Photo credit Amy Hess Photography
I didn't know much about military life until our first move. Because even when I had learned my husband (boyfriend at the time) was enlisting, I didn't know what that meant. I had only known one other person my age who had gone into the military and he was deployed to Afghanistan almost immediately. But what did deployment mean for him? His family? His friends?
What was an FRG? Why were there so many rules? What do you mean we have to move again? What do you mean we can't go home for the weekend?
Being apart of the military lifestyle is unique. In a way, it's an entirely separate world from the civilian world. We move a lot, we're apart a lot, and we watch our spouses make sacrifices... a lot. Of course they chose this career; no one drafted them or told them they had to go. But it doesn't mean it's not difficult to be told you are leaving and will miss out on the next year of life with your family. It's easy to think "why me?" when you're put in this situation. And when my husband deployed the first time, it was scary for me. I was going to miss him. I didn't want him to go. I was so heartbroken. I didn't even stop to think how he was feeling because military life was so new to us and I figured he chose this... he knew this would happen. Was it selfish? Absolutely. And I will openly admit that. Everything was so new to us; marriage, a pregnancy, military life and certainly a deployment. I didn't know how to react or what to think at this point.
But the second time around, the deployment he's currently on, was and is different. I'm less worried about myself and more worried about him and what he's missing out on. We have two small kids who are growing and changing everyday and need their daddy. How would he feel thousands of miles away when our daughter walked for the first time? Or had her first birthday? Or our son played his first tee ball game? These were the things I thought first.
Maybe it was maturity or maybe it was our four years of experience in the army. It never gets easier but you learn to deal. You learn that you don't have a choice, no one has a choice, and that when he has to go, he goes. You make it work and you learn how to handle it. You remember that they're protecting a country that so many others have worked to protect in the past. And it becomes more of a privilege than a challenge.
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