A co-worker of mine is married to an Air Force Reservist. Rumors floated for sometime that there would be a ship date soon, and a couple of weeks ago, the papers finally arrived. He's going to Afghanistan at the end of July. This started a flurry of activity for them and quite a bit of conversation for all of us. They've been married less than a year. She's managed to deal with the weekend separations and a two-week training op, but 9 mos is a whole 'nother story. Did they know this was a possibility? Sure. It comes with the territory. But, there's still something lurking just below the surface when we all talk about the deployment. He's going to war and, as much as we all like to wave flags and cheer, it's scary for everyone involved.
She recently passed over a blog entry from a career military spouse to me. It was an interesting take on the home-bound reality of military life. This was my co-worker's perspective:
"The blog does explain the large and obvious separation between military families and civilian families. But in my eyes it shows the bravery that most spouses carry and the pride they have in their husbands/wives, which is what I find most inspiring within the military today[...] That is why spouses like her are people I look up to being new to military life, even if I only see and deal with an ounce of what she lives through daily."
We talked last week about the fact we've been at war in some form since 2003. In contrast to the civilian environment of WWII, our lives are largely unchanged. No rationing, no bond drives, no politicians drumming up support "for our boys over there" at every public gathering. It's not a world war per se, but there is world-wide conflict. It's not something to take lightly nor forget in our daily, mundane routines. Somewhere there's a mom or a dad or sibling or spouse shipping out. And they're leaving a big hole behind.
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