s suffering will not have been in vain. If we walk away, and Afghanistan goes back to the way it was in 2001, then this was all for nothing. The 600 dead, lost for no good reason. My children’s pain at having no father, even if temporary, will be for naught. We would have done better to have simply dropped a few bombs a la Bill Clinton and left it at that.

We have had no more attacks on our soil because we have been keeping them engaged elsewhere. Where should we fight them? Afghanistan? Iraq? New York City? Or should we let them win? Do you want your daughters or granddaughters wearing burkas? Would you like your children or your grandchildren to see the cathedrals of Europe? Would you like to see the cathedral of Notre Dame turned into a mosque? Europe is the frontline for the cultural battles and they are seeing a fair number of deadly attacks on civilians as well. If Europe collapses, then the new frontline is HERE. We won’t leave our country a better place for future generations if we can not respond to this fight now. We may not think this is a holy war…but they do.

So that’s my two cents.

I like to bounce my thoughts off my husband because he usually provides a different angle on issues and helps me hone or alter my opinion. Unfortunately, I don’t have that option right now, so these thoughts, which he will read long after most of you, are unshaped by his experiences and opinions.

At the conclusion of my rant, I asked Margaret if I just shouldn’t turn the email into a blog, and she thought yes, because she would like to hear other people’s thoughts. So, let us know how you feel. Should we stay or should we go?

** As of September 10th, there have been 746 deaths in Afghanistan and 4,343 related to Iraq.