While You Were Sleeping

Today seems like the right day to share an R&R memory from months ago. At the time, it felt too raw to write about because my husband had just left back to the sandbox after being home for 17 days. That 17 days of joy was just what we needed after being apart some 8+ months--it recharged and reinvigorated us for the second half of the deployment. I found it much tougher to "let" him go back after R&R, but I tried not to cry too long when we went to bed that night.

He had an 6 am flight out of San Diego the day he had to go back, so we woke up around 3:15 to have our last morning together. After, I made coffee while he laced up his boots and gathered everything. Our son woke up and stumbled out of his room to say goodbye again. I got dressed and cursed the person whose idea it was to start flying planes before the sun was even peeking out from the horizon.
When we got to the airport, there was a few piles of young Marines sleeping in the hallways near the USO, which wouldn't open for several more hours. They either arrived on a red eye or were there to make sure they caught their own flight back I'm sure. It broke my heart to see these young men without a send off that befitting to their service. No a wife or parent or volunteer or camera....just some lady riding up an escalator with her husband at the end of R&R taking a picture with her cell phone. Did America know the USO isn't always open?

Moments later, I was standing quietly with my husband, waiting for the moment when I would have to let go of him again to go do what he does when I am safely asleep. I held my emotions in as I strained to see out the window, hoping to somehow see his head in one of the plane's windows. It was too dark, but I pressed my face against the glass anyway hoping that somehow he was looking out the window and could see me still there for him as long as I could be. It was so dark that I lost sight off the plane as soon as it taxied off.

When I came home, our son was sitting on the couch, crying softly which he said he'd been doing since he pretended to go back to bed that morning. We didn't say much, he just hugged me and we stayed on the couch the rest of the day, indifferent to the tv and napping intermittently.

America, while you were sleeping, thousands of soldiers and marines were getting up early to catch their their early bird flights back to Iraq. While you were sleeping, America, a young marine was sleeping next to his cargo bag to catch his flight out to someplace far away. Before dawn cracked on your horizon, men were getting up at 3 AM to make love to their wife one last time and kissing away her tears. They were hugging their half-asleep kids, feeding the dog, and buttoning up their ACUs as if today were just another day of work.

While you were sleeping, America, your military was already awake and keeping watch over you.

Light at the End of the Tunnel

It's now been 11 months and two weeks. Even though time has suddenly slowed down, I think that this deployment might really end. We're PCSing to Germany when he gets back, so there's a lot of action that will take place once he's home and so much to look forward to. It's kind of funny how we're planning such major life changes (a move out of the country and pregnancy) via email and instant message but you get used to it. my husband and I have adapted pretty well by using the Tony Soprano philosophy of life-"Whaddaya gonna do?" I mean, what can you do anyway? You just have to keep going and do the best you can under the circumstances.

Live...from Baghdad

I had a dream that the war lasted so long that they started letting wives go to Iraq to visit with their husbands in a secure compound of shared homes. It turned out that when I got there, I realized my husband had been working 18 hour days since he got there. I didn't get to see him very much, but the four hours of sleeping next to him was worth it.

When I realized he would be coming home, I blocked out the sounds of mortars exploding in the distance and went in the kitchen to see what I cook him for dinner. Food was scant, all I could scrounge up was a peice of fronzen chicken breast, half a red pepper, half a green pepper, and an onion. When I tried to cut the green pepper, I saw that it was rotten and I was so disappointed that I couldn't cook him a favorite dish with Indian spices. Instead would have to make him a basic stir fry out of chicken and onion (I later thought this meal symbolized something else about deployment - you do the best we can under the circumstances, but it's never really what you want to do.

Suddenly, it was night time and he still wasn't back from "work". I was in the living room listening to a television reporter interviewing other wives about what it was like to be sitting there waiting in the living room while at the same time knowing your husband was in danger. Some of the women wept as they told their stories, others nodded their heads in understanding.

When it was my turn to be on camera, I told her I wanted privacy and didn't want to talk about this in front of everyone. The reporter seemed excited, as if she knew she was going to get a heartwrenching soundbite for the evening news. She said "I'm going to need more cameras in here!" and went with me into our dimly lit bedroom. She asked me, "So what is the hardest part was about your husband being gone so long?" I looked around at the empty windowless room and said "Shhhhh. Listen. This is what it feels like." At first, she was puzzled by the silence, but then she looked around the bare bedroom walls and felt starkly alone.

The dream ended when she felt my loneliness and heard the sound of the mortars in my head. She got really quiet and said "This is Christine Amanpour. Live...from Baghdad."

When They Don't Call Home

Reading in between the newspaper headlines, I put two and two together and I know why I haven't heard his voice lately. I need no explanation. I don't like to actually talk about "it" with him--where he is, what is happening there. I don't ever tell him that I heard about the surge of rocket attacks in Location X, or that I "get" the significance of activity in Location Y. When I hear those things, I know that the probabilities of his safety are being recalibrated with different numbers. I deduce from the shift of the political winds, that there will be changes in his world over there that will possibly trickle down into mine. Even though I still keep my phone close like I did in the beginning, I know not to expect any calls.

Faces of War

Having a longtime interest in military history, I've developed an interest in combat photography. I have a small collection of old photographs and of course, have an appreciation for how closely I can 'see' the war from the comfort of my home computer. When there's a situation "over there," we can see both pictures of it online almost instantaneously. Yet there are so many faces of this war that people will never see.

My friend Andrea's little boy has taken to sleeping with this soft family photo album that contains pictures of his deployed daddy. She's found him sitting there more than once, calmly fingering the pictures of him and his dad. He smiles, he plays with it, he likes to sleep with it.

Sometimes when I feel sad, I think about the way other families are sharing in this experience. I think about what it must be like to be Andrea, walking into a dark room to check on your son and experienceing the bittersweet moment of finding that he's sitting there with his little book, giggling at pictures of him and his dad.

I want to know what this little boy is thinking and I want to know the secret of the peaceful knowing I see in his little face. Where can I get some of that? I can't help but wonder if this what God's love looks like in a baby's life.

Where is God in the middle of a war? The evidence of divine grace in war time seperation can be so very subtle, but it's what I see a reflection of in this picture. A silver lining to a dark cloud in a sky of many dark clouds.

If you only look at the clouds, that is all you'll ever see. Sometimes you have to look at their edges to find what you are supposed to see.

My Top 8 Tips for Surviving Deployment

R&R has come and gone and 9 months have passed since he left. It seems like a good day to reflect upon what I've learned so far through my experience and from observing others I know with deployed spouses.

In that vein, here's a few gems that I've started to carry around in my pocket each day.

1. Go with the flow and make use of technology (IM, email, pics, video cam). Use the time apart to get to know one another and learn how to communicate with eachother in a way that not many people ever have the chance to develop.

2. Don't ever spend energy wondering if you two will grow apart or focusing on how much the situation stinks. Stand up straight and walk through the experience a little bit everyday. Above all, keep moving. Like a pastor of mine once said, "If you're going through hell, dont stop, keep on going!"

3. Dealing with deployment is at times, a very one-sided seeming experience because a man at war doesn't have the luxury of catering to your every womanly need. Don't get too hung up on your "rights" - what you've chosen to do will at times be nothing more than an act of selflessness. In no way equals the selflessness it takes to put your life on your line for another soldier--be grateful you are safe at home.

4. Always try to remember that no matter how hard it is for you, that he probably has a lot of the very same loneliness that you do, except he's also in a combat zone. Strive to accept these rough patches with womanly grace, not the grief of a child.

5. Don't sweat the small stuff or every detail of his communication pattern with you or the lack thereof when those times come (and they will). Relax and rest in faith that you WILL have the opportunity to talk to him again and the grace of another opportunity to interact again so that you two get back on course. I say this because you'll see many others panic in the sometimes choppy seas of deployment. Ride out the waves, sister, just as you might if you were lost at sea and remember that kicking and screaming when you think you are going to drown only brings you that much closer to doing so. Try not to lose your head, know what I mean?

5. Everytime you feel like you want something from him to fulfill something missing inside of you, think instead of what you can do for him and the voids he must have being so far away from the colorful landscape of America. If you feel unloved or ignored or sad, do something that you think will make him feel loved, wanted, less alone. Instead of focusing on what things are like for you, try to think about walking in his boots a little bit every day.

6. Listen to him, accept him, encourage him, remind him that he's strong, send him lots of cookies, give him a break, and don't weight him down with unrealistic demands that he somehow be the kind of partner he could be if he were here in person. Concern yourself with how you can be his "friend."

7. Know that you too are a soldier of sorts. Take pride in knowing that very few women are woven from the kind of cloth that shrouds you. You were made strong when you were made for him.

8. When you can't touch him, sleep next to him, talk to him, laugh with him, or tell him you love him, pray for him.

Larger USPS Flat Rate Box Offers APO/FPO Discount

I have good news for those of us whose physical contact with our deployed soldiers consists of frequenty mailing them Flat Rate boxes. For the first time ever, the US Post Office will be offering a military discount on shipping to APO/FPO addresses when it's new, larger flat rate box becomes available in March. The new flat rate box is larger than the others they have now, measuring 12x12x5.5". It will cost $12.95 to mail or $10.95 if sent to an APO/FPO address.

Our Turn (6 Month Milestone)

A few days ago we reached an important milestone in this 15 month deployment- 6 months. A 50% of a year has gone by since I drove away from him on that warm, summer evening at Ft. Bragg. This little curb is the exact place where we spent our last moment together. We'd already said our goodbye privately, but this is the little spot of earth where I last saw my husband running off towards an area where soldiers were gathered.

The sun was setting and I drove away with my heart thumping, hoping that reality would hit only after I left the base. It was a long drive to Raleigh and a longer night alone in a rink-a-dink hotel, wondering if each second was the moment his plane was taking off. Part of me felt I should be running along side the plane as fast as I could until I fell on my face in the dirt with one arm outstretched as his plane lifted into the sky. The other part of me just wanted to sit perfectly still, and never speak again, as if denying a voice to grief would deny its sovereignty.
I haven't cared to share the events of that day with anyone--I think I needed to get more of the behind me. You just really don't want to be on a military installation the day of a deployment if you don't have to be. Just watch the happy homecomings on TV. Trust me.

Everyone has their own way of saying good-bye.

In one instance, a husband was hugging his wife and kids in the front yard of their humble little on post home. All of his stuff was on lawn and I imagined at any moment his ride would come and take him away. Other couples were having their private moment in parking lots---away from the bustle of loading gear and the lines at the weapons draw. I could almost hear the delicate whispers and feel their embrace.

I saw a father walking with his arm around his teenage son, knowing he was probably telling him to do good in school and listen to his mother or that he was the man of the house for now and needed to step up. The son was not crying, but nodding his head as if he understood what his dad has been telling him on a different level today. "Yeah, dad. I understand. I will take care of the lawn and make sure we lock the doors at night. I will take care of Mom, little Joe, and the baby."

Small children played near the busses. Although initially I wanted to be with my husband until the very last moment possible, when I saw them running around, oblivious to the seperation they were about to experience, I suddenly was glad I wouldn't be there. I'm not sure I could bear to see their tears, their mom's trying to soothe their cries through her own tears as the busses drove away. Sigh. My heart still aches when I think of what I saw that day.

The beginning of our good-bye didn't involve any words. It was just us, alone in bed a day or so before he left. I was in his arms and quietly weeping while he held me close. Nothing was said. We knew.

It seemed only seconds passed before we were sitting on a picnic bench adjacent to a little pond at Ft. Bragg. I felt the almost ghostly echos of many goodbyes that had taken place there in all the years before we stood there. There we were, standing in the shadows of 82nd Airborne paratroopers from times long gone, whispering prayers and words of love and encouragement that belong only to us. It saddened me to know they also stood here with a wife or sweetheart saying they'd be back and either did not or else came back a different man. At the same time, I felt a quiet strength wash over me with the gentle peace of knowing that it was simply our turn.

As the circumstances of the world's troubles pulled us apart, I felt at the same time we were being warmly received by the others in the ancient tribes who do not fall to pieces when the drum of war begins to beat. Oh, how I miss him.... and yet I know that we can't be broken by such a minor thing as 15 months of time - not with the examples that we have had from those who've gone before us.

The Worst Kind of Good Dream...

...is when you dream that you are together and wake up and remember that you aren't. Although the story line was not very exciting, the dream I had during my nap was vivid. There was dialogue, eye contact, and laughter. It was as if my skin could feel the closeness of his presence.

I awoke from the sound of the television, hearing the exaggerated dialogue of Sylvester Stallone buying a watch for his wife in Rocky while she wrung her hands about the cost. Half asleep, half awake, I remembered the time at the PX when K. tried to buy me a "too expensive" watch saying that my wrist didn't deserve a mere watch, but rather, a "time piece." My heart smiled.

A moment after that, I became cognizant that I was really just laying on my couch alone, listening to the sound of the TV. The family gone from a Thanksgiving visit and knowing the man in my dreams was half a day ahead of me in Iraq, I felt starkly alone.

So Far Away from Me

A little video I made recently after catching this tune on the radio.