Military Wife-ing and the Cold Hard Truth!

I sit here annoyed and downright pissed off this morning. I've seen and heard way too much backlash from so many sources lately on the frequency of deployments and their various effects on military families, so I've decided to come to my blog and lay it all on the line for all 2 of my readers haha. Why anyone would come into this lifestyle thinking it would be easy is beyond me.

Deployments suck folks, they just do! Especially the ones where your husband is in actual danger. Sure I'm an Air Force wife and a lot of people think my husband deploys under "comfortable conditions". I love telling these people they're wrong. My husband's last deployment was 15 months attached to an Army unit. He was in combat daily. He lost fellow soldiers, he saw things that still give him nightmares. Even on his just "plain ole deployments", it's not easy for anyone.

Deployments will make or break your marriage or relationship. You either get stronger and fall deeper in love, or you get weaker and fall apart. That's it. You respect your husband for what he does everyday and the sacrifice he makes daily. He respects you for all you do. What does that entail exactly?

How about being a single mom, changing every diaper, racing to every practice/game/school function, taking them to doctors appointments, feeding them every meal, helping them with homework, bathing them, all the while doing all the cleaning, paying all the bills, and still trying to find a moment to write a letter, send a card, mail a package or if you're super duper lucky getting online to hopefully score a chat session with him or maybe even a phone call. How about soothing scared big kids because daddy's gone for so long? How about making sure the baby knows who daddy is, making sure she remembers his voice, his smell, showing her pictures of him just hoping she remembers...Then there's trying to sleep without worrying if that headline you saw on the news pertained to your husband and his unit, wondering if he's injured or dead.

Some of us work on top of that, some of us give birth alone with no family or friends around. And how about those women who get up every morning wishing their husband was still alive to get a phone call or a chat? Those women have paid the ultimate sacrifice and will continue paying it every day as they learn how to survive without their love for the rest of their lives, along with their children.

I can't forget those of us with no children. They do everything they can to keep themselves busy and not worry every second of every day. They aren't weaker than those of us without children, they just have a different set of problems to deal with.

Here's the bottom line...When you choose to marry a man who is in the military, know full well ladies, that he is already married to his country and you and your family come in second. If you can't accept that or you aren't strong enough to handle it then move along. The United States of America owns his ass and they will make him do the job that HE signed up to do. You should be proud though, be proud you have a man that loves his country that much. I know I am. My husband is an American loving, God fearing, war hero....and I put on my big girl panties every day and support him...why wouldn't I?

Note: please excuse any run-on sentences and other grammar errors. I have a baby on my lap yelling at me, no time for proofreading around here :)