Tuesday, January 25, 2005

Wife of a soldier blogs her feelings on learning of 2nd deployment to Iraq

My daughter blogs, (yes, I encouraged her to start one and she has developed quite a following). Two weeks ago she learned that her husband, my son-in-law and father to my grandchildren, is under orders to redeploy to Iraq within the next short few months. This will be his 2nd deployment to Iraq. My daughter shared her heart on feelings in the below blog entry. I have her permission to share it here and at my other blogs. Her honesty is more poignant than what I can write in expressing how strangled I feel to be able to do so little to prevent my darlings from having to endure this a second time.

Tuesday, January 18, 2005
Soldiers deploying, we can talk about it now. It is OFFICIAL!

My mood today is: Heartbroken



Okay well this is my story and it is long so get ready to listen to my novel(lol)

As most of you know I met my DH(dear hubby) when he was in the military stationed in WA. He got out of the military for me, cuase I would not move with him to go to our next duty station which would of been OK. So after the military he worked at a warehouse making really good money for three years.

But the cost of living was KILLING us, our rent was 855 a month plus electric phone and our food bill was 300-400 a month. Needless to say we needed to find something smaller and somewhere cheapter to raise our family.

My hubby and I had moved to a different town, a SMALL town. We had just left a BIG city to move closer to family and to also have our choldren in a little town. Not in the hussle and bussle of the very very BIG city.....We thought my hubby could get a good paying job real quick with his warehouse experience and I would start school and things would be great. But the warehouse jobs there were given to people who knew someone that knew someone. And I enrolled for school but like always something comes up that defers me going.

So we spent a year there my hubby drove six hours every week to work and spend the week in our BIG city(he is a very hard working man), then after about three months of that he quit. I got a job working and he stayed home with the children. And let me say it changed my hubby and our marriage for the better. He really got a reality check of what women go through staying at home and raising TWO little ones under the age of three. And having an older child also to help with school work and functions. He cooked, cleaned, changed diapers, laundry, EVERYTHING.....He did this for about 6 months. Then one day he said babe I am going to go look for a job and and I said great honey. He drove over to our local MALL and spoke with a recruiter, and had come home with a HUGE azz stack of papers he had to sign....He walked in the door and said we need to sit down and talk.

So I am thinking what is with all these papers, and he blurts out I AM RE-JOINING the military!

I didn't want to sign these papers till I came home and talked to you about it. I was SHOCKED. I mean we just had 9-11 and we were going to be going to WAR! I really didn;t know what to say to him. He said babe I have to do this. So after we sat there talking I said if this is what you want to do then I am behind you 100%, he then said you will GO ANYWHERE with me(lol) and I said YES I will move anywhere you get stationed.

SO he signed all the papers that night, went back the next day and started re-entering the military.

We then found out he got Europe as his duty station and we were all VERY EXCITED, especially our eldest daughter and of course I was also.

So my hubby had a month of going to Seattle and doing all the neccessary paperwork and then we found out he would be leaving in Feb. So as the month approached I was growing more and more concerned with THIS WAR that was shaping up to take place. He said babe, this is something we knew when I joined again. I told him yes, but I am not ready to deal with all this. He said don't worry I will be in Germany and you guys will be there right after me.

Well one we were not there right after him, my daughter's father held us for an entire 18 months waiting. So my hubby got to Germany and then found out they were deploying to Iraq.

I cried the entire day. My mom came down(thank GOD) and it was awful, even worse was my daughter's father refused to sign her passport papers and we all did not get to say our GOODBYES to daddy. So my hubby went off to WAR alone without seeing his family.

I then spent the next 18 MONTHS trying to kiss my daughter's father azz to get him to sign her paper and he refused the entire time. It is a long story, but the important thing is he fianlly came to his senses and signed it. Now we are here with daddy and everyone is so much better off.

Now after struggling so many months to make it here to be with daddy we found out this past week that he will be returning to IRAQ. We only so many months to spend with him now. He has to go to the feild 3 of these months so needless to say our time is VERY VERY SHORT.

I thought this time around I would be able to handle all this deployment news, I would be ready for it all BUT I SEE I AM NOT ready for all this news.

I am laready seeing hubby is thinking about it, he is talking alot more about when he was there the 1st time, he is wanting to just sit at home and watch movies cuddling. He doesn't want to go back but he has too.

You struggle with yourself, you struggle to think if you can handle all this again, all the crying, all the loneliness, all the being mom and dad, the children confused about where daddy is and when he will be home, if he will even come home. You watched movies and you cry cuz your missing your partner here with you...SAFE and ALIVE. Your stress if always running high and your never gets a moments rest a good night sleeps cuz your eyes are burning from all the tears cried. Every song you hear makes you sad cuz it has to do a with a memory or a though of your hubby.

I don't know if I can do it this time. I don't want to worry my hubby with all my worries, but I know he is very afraid. He has already said outloud well at least I get to see 29! I said WTF is that all about. Your going to see 30-31 now stop it. He said babe it is worse over there now, We all know we are going to lose lives, for NOTHING......Just more things for me to now worry about. I will spend all these months prior to deployment worrying then spending the next 12+ months worrying. Having to do two deployments, like my hubby said will only put us together for one year out of almost 4 years. It is sad, but part of life as a military family. And we are re-upping so guess it will more likely happen again.....Just know that this is on the hardest things to go through and deal with. I have no earthly clue how the nam wives did it, soldiers were dying left and right, and they HAD NO CONTACT ever!

My hubby said he will be sitting down and he will have to do his goodbye letter again(one of the hardest things EVER) but he wants it done so in case something happens, I have his very last words that he would want me to have. I cry just thinking about what he has to go through. I know this news is killing him. I know he is afraid. I know he will be keeping another journal when he returns to help him get through the lonley nights and struggles he has. And I know he is taking everyday here with us and enjoying it.

This time around to me it is more scarier then the first time around. The only good thing about this deployment is that WE ARE ALL HERE with him, we get to say our goodbyes to him and put him on the plane without having to worry that we don't get to come to Germany and that we do not get to see him off. It was extrememly stressful dealing with my daughter's father, he can be very hurtful and cruel when you speak to him. So both hubby and I were having a ton more stress added on by having to deal with getting our daughter to Germany. Everyday I grew more angry that I could not be in Germany with my family, where all the information was about my husband, where there was support for us as a military family, where when my hubby stepped off the plane from being downrange all that time I could run up and hug him. But it didn't work out that way, but it will be that way this time around. We all be here with daddy seeing him off.

My emotions run high. Thinking about another year with my hubby in harms way. You take life for granited sometimes. I know I took my marriage, my husband and everything he was for granite. I so badly wanted him to be back home so I could show him how much he means to me, how much I love being married to him, how much he really does for me.

I spent the first 6 months in hardly no contact with him, they had just gotten there after we attacked Baghdad. So communication was not set up, no letters home cuz they were taking like 4 months to arrive, we had no interent nothing. It was EXTREMLY hard, the not knowing. Not knowing if he was dead or alive. I spent everyday worried about him, and we didn't have contact so it was always in the back of my mind that I would be one of the wives that gets the knock on the door. I cried everynight for about four months. I was so worried. I worked out to relieve stress and lost a lot of weight. I started a online group(which was my lifesaver) I had my mother;s 110% support and HELP, without her who knows. My daughter was the BIGGESt trooper, she is more an inspiration to me than anything. She has an undying demeanor to help and comfort. She is awesome. I would of been a nervous wreck had she not helped out in all the many many ways she did!

You are a shell of a person with the one you love in danger like that on a day to day basis, it is like your life is on hold until they come home alive. You don't want to live life cuz your hubby is another counrty fighting and could DIE. It is hard. If I were single with no kids, OMG I don't know. The lonely nights alone with nobody to be there, my kids were what kept me going, praying for my husband to live kept me going. It is hard to think ahead, but I know the pain and I know the loneliness. I am NOT LOOKING forward to this deployment, I am not looking forward to seeing my best friend leave again. I am afraid for him and all his soldiers....

I can say that the war not only brought my hubsand and I closer in many ways it bonded us for life. We could never get back the 18 months that was taken from us, but in those 18 months our love for each other grew so big and so huge. Now that he is out of harms way, we have an unspoken understanding that it is a blessing he is here with us. That is why thinking about sending him back into harms way eats at my SOUL. Inside I am dying, outside I am being a strong wife for him. I know it is killing him thinking about being away from me and our three children again, all the things he will miss out while he is gone. Not knowing where he will be going. But thank goodness I started this online journal, this is going to help me get out what I can not speak with my husband about. I do not want him to have to have all the worries and stresses he had the first time around. He needs only to worry about staying alive and doing whatever he can to survive to make it back home to his family.

Life is different now. Instead of getting up and always on the go-go-go, I sit home with my hubby and do the things he wants to, which right now is buying movies and watching them with randa and I. That and playing board games. I don't mind, I know when he deploys again I will shop like no tomorrow to not have to think about everything my husband is enduring. I just enjoy all the time everyday with him now while I have him here with me.

The first time around I didn't know what to expect, what was going on, this time around I sorta know what to expect. I am going to be invloved with our FRG and also do my own things for the wives I know here. Our children will have other kids going through the same thing. Our son will have some outlets to deal with daddy being deployed. The first deployment our little drew didn't take it all so well. And I was stuck in the little town with no outside help. So it was a struggle. he is a wonderful son, I love him dearly. But it was so very hard on him. He was so little and confused. He wanted daddy. I am afraid to even go there with how he is going to handle this all again.

Our eldest daughter, she was always worried her dad would die, she wrote a beautiful poem to him. This time around she is already talking to him, asking him questions, she will get to say goodbye and give him a hug. She handles death in her own way, but one night we were sitting there taking to her and she asked him something about dying and started crying, he held her and kissed her forehead and told her that he loves her and he will come home. She said ok, and just cried.

We haven't told the little ones yet, I am not sure when I will tell them. Maybe a couple weeks before daddy leaves so they can use to the idea.

My hubby is my world, my LIFE, my soul mate, he is the one I was meant to spend my life with. God tested us the first time around and brought him home to us, I am trusting in God again to watch over my best friend, my life partner and bring him home to his family.

I will be writing more on this as the time gets closer and as my emotions start flying high. I know I have to mentally prepare myself for this one.

I am enrolling into school to have distractions....I will keep working out to keep my stress down, and the kids will all be in school. So that is it for now. More to come.

But it is official. The guys will be returning to Iraq soon. Now we are just spending all the time we have left with our soilders enjoying them and loving them and looking at them face to face.

I love you dear sweet husband and life would not be so wonderful if you are not in it, you BETTER come home safe this time around too. I can't even begin to imagine my life without you in it! Thank God for sending me you. Your are the blessing in my life, that made it all right and have meaning. Love you with every breathe and every beat of my heart!

Bree's 30 something

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President George W. Bush's statement in March 2006 after 3 yrs of war "a future President will have to resolve war in Iraq"


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