Deployment is looming! It is a giant shadow standing somewhere nearby with arms upraised and claws extended, creeping closer, silently, on its tiptoes.

It’s not so distant anymore. No Siree!

When Hubby got back from JRTC, it was just the beginning. Now the topic of deployment comes up not just every day but multiple times a day! It’s inescapable! The truth is, it’s almost here.

First Married Deployment

Hubby has deployed twice already. (Have I mentioned how much that bugs me? It’s ridiculous that there are people who have been in the Army for over a decade already that haven’t deployed more than once, and yet my husband has been in for four years and is already on his third deployment.) Twice deployed, but never as a married man. I’m still new to the Army! Having a friend deploy is one thing; having a husband deploy is going to be a different matter altogether!

I didn’t need the other Army wives telling me it would be different for me to know that it would be different. I knew before we married that deployment would be coming and that it would be different than it was before, for both of us. But I think that only now, as we’ve been married for nine months and the deployment is looming, am I really beginning to understand just how different it will be.

Outside of marriage, it’s hard to understand just how close you really get once you’re husband and wife. Maybe simply living together would bring you as close, but I don’t think so. The bond in marriage is more than just living together, and it’s more than having physical intimacy while living together. Being pulled apart from each other for a year is going to be painful. Putting one of us in a constantly life-threatening setting will make it all the harder.

One of Many

This is but one of many deployments, and we are but one of many couples facing it. The life inside the Army is so different from life outside that many of my friends can’t really comprehend it, but there are so many others that can. How many hundreds of wives are missing their husbands at this very moment? How many hundreds are anticipating that loss? How many thousands are cherishing the time they have with the knowledge that it can only last so long? I must take what comfort I can from the fact that I’m not alone in this.

Facing It

The most important thing to remember is that God is with us, even now. I must continue to leave my worries at God’s feet and let him help me through. Prayer is powerful. Prayer is powerful. Must remember that…

Deployment is before us, and we can’t stop it from coming ever closer, but it’s best for us to face it head on. So, I can see it there, looming right ahead of me. Rather than seeing a big, giant, scary cloud of blackness, maybe I can remind myself that it has a form. It’s about yea high… only about 12 feet tall instead of 12 stories. It’s not really black so much as tan, like the sand in the desert. And it’s really just strolling past, not coming directly at us as though to eat us.

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I didn’t want to write about JRTC. I think that’s why I haven’t gotten around to posting this week. I mean, really, it’s already the main focus of all my video blogs since he left, so why write about it in my blog as well? Isn’t that overkill?

But the thing is, it’s on my mind. It’s practically all I can think about! My obsession with the topic has left me with little choice. Either address it, and get my feelings out, or keep on avoiding writing, since I can think of nothing else. Little choice, indeed!’

Joint Readiness Training Center

For those of you who don’t want to look it up, here’s the gist. JRTC is pretty much pre-deployment training. According to Wikipedia, “JRTC is focused on improving unit readiness by providing highly realistic, stressful, joint and combined arms training.” It simulates a deployment, basically, putting the unit through its paces. Afterwards, the unit is supposed to assess and train further before deployment, trying to correct their mistakes and weaknesses.

It’s a three-week process of set-up, training, and tear-down. And it means my soldier/hubby/best friend is gone for almost a month.

How I See It

The truth is that I’m okay with this training, especially if it’s going to help keep my husband and his unit alive when they do deploy. And in some ways, we wives look at it as preparation for us, too. A small taste of what it will be like when we’re alone for a whole year rather than three weeks.

That’s the rational side.

On the other hand, it’s really hard. As short a separation as it is, in the grand scheme of things, three weeks feels incredibly long! I’d go so far as to say it’s probably harder for those of us who are newlyweds! This is by far the longest he and I have been apart since the wedding.

I miss him. I’m lonely. I haven’t cried as much as I expected to, but I also haven’t had much motivation to do anything (writing, especially). And it has only been a week so far!

By the way, if you try to come kill me, thinking I’m an easy target with hubby off and training, you will have to reckon with my guard kitty. Oh, and my neighbors. And all the guards on post. So I wouldn’t recommend it.

I’m so thankful that I don’t have anyone’s grave to visit on Memorial Day. Being involved with the military has made me more aware of the meaning behind the federal holiday, but it doesn’t hit me on a personal level, and for that I’m grateful. One day, it probably will. One day I’ll probably know people who have given their lives for our country – people I’ll think of especially on Memorial Day. But not yet.

What is it to me? Growing up in a very military-lacking family, Memorial Day never really had any special meaning to me. I’d heard what it was about, but that was all. For the most part, it was a day for family picnics at Kidsville or someplace like that. It’s beginning to change now that I know people in the military, and now that I’m married to a soldier. Now I think about it a little more. I think about all we have to be thankful for, I think about what it would mean if Hubby did give his life…

But I find it a little funny that we don’t use the day so much for remembering those gone as much as we spend it enjoying life and loved ones. Yes, even Hubby.

Two-Thousand Nine

Last year, over the Memorial Day Weekend, we were down in the Rio Grande valley, visiting Hubby’s family.

We made sad little sand castles. We tried so hard, but we just couldn’t get that moat deep enough or the support wall high enough to protect it! 

We tried boogie boarding in the surf… Some of us succeeded more than others. (Hubby caught on. I didn’t do as well.)

We also collected shells, laid out in the sun, and ate hotdogs. It was all-around a lovely weekend. Especially for me. I love the beach. But the best part came on the last day there, up on a sand dune…

He had me looking for non-existent boats on the bay, and when I turned to tell him there were no boats, he was on one knee, covered in sand, but holding out a ring box and asking me to marry him.

Previous Fridays

For the second week in a row, I give you my Friday’s Five (things I love about my husband)!

1. I love how hard you’re working to reach your goals in the Army.

2. I love how you try to talk to me in your sleep.

3. I love your strong arms.

4. I love how you helped us start our little garden (sure made it easy on me)!

5. I love when you help me cook meals.

“A love-hate relationship is a personal relationship involving simultaneous or alternating emotions of love and enmity.”
– Wikipedia

I have a love-hate relationship with the Army. How the Army feels about me, I can never quite determine. Maybe the simultaneous contradictory feeling is mutual, for all I know.

Hate

Sometimes, I hate the Army. My husband would probably argue that sometimes is actually most of the time because I definitely complain about the Army much more than I brag on it or praise it. When I do hate it, I downright loathe it. I’ll tell you, the emotions can get pretty intense during these times. What has the Army ever done to me, you ask? Plenty.

1. The Army owns my husband. I come second after the Army; I don’t really have first dibs on him. When the Army chooses the flaunt this, I can get pretty catty.

2. The Army mistreats my husband. How can I take care of him when he’s constantly coming home with new wounds and problems? Tell me that, Army!! I try to get him caught up on his rest, and then you go and deprive him of sleep again!

3. The Army is too fickle. Make up your mind! Are they coming home at 0730, noon, or 2100? Does he get weekends off or not?

4. The Army strings us both along, promising things, and when we begin to suspect it may never deliver, they give us another bit of hope to keep us going. Sometimes, I don’t think the Army intends to deliver on its promises at all!

Plus Love

On the other hand, I do love the Army, sometimes. More than you might think! When I love it, I could go to tears thinking of life without it.

1. The Army pays our bills, like any faithful employer should. In fact, the Army’s regularity in this area is most pleasing. It’s never late.

2. The Army gives us security. We can’t get rid of the Army, no matter how bad we might want to at times. It’s always going to be there, and while it may seem fickle, it’s in many ways one of the most constant things in our lives. Even its fickleness is steady and constant, like a security blanket (or teddy, or hippo).

3. The Army takes care of our basic needs. Sure, it gets to decide whether other things are important or not, but the basic needs we have for food, shelter, and medical care, are taken care of, always.

4. The Army actually has a useful purpose. It can be hard to remember, when caught up in day-to-day life as a soldier or a soldier’s wife, but the Army does have a purpose, and serves that purpose well. Our country would probably be in bad shape without it.

Equals Army Wife Life

All of this together makes up a big portion of life as an Army wife. These last two weeks, as my husband was gone yet again for training, I had moments when I cried about how much I hated the Army and moments when I cried about how much I love the Army. Imagining life without it is hard, now. I pray for God to help us through this time in the Army, and to help us through the time when we have to face life without it!

Would you like to add in any reasons you love and/or hate the Army? Or do you, perhaps, have a love-hate relationship with someone (or something) else that you’d like to share?

And the Big Deal for C8 is… A Foot Works product bundle! Here’s a testimonial from my husband:

“Michelle asked me to write a review for one of her Avon products that I recently tried called Foot Works Restorative Milky Foot Soak.

I’m really not one for cosmetic products (I am a soldier after all), but I recently completed a field competition called Sapper Stakes. It was a four day event out in the back lands of central Texas, doing Army stuff and walking over 60 miles in full gear. By the end of it all of the competitors had blisters, bruises, and very sore feet. I know I was having trouble not limping when I came home.

So after my hot shower, while I was still whining and whimpering on the couch about my sore body and feet, Michelle offers me a foot soak. She figures out I can’t actually stop her, so she put my feet in a tub of hot water with the Foot Works and… just wow. I’ve used a lot of remedies for sore muscles, but this soak just felt amazing. Maybe it was the hot water, but I doubt it was just that. After the soak with Foot Works my feet felt ten times better, and it didn’t wear off. By that evening my feet felt better than they had even before the field.

Anyways it contains epsom salts, proteins, and oils… I’m not sure of all the details but it works. I’m going to make her keep this stuff around more often, because I really like it. I know I suck at reviews, but if your husband has sucky boots, or sore feet from a long PT run, I’d really suggest you make him try it. We can be stubborn about stuff like that.”

Want to Know More?

You can find the Big Deal for campaign 8 on pages 168-169 of your brochure. Remember, you can click the store link to shop online at your convenience, and in addition to traditional browsing methods (by brand and category), you can also click the link at the top of the page to view the current brochure.

If your interested in just a couple of the Foot Works products, but don’t want to get the whole bundle, check out pages 160-161 for another great deal: Mix and match any two of the featured Foot Works products at a great price!

The following Foot Works products are available for the mix and match deal: Vanilla & Brown Sugar Calming Foot Soak, Smoothing Scrub, and Moisturizing Foot Cream; Lavender Clay Mask; Restorative Milky Foot Soak with Epsom Salt; Antifungal Foot Spray; Intensive Callous Cream; Lace Foot File; and the new Dual-Action Pedi Peel.

The Big Deal bundle contains: Deluxe Touch Toenail Clipper; Restorative Milky Foot Soak with Epsom Salt; Therapeutic Cracked Heel Relief Cream; Overnight Renewing Foot Cream; and Deep Moisture Cream.

Yeah, you probably all already know this, but what can I say? It’s on my mind, and I must log it on the webs. You can’t – simply can’t! – do the Army without flexibility. Patience? Yes, it’s a very good thing. It’s very helpful to have in dealings with the Army, but it’s not quite a necessity. Believe me, please, because I’ve been working on building up my patience, with God’s help, for the last couple years, but I definitely haven’t arrived yet. I cannot yet call myself a patient person, however much I try. Thus I conclude: Patience is good, but you can survive without it. Flexibility on the other hand, is a must.

As a civilian with no close relatives in the service (other than a cousin I never knew very well), I never would have guessed how poorly organized the Army can be, at times. No, scratch that. Almost always the Army is annoyingly disorganized. I’ve heard people make fun of the government, but by marrying into the Army my eyes have really been opened to how bad it can get. I thought, of all things “government,” the military would be one thing well-handled. By that line of thinking, I’m pretty worried about the other aspects of government by now.

I’ve had to be flexible, if not patient, quite a bit. My husband, of course, has had to deal with about a hundred more instances of disorganization. Anyway, here are a few that have annoyed me:

• Our wedding. His leave package did not get approved until almost a week before the wedding! We had made all kinds of payments on the wedding, the wedding night hotel, the flight and resort for the honeymoon, and a week before the wedding we still weren’t even positive that he’d be allowed to leave base! They lost his packet three times before it was finally reviewed, and then if I remember correctly he had to make some changes to it at their request, very last minute. I was sure they were going to treat him as if he’d only just submitted it for the first time and deny it because it was too short of notice.
• The return from his second deployment. We military folk all understand that though the government is great about getting our soldiers to the battlefield quickly (wherever that may be), coming home is another issue. Dates and times for homecoming are almost never certain until a few hours before arrival. They can’t seem to get it organized! And when I went to his homecoming, I wasn’t yet married to or even dating him, and I had no idea what I was getting into. My now-in-laws and I bonded during those days of waiting, though.
• Tuesday. We sat in the car together for about three hours waiting to figure out why he had not been called back to work, where his ride was, when his ride would be arriving, and whether or not we could leave and go home for a bite to eat before his ride arrived. Ugh!

Those are just the biggies. Flexibility is an every day thing for us, though. Whether it’s changes in the training schedule or just changes in the daily release time, meetings announced at the last minute, or even surprise off-days, we have to be constantly ready to take what we get and make the best of it. Roll with it.

Are any of you associated with the military – do you have any examples you’d like to share?