My friend Guile

My oldest friend Guile just touched down in the Desert.

For those of you who are religious... send a prayer his way to keep him safe. 

While You Were Sleeping

I came across this post on a blog called Fifteen Months. It's a blog journaling an Army wife's journey while her husband is on deployment in Iraq. If you have time, it wouldn't be wasted reading her posts from the beginning. Pictures for this post I am reprinting here with her permission, can be found on the original post here.

Thank you, Stella. Thank you for lending us your eyes, ears, heart. Thank you for you and your husband's service.

Monday, May 26, 2008

While You Were Sleeping
Today seems like the right day to share an R&R memory from months ago. At the time, it felt too raw to write about because my husband had just left back to the sandbox after being home for 17 days. That 17 days of joy was just what we needed after being apart some 8+ months--it recharged and reinvigorated us for the second half of the deployment. I found it much tougher to "let" him go back after R&R, but I tried not to cry too long when we went to bed that night.

He had an 6 am flight out of San Diego the day he had to go back, so we woke up around 3:15 to have our last morning together. After, I made coffee while he laced up his boots and gathered everything. Our son woke up and stumbled out of his room to say goodbye again. I got dressed and cursed the person whose idea it was to start flying planes before the sun was even peeking out from the horizon.

When we got to the airport, there was a few piles of young Marines sleeping in the hallways near the USO, which wouldn't open for several more hours. They either arrived on a red eye or were there to make sure they caught their own flight back I'm sure. It broke my heart to see these young men without a send off that befitting to their service. No a wife or parent or volunteer or camera....just some lady riding up an escalator with her husband at the end of R&R taking a picture with her cell phone. Did America know the USO isn't always open?

Moments later, I was standing quietly with my husband, waiting for the moment when I would have to let go of him again to go do what he does when I am safely asleep. I held my emotions in as I strained to see out the window, hoping to somehow see his head in one of the plane's windows. It was too dark, but I pressed my face against the glass anyway hoping that somehow he was looking out the window and could see me still there for him as long as I could be. It was so dark that I lost sight off the plane as soon as it taxied off.

When I came home, our son was sitting on the couch, crying softly which he said he'd been doing since he pretended to go back to bed that morning. We didn't say much, he just hugged me and we stayed on the couch the rest of the day, indifferent to the tv and napping intermittently.

America, while you were sleeping, thousands of soldiers and Marines were getting up early to catch their their early bird flights back to Iraq. While you were sleeping, America, a young marine was sleeping next to his cargo bag to catch his flight out to someplace far away. Before dawn cracked on your horizon, men were getting up at 3 AM to make love to their wife one last time and kissing away her tears. They were hugging their half-asleep kids, feeding the dog, and buttoning up their ACUs as if today were just another day of work.

While you were sleeping, America, your military was already awake and keeping watch over you.

Spouse Side: Some Days...

When you're the wife of a deployed soldier, you sometimes just have to get used to the mood swings.

Today, I had to handle some car registration and insurance things - stuff that my husband would normally be handling if he were home. Really, it's not a huge deal. In fact, it really wasn't difficult at all but after putting those papers in the mailbox, I got hit with a sudden realization that he's not here; Silly, no? Sometimes I forget.

I go work out two hours a day, five days a week, I go to school and come home. I'm usually so tired that after a few minutes of chatting with my husband I fall asleep without a chance to ruminate. The days are sometimes so packed that I don't even realize that I'm living on my own.
Today was just a strange day.

It was as if I had just driven away from Fort Riley after he first left five months ago. The house is suddenly so empty.

Cheating Spouses during Military Deployment

I've been reading Devildog6771 and I have a certain morbid fascination with a series written on "cheating Spouses", the latest entry had the perspective of a Marine who made some poignant remarks on being cheated on while he was overseas. I can't help but laugh (which is cruel of me) because this is the topic on many people's minds before and during deployment. For example; a sudden drop in mail, e-mails, phonecalls and chats always put up a red flag and with no reliable communication the mind wanders to the worst case scenario, not the "my spouse might be busy with work/kids/school".

Actually, this topic fuels the fires for a lot of Army-lore which, in turn, fuels anxieties. During the BBQ I wrote about in a previous entry, J swore on his life (and his first born child) that he would ensure his friend would not do anything "bad" (bad=cheat) while deployed. Cheating seems to be everyones number one fear (second comes death and dismemberment). This topic gets to everyone because it's deeply personal, emotional, and damn fascinating. I hate to say it, but it's the number one topic in the rumor mill for a reason! It's why women in the Army have to prove themselves to spouses and why Jody (a name for a guy who sleeps with a deployed soldier's wife) is such a hated guy. It's unpatriotic to be Jody!

Funny enough, I know that (some) infantry men have a custom of sleeping with other soldier's wives and putting their husband's unit crest pinned somewhere in their room. While using adultering women doesnt break my heart, it does say a little something about the culture in some all-male units.

All assumptions aside, I will say that I have not seen any emprically proven statistic that would lead me to believe that cheating occurs more in the military than it does in the Civilian World (I have my foot in both, so I think there are Jerks everwhere you go). Nor have I ever seen one incident where cheating was completely a surprise; after all, relationships never break up because of infidelity, it's just a symptom that something else is wrong (the problem might be that you're married to an untrustworthy scum-sucker).

One of the issues that we face are deployments; Absence makes the heart grow fonder, or it makes it forgetful or alters it's needs entirely. What are you going to do? Nothing is ever as picture perfect as Brave Soldiers going off to War with a photo of his girl by his heart as she sits at home and knitting American Flags by the fire longingly siiiiiighing as she dream about her big strong hero. It's a moving image but not based on reality. It's no excuse, but sometimes deployments are the straw that break the backs of an already unsteady relationship.

However, I do believe it's more common if you're the state-side half of the couple, which is usually the female. Let's face it, clubbing in Iraq just doesn't yeild the same results as partying it up in a Jody Bar or your Hometown. A soldier goes to war and life moves on at home. Time doesn't stop and not everyone is married to a homebody hermit (like me). It just doesn't seem to work that way. I also saw, while I was at NMMI, that men generally have a small pool of women in the military while a civilian woman has an endless supply of jody's- therefore there's a slight skew in tempting opportunities.

(originally posted here)

D!!!!!

D is NOT getting deployed!!!
I am so stoked--but probably not as stoked as he is.

D, I'd buy you a huge fireworks display to celebrate, but there's the whole pesky permit thing! lol...

Congratulations, D, congratulations, brother!

The Spouse side of Deployment

(Said from a female perspective because I'm female, however I'm going to go out on a limb and say that it's probably similar to what men will go through as well).

The first few days of Deployment are always excurtiatingly painful. His things are still around, and each time his shoes don't move from their place by the door, or when you roll over in the middle of night and there's a warmth that isn't there, or when you do those chores that were originally designated as "his" - in my case it's mowing the lawn, doing the dishes, and folding the laundry.

It hurt. I wasn't sure how to go on for almost an entire month. It crawled by at a snail's pace and I felt like this Deployment would never end. Now it's almost been 5 months, we're just reaching for R&R and I look back on what time we've been apart and something about it seems bearable. Though I'm still hooked to my phone, addicted to my e-mail and webcam but I am able to concentrate on what is right in front of me and not daydream about my man in the Desert.

There's hope, and before you know it, R&R is here and you're halfway home.