Before I launch into the heart of my blog I should probably admit that this is not my first time around deployment block. Last year my husband spent eight LONG months in Iraq before coming home to the states just a few months before our wedding. No, I wasn't technically an army wife yet but for all intents and purposes I felt like one. In fact, in some ways I felt like my struggle with his first deployment was made more difficult by the fact that I was not yet his wife. I had no legal right to information about his location or his well being and I was geographically separated (due to the fact that I was living at home with my parents) from any support groups or fellow army spouses and girlfriends who understood what I was going through. I felt isolated and very alone. However, I thank God for a few friends who kept in touch by phone and email and for an extremely patient fiance who made time almost every single day to web chat with me and ease my fears as much as possible. I also want to take this opportunity to thank the chaplain who was deployed with my husband as he facilitated pre-martial counseling over the phone from Iraq and paved the way to get my husband sent home in time for our wedding.
I know that each lap around deployment block is a bit different from the last but in some ways I have at least a basic understanding of what to expect. So far this deployment is different in the following ways:
1) This deployment is actually officially being considered a PCS by the army. I won't disclose the location of my husband at this time (OPSEC) save that his is overseas in a foreign country. However he is in a place where I would have PCSed with him had he been ordered there for a period of at least two years. Since he was assigned there for less than that (though at least a year) I was unable to go with him. From this point on I will consider this a deployment since this is essentially what this tour has become.
2) This time, I was able to take my husband to the airport personally on deployment day instead of watching a big white army bus take him away. This was easier in some ways as I got to spend a little more time with him personally and see him onto the plane (the airline let me sit with him at the gate) but harder in that our separation was much more public. On his first deployment the only people privy to our tearful goodbye were others in the same boat, people too wrapped up in their own impending separations to judge ours. This time, I garnered stars from others standing in the airport terminal as I tearfully hugged my hubby for the last time and watched him walk down the jetway to the plane. Since he was not in uniform they probably thought I was some over sentimental girl saying goodbye to a boyfriend whom she would see soon.
3) This time I am living on my own, in a beautiful house on an army post rather than with my family. This gives me more freedom to experience my own life and to forge bonds with other army wives but also means that I am alone more often than not. This also means that I am also in charge of running a household: ie making sure bills get paid on time, taking care of the house, ect. Activities which my parents took care of in the past.
4) Even though I was geographically separated from my husband's unit, last deployment I was still contact and kept in the loop through his unit's FRG (family readiness group). This time, there is no family readiness group which leaves me to wonder, god forbid how I would know if anything happened to my husband or how I would get information to him in an emergency.
I wouldn't consider myself a fragile woman who can't handle herself and falls apart at the drop of a hat. In fact, I think that my ability to cope and my relationship with my husband has grown strong over three years of a long distance relationship. However this is not to say in any shape or form that I do not have weak moments and low points where I melt down into a complete mess. As I open myself up to you I ask that you not judge as it takes courage to admit weakness.
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