May 10, 2008
I dare say, I would probably be living the same boring day over and over. Waking each day, dreading what was to come from a mundane job, same relentless chores, and never ending errands. I'd probably live next to the same people for 20 years and never know their name, drive the same route every day never seeing the beauty around me.
If it weren't for war, I'm never have married an American hero, be inspired by those around me or treasure the littlest moments such as making dinner with my husband or dancing on the porch in the moonlight. Maybe they're right, it sounds like such a horrible life!
If it weren't for war...
It reminds me of when I wrote this:
Today I started thinking that if 9/11 hadn't happened, my life would be quite different. My husband was slated to join the Army for four years of Finance. My guess is that he would've completed his commitment and taken his business mind elsewhere for more money. Certainly he wouldn't have stayed in and chosen to learn Farsi. We'd probably be somewhere in the Midwest, working and living like most of our peers.
If it weren't for war, I wouldn't know how precious my husband is. I wouldn't relish every day with him. I wouldn't be as proud of him as I was every time he got a perfect score on a Farsi quiz. I wouldn't cherish every moment with him, knowing there will be months and years of our lives apart. I wouldn't have such good Perspective, knowing that dirty laundry on the floor or dribbles of pee on the toilet rim means that at least he's home and safe.
I wouldn't have read so many books about the Middle East. I wouldn't know Iraqi geography. I wouldn't crochet squares for Hand-Crafted Comfort. I wouldn't write so many letters.
My life would be less immediate, less fulfilling, less lived.
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May 08, 2008
I told him I keep forgetting that he's gone, and every time I read a good blog post or article, I forget that I can't show it to him when he gets home.
I'm anxious for a mailing address.
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As an aside, I have exchanged the knitting needles for the right ones (I bought metal AND bamboo...is that bad). I also bought more yarn. Um, I can't even really do this yet and I have already started a stash. Is that the sign of a problem??
I'm so glad your husband phoned and that you had a chance to catch up. I say just cut and paste those web addresses into an e-mail so he can read them when he needs to wind down after a long day.
Hubs thought your photo with the 4-star is worthy of framing, btw. May 07, 2008
I asked around, and the general consensus was that other wives would not go to the White House. But I still had to decide for myself. I had a talk with my husband about my choice, and what he said blew my mind. He said, "The White House is the White House, and obviously that's a big deal. But what I think is really important is that you go spend time with your friends, people who love you. You don't have anyone here in town to take care of you while I'm gone, and when else are you going to get the chance to be with your good friends? If they're coming in from all over the country, then you need to go be with people who care about you."
And he was right.
It was so exciting to be able to take this photo on Tuesday:
But it honestly means so much more to me to have taken this one:
I spent the day surrounded by people who lift my spirits, who make me happy, and who grok what I am going through. They cracked me up and helped me forget my sorrow. And they reminded me of how lucky I am to have them in my life.
My husband was right: I really did need this.
I raced home right after the event and had six hours to spend with my husband before I dropped him off at his unit headquarters to deploy. And we felt good, no tears at all. Just a supplication for me to have "Spartan courage" and for him to "come back with his shield or on it." A quick kiss goodbye, and that was that.
And so the deployment begins.
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May 04, 2008
I wrote about his packing headaches at SpouseBUZZ.
And we've been getting ourselves properly pumped up on dorkosterone before he leaves. I started reading Gates of Fire again. Tonight we're watching his favorite movie: Miracle. And last night we went with his Farsi class buddies to Hooters so he could get his fill of beer and ogling chicks before he leaves.
I feel pretty good this time. I don't feel scared: his job will be low-key. I don't feel bad about the length: we did longer pre-R&R last time than his entire deployment will be this time. And I feel optimistic about our chances with the fertility treatments too.
I just feel a smidge sad that my best friend is leaving me for the rest of 2008.
At least I have Charlie this time.
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May 03, 2008
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April 28, 2008
But this is not all that dissimilar to the incident that happened in the fall. Back then, I complained I couldn't cry about it. This time I cried and cried. This difference this time I think has to do with the fact that I do not think of him as being in all that dangerous of place, well, at least compared to where he was. At his last assignment, I think I had an enormous barrier in place to deal with this kind of thing. But once he took the new assignment, and I settled in to the day-to-day officeness of it all, I let that wall down.
Whenever people like my husband's grandma or his friend's wife started to get that worried look as they hugged my husband for the last time, he just smiled at them and reassuringly said, "If I told anyone in the Army where I am going, what I will be doing, and how long I will be there, no one would feel sorry for me. So you don't need to worry about me; I have an enviable deployment!"
His last deployment, not so much.
I wonder how this time will be different. Last time, the only experience I knew was weeks without contact, no phones at his location, two intense trips to Najaf, every third week living off the FOB, and no hot food for the first six months. His deployment was on the rough(er) end of the spectrum, but I don't remember feeling overly scared. It just was what it was; it was the only deployment I knew.
And sometimes now I get worried because this one is even more relaxed. I don't feel nervous or scared at all about his leaving. I don't feel like he's preparing for war this time. But then my mind plays tricks on me and I start to wonder what if something happens like happened to Butterfly Wife, where the husband's "day-to-day officeness" is interrupted by danger? Honestly, I have thought more than once how stupid it would feel if my husband were killed on his "easy" deployment instead of his prior hard one. But stuff like that happens, even to soldiers with the jobbiest jobs.
I hope he spends the entire time bored out of his mind.
And close to a phone.
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I'll be thinking of you.April 27, 2008
One of the main characters of the show got out of the Army to join the FBI. In this episode, the FBI was searching for a Marine whose family had been kidnapped because he wouldn't give his fellow Marines the whereabouts of $1 million stolen in Iraq. (Yep, it's the Three Kings storyline again.) Here's the conversation they had:
Marine: They're gonna kill my family. If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. Force recon taught me that.
FBI: Playing the "bad war badass" is not going to get your family back.
Marine: What do you know about bad wars? Chasing bin Laden in '01 don't compare to what's going on now.
FBI: Yeah, I've heard the stories.
Marine: (mocking) You've heard the stories. Talk to me when you've seen woman and children blown up by a 50-cal, or a school after a mortar attack, or a man tortured by your own guys until he begs you to kill him. You fought the bad war when it was good.
This seemed like Hollywood bullcrap to me, so I had a long talk with my husband about it. In his experience, he has never heard conversations like this about Afghanistan being a "good war" but Iraq being a "bad war." And 50-cal bullets work in Afghanistan too; I am sure some soldier in Afghanistan has made a kill that bothers him. This just smelled like projection to me: someone in Hollywood thinks Afghanistan is more justified than Iraq and writes that dialogue into the script.
Heck, everyone in Hollywood is projecting. I can't even list how many episodes of shows like Cold Case, Law & Order, CSI, Without a Trace, etc, have plotlines that seem like stereotypes gone horribly wrong. Everyone has PTSD, and the number of people who return from Iraq and murder their recruiter, journalists, or other soldiers from their platoon who are about to blow the whistle on cover-ups of massive Iraqi murders, well, it's just staggering. If this had happened even once, I think we'd have heard of it in the past seven years. It's all Hollywood exaggeration, and sadly they're exaggerating our soldiers and Marines into killers, thieves, and mental cases.
Later on in the show, thankfully this exchange happens between the two FBI agents:
Colby: What Porter said about me fighting the good war, there's truth to that. When I got pulled out of the field by military intelligence, I left a lot of guys behind.
David: And a lot of them went to Iraq...
Colby: I read the names in the papers, guys I knew, I heard about friends who came home messed up physically and messed up in the head
David: Where I grew up, people were messed up by a lot of things, a lot of it out of their control. It didn't make them any less culpable for their actions.
They're talking about the context of crime, but this point can be extended much further. War is ugly. But so is rape, abuse, incest, drugs, and a host of other things that people are exposed to on a daily basis. Soldiers watch their friends get killed, but sometimes in this messed-up world we live in, children watch their parents get killed. Wives watch their husbands murdered in front of them. Life is not only brutal on the battlefield.
Last night I finished reading The Airman and the Carpenter. The NJ state executioner thought Hauptmann was innocent, but he had to pull the switch anyway. I had never thought about executioners before, but I'm sure on occasion they have to take a life they're not comfortable with taking. But they do it. Does it haunt them? I don't know; we never hear about executioner PTSD. Nor do we hear about doctor PTSD, though I'm certain the ER is a horrifying place to work. I bet they see more people dying in a week than my husband did in an entire year. But they're not portrayed on TV as mental cases who are going to kill their fellow doctors for money.
I've been holding in a complaint for a long time because it is a delicate subject, but I'm going to air it now. There are people out there with PTSD, and they need help. I am glad that there is awareness and that they can get the help they deserve. I know it's real. But there's a nagging part of me that rues the fact that the more emphasis we put on PTSD -- the more we talk about detection and diagnosis and how widespread it is -- the more civilians expect that everyone who's been deployed is messed up in the head. And the more of these storylines we're going to get on movies and TV, which just reinforces civilians' belief that everyone has PTSD.
My husband reminded me of the time we went to The Mariners' Museum and his cousin asked cautiously if he would be OK sitting in on the video presentation of the battle of the USS Monitor because it had simulated cannon fire. It was nice of her to be concerned, but my husband just had to chuckle. He had been jittery for the first few weeks of being home, but by then he had been home for two and a half years. But she knew about PTSD and thought it affected everyone who's been deployed. She was worried about my husband and wouldn't accept his reassurance. She kept asking me if he was OK, no I mean really, is he OK, you can tell me.
Yes, he's OK. Most people are. Some do have PTSD, but most of them won't go on to murder or pillage. They need to see a doctor; what they don't need is Hollywood making them out to be ticking time bombs on every TV show and movie ever made about Iraq.
Why can't we have any storylines where someone comes home from Iraq and then sacrifices to save a life? That's happened, you know. Or where someone survives a murder attempt and helps bring the killer to justice, as Airman King did?
There's heroism among returning servicemembers. But for some reason that never makes it into TV plots.
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April 24, 2008
I pack lunches for my husband to eat at work, and usually I make him wraps. As I bought a ten-pack of tortillas today, I realized that that's all he'll need. There are about ten more work days until he's gone.
Boy, that hit me like a ton of bricks. It snuck up on me fast. The shampoo realization came four months ahead of time. This time I've been a lot more distracted.
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I hope you enjoy those last days... somehow my dh and I always manage to fight as if that will make the disengaging easier. I wish some good memories for you both before he goes. March 28, 2008
Also, my husband said that he has some reading to do before he deploys. I said that it was fine, that we could sit together and read quietly. But he said that my idea wouldn't work because the reading he has to do is classified documents that he cannot take home from work. I replied that there were ways around this, you know. Just stuff the papers in your pants and socks. If it's good enough for Sandy Berger, it's good enough for us, right?
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March 23, 2008
He's now leaving, and relatively quickly. Not on that perfect assignment I wrote about, but on a different one. (Months ago my husband warned me that I wasn't going to like leaving "regular Army" because I wouldn't be able to blog about anything he's doing. I am starting to see that this is true. I am a blabbermouth at heart, and his top secret clearance is killing me.)
You know, I sat on that Rear D info for weeks. I couldn't bring myself to write about it because we didn't want to accept it as our fate. Finally, I decided that I had to put it in print and make it real. Ha. Two days later, the whole thing was moot. I can't help but think about one of my mom's friends. It seems that my mom bumps into her every time our story changes. First my husband was leaving right away, then his timeline got bumped way back, then it was Rear D, and now we're back to leaving. I bet my mom's civilian friend can't believe that we get jerked around like this, but it's true. This is how the military operates. When my husband asked me if I was OK with finding out so suddenly, I just waved him off with a hand. I am really quite used to this, actually. And when another solder looked at me with care and concern at the ball the other day and asked how I was dealing with my husband's sudden departure, I think I freaked him out with my nonchalance. His eyes got big when I waved him off too. But seriously, this is his job, this is what he's in the Army to do, and we wouldn't be here if it bothered me. A soldier's job is to soldier.
So he goes in the field this week, comes back, we have some block leave, and he's outta here. Lickety split. And he's an "operator" now (I think that is the squirrelliest label ever, so I use it all the time, like White irony), so it's not one of those 15-month deployments. He'll be home in early 2009.
This deployment junkie is getting her fix.
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March 22, 2008
We did some pistol shooting first. I was no good with the .357 Sig, but I did better with the 9mm Beretta. I think I improved a little from my first trip to the range back in October, especially after I tried a different placement for my left hand. It made the kick a lot more manageable. But the real fun was the AR-15.
I look awkward as all get-out in this picture, I think, but I actually was pretty darned proud of myself here. (I want to submit this to the Army and see if they'll let me deploy. Not bad for my very first try.)
But I don't look nearly as good as my smokin' hot husband.
Overall, I was a lot more comfortable this time around. I had fun and improved my meager skills. And the rifle was a lot of fun, though my shoulder is already feeling it.
I'm looking forward to going back. Good thing my husband has a single buddy who's happy to exchange ammo for a home-cooked meal.
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March 20, 2008
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I am just weeping.
I think I am pretty good at keeping life in perspective, at trying to see the positive in things. But I am not drinking-wine-off-the-floor good.
I love that story and I won't soon forget it.
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March 12, 2008
I've been thinking about this ever since they were talking on the radio about how 9/11 changed people's lives. I blogged:
Today I started thinking that if 9/11 hadn't happened, my life would be quite different. My husband was slated to join the Army for four years of Finance. My guess is that he would've completed his commitment and taken his business mind elsewhere for more money. Certainly he wouldn't have stayed in and chosen to learn Farsi. We'd probably be somewhere in the Midwest, working and living like most of our peers.
I'm pretty sure my husband wouldn't be in the Army today if it weren't for Iraq. We also wouldn't be reading so many books on Iran and Arabs, there probably wouldn't be a SpouseBUZZ, and I never would've met any of my best friends.
Andi wrote a good post on the fifth anniversary of the Operation Iraqi Freedom. The story is a story of strength, of resolve, of commitment. That is what has changed in my life, for the better. Without Iraq, my husband's job would just be a job. Instead, it is more like a calling. In the CNN article, they talk about a chaplain:
When Etter himself returned on leave to Pennsylvania to officiate at the funeral of a close friend, he turned to his wife and said he wanted to go home.
"I said, `OK, get in the car. Let's go home,"' said Jodi Etter. "And you said, 'No, my home in Iraq. I just want to go home."'
When his tour was over, and he went with his wife to buy furniture for their new house in Lebanon, Pennsylvania, he had to remind himself that it was important to her -- even if it seemed trivial to him after the war.
I think they mean for this story to be a bad thing, but I don't see it that way. Our troops are invested in Iraq. They live their lives for a serious purpose, so yes, furniture is going to seem trivial. That's called Perspective. And my husband says all the time that he wants to return to Iraq to see this thing through. As an Army wife, you make a choice: when your husband says he'd rather be in Iraq on Valentine's Day, you can either be selfish and resent him, or you can be proud that your husband has such convictions and deeply cares about both the future of the US and the future of Iraq. I'm impressed that my husband would rather be "stuck hear n Irak" than safe and snug at home, and I'm proud of him for putting his country ahead of his family.
That's how we've changed in the past five years. If you'd asked me as a teen what the height of romance is, never in a million years would I have come up with the answer "having your husband wish he were in Iraq every Valentine's Day." But it is. Iraq has matured us, as a couple and as individuals. We read more, we think more, and we love more.
The chaplain goes on to say:
Now executive director of the Pennsylvania Bureau of Veterans Affairs, Etter says a deployment is like a magnifying glass.
"Personalities that are strong become stronger," he says. "Personalities which are weaker are made to become weaker."
We are better for having been to war.
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March 11, 2008
The time my husband got turned down for Civil Affairs because Finance wouldn't release him comes close, but even then I was more sad than mad.
I can't explain many of the details, but Civil Affairs units go to more places than Iraq and Afghanistan. And one of the places they're going, it would be the perfect assignment for my husband. He is more qualified to go there than anyone else who is going there. But the Army is so fracking stupid that they don't consider merit in placing people. They just deal 'em out like a deck of cards and let the chips fall where they may. So they end up with Arabic speakers going to Afghanistan, French speakers going to Iraq, and Farsi speakers staying home on Rear fricking D.
Today was already a really disappointing day, but this just sealed the deal. I don't know whether I want to scream or cry. Or puke.
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March 09, 2008
I wrote today at SpouseBUZZ that I can't remember my husband's homecoming day. I was camped out in my archives, trying desperately to remember what I was doing before he got home, but I have no idea. I do know what I was feeling though, since I carried on Tim's tradition and gave a peek at the end to CaliValleyGirl.
Reading that hurts a little though, because I miss that feeling.
I love having my husband home. I need to have my husband home if we're ever going to successfully have a baby. But three years on, I miss the deployment feelings. I miss the sense of connectedness, of purpose, of conviction. It probably sounds strange, but I miss the feeling of sacrifice, of knowing that I've given up being with someone I love for the good of our country. Honestly, for me, the deployment feeling hurts, but it's a good hurt, a deep and satisfying pain. And I haven't felt it in three years. I feel ashamed that I've lived too ordinary of a life for three years.
I'm ready to do it again. I knew it was coming, and I was ready for it, waiting for it, starting to yearn for it. My husband finished his language class and was waiting for his assignment. He was worried that he might get sent to Iraq even though he'd studied Farsi and wanted to go to Afghanistan.
So we never imagined the assignment he got: Rear D.
For civilian readers, the Rear Detachment is the one guy the unit leaves behind to man the phones and take care of the homefront. He's the liason between the deployed unit and the families. He works his butt off back at home to take care of unit affairs.
My husband is being left behind while his unit deploys.
One would think that this would be welcomed news for the Rear D family. If my husband had only been home 12 months since his deployment, I might enjoy this assignment a little too. But three years later, I can't believe this is what we'll be doing. I can't believe my husband doesn't get to do what he's longed to do since the day he came home -- go back and help some more -- and I can't believe I don't get to satisfy my unnatural craving for deployment feelings.
We're just so stunned that this is the hand we've been dealt.
Some guys have already spent enough time in Iraq to last them a lifetime. When it's all said and done, my husband will have been home for more than four years before he finally gets his chance to go again and do what he loves.
Despite our best efforts, we're watching history pass us by.
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February 26, 2008
Sitting on a bunk in Bravo Company's outpost, Staff Sgt. Corey Hollister noted the irony that, even as the debate in America remained bizarrely unaffected by the reality around him, "It's really military personnel and their families who don't want [the Army] to leave Iraq."
My husband is frustrated that he could've spent six months learning Farsi only to deploy to Iraq (where no one speaks Farsi). He would've rather learned Arabic then. He wants to be able to communicate with the people, wants to read as many books as he can about Sunnis and Shiites and Arab culture, wants to get another chance to participate in this war. Not for the killing but for the cultural cross-pollination.
And indeed, there's cross-pollination:
Officers in the Grand Army of the Tigris, as one of its senior officers calls the American force, dine with local elders at "goat grabs," greet them with "man-kisses," and routinely punctuate their own conversations with the casual "insha'allah." The vernacular has even followed the Army home: In the halls of the Pentagon, where nearly every Army officer has served at least two tours in Iraq, officers ask whether this or that official has "wasta"—Iraqi shorthand for "influence" or "pull," though with a slightly more corrupt tinge.
It's the military families that don't want to leave Iraq because they are the ones who've become invested. They're the ones who are getting steeped in this culture and looking for ways to make it compatible with ours. And they're the ones who understand the little picture as well as the big one.
My husband has always said that Iraq has way more than a problem between Sunnis and Shiites, because even in all-Shiite villages, there are still feuds. Between this group and that, this clan and that, this cousin's branch and that, this side of the street and that. Put two Iraqis in a room together, and they'll find something to divide them. So I got a kick out of this:
This much was evident at a gathering of 20 local elders, where a young captain named Palmer Phillips cajoled and corralled sheiks three times his age. "Hey," Phillips admonished the feuding tribal leaders, "There can't be anymore of this Dulaimi versus Assawi action going on."
The soldiers on the ground are working with the nuances and getting physically and emotionally invested in the outcome. Really, really invested. And they don't want to fail. But most of all they don't want to be sent home before they have a chance to succeed.
Read the whole article.
UPDATE:
Also read Gordon Alanko's Reconstructing Relationships. "Juggling kittens" indeed.
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February 18, 2008
I made a list of things to say
But all I really want to say
All I really want to say is
Hold her and keep her strong
While I'm away from here
--R.E.M. Green Album
The other day, my husband asked me how I think I'll feel when the next deployment rolls around. And I wondered why he'd asked; he said softly, "Well, you know, nothing's been the same since Sean Sims." And he's right.
I've given up with the pretending too. When I'm quiet for too long and he asks me what I'm thinking, I've given up lying. "I'm thinking about what happens if you die," I now answer. And it's awful how often the thoughts creep in. It is so sick, this anticipatory grief. He's right here beside me, and it's weird that sometimes I can't even enjoy him because I'm planning for some imaginary future that I hope never comes.
And I wasn't like this before. He's right; nothing's been the same.
Sacrifice is no longer theoretical when you've watched someone live with it for years.
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February 15, 2008
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February 13, 2008
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