Military Misconceptions

Normally I use this blog to post family pictures, vacations, etc. Even though I'm a little behind on my blog (ahem, May, June, and July), I want to go a little off-topic and talk a little about our military life. When I met Dallas, the amount I knew about the military I'd learned from movies, the news, and stories my grandpas used to tell. I didn't know the difference between a sergeant and a captain, I had no idea they hadn't called leave "furloughs" in years, and I was thinking Dallas would get out of the military when his contract was up in 2010. What kind of idiot would want to raise a family in that environment, right?
Needless to say, I've learned a lot since then. I mentioned on Facebook that Dallas will be deploying again, this time to Afghanistan. I guess preparing for another deployment has made me nostalgic, I've found myself thinking a lot about his last deployment in 2010. I know some of the (handful) of people that read my blog are a military family themselves, but the rest of you aren't and might not know a lot about military life. Thinking back to what I wish I'd know before I was an Army wife, I have a couple of misconceptions I'd like to displace.

1. Military wives have a gene that makes them miss their husband less. Okay, I'm not joking, I seriously thought that some wives were hardwired to better tolerate their husbands being gone, or maybe they just loved their husbands less than I loved mine. When Dallas was gone for two weeks of training while we were dating, I thought I was going to die. Longest two weeks of my life. I looked at his picture every 2 minutes, couldn't sleep, and I remember bawling my eyes out in the bathroom of the break room at Broulim's because I'd just gotten a voicemail from him. "Hey babe, I was just calling to say I love you and I hope you're having a good day." (sob). Since then, Dallas and I have spent about 18 months apart. A long time. He has missed ultrasounds, first smiles, first words, birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, you name it. This next year he will miss Amaya's first day of kindergarten, both the girl's birthdays, Oaklie's first day of Primary, and much more. The separations don't get any easier. I miss him like crazy. But on top of that, I also have the extra punch in the gut of knowing that he's in a country with people who would kill him without hesitation if given the opportunity. Needless to say, it's hard to sleep. The hardest days are the ones when we don't get to talk and I don't know when we'll talk again. I can't send him a text message or leave a voicemail. I usually send an email and wonder when he will read it. And pray. What keeps me going in the knowledge that he loves me, hope that he will return safely, and faith that God holds our future and everything will work out for the best. I never miss him any less, if anything I miss him more. But I do get used to the silence. The everyday stuff gets easier. I get used to paying the bills, putting the kids to bed by myself, going to church and family functions by myself. I get excited to send packages in the mail, talk to Dallas on Skype, and save up the extra separation pay to do something fun together when he gets home. But I still miss him like crazy.

2. Why on earth would you sign up for that? Like I said, I thought people that raised their family in the military and went through the constant moves and separations were a special kind of stupid.  Trust me, if Dallas was gone for a year at a time and missing all those things because he was selling security systems, or on vacation, or something like that, I would tell him to get his butt home. If you asked 10 soldiers and their wives why they do it, you might get 10 different answers, but here is the answer for me. Dallas told me on our first date that he felt blessed that so many people had sacrificed so he could grow up in a free country, and he wanted to do his part to ensure his children had the same blessings. For me, it really goes back to a news story I read right before Dallas' last deployment. It was from the BBC and it talked about a group of little girls that were walking to school in Afghanistan and had acid thrown in their faces. The article explained that schools for girls in Afghanistan were frequently poisoned and teachers were harassed. During the reign of the Taliban, women were not allowed to be educated, and many people wanted to keep it that way. I read that article and I thought about my own education and the opportunities I had. I thought about Amaya, who was a year old, and I thought about the little girl in my belly. In a few years, they would grow up and I would put them on a bus and send them to school. They would learn to read and write, and the world would be their oyster. And then I thought about the moms in Afghanistan who go to bed at night wishing they could read, wanting to give their daughters an education but worrying about their safety. Wondering what would happen when someone came and tried to recruit her sons to be suicide bombers. I couldn't stop thinking about it. It made me sick. I just felt that if we had the opportunity to do something about it, we should. And we have. It reminded me of the quote, "The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." My greatest hope that some of the relatively small sacrifices we have made will help some of those mother's sleep better at night because we have helped create a better world for her children to grow up in. I know I sleep better at night knowing that the men who took innocent lives on 9/11 are not around to carry out more terror.
On a smaller scale, the military has provided a lifestyle that has been a blessing to our family. It paid for Dallas' education and is paying for me to go back to school in the fall. Our medical benefits when I was doing cancer treatment were nothing short of heaven sent, and we have been blessed that Dallas has such stable employment. There are tons of resources available to help us through hard times. There is a phrase quoted often that "the Army takes care of its own." Financial help, career counselors, marriage counselors; it's all free. We see military doctors (for free), attend workshops and speak to military family consultants before and after deployment (for free), and get free childcare. We can also send our kids to discounted preschools, buy discounted groceries and furniture on post, have excellent life insurance, and Dallas only has 16 years left until he can retire. They have carnivals and parades on post for the kids plus crafts, story time, gymnastics lessons, soccer teams on post and much more, giving our kids the opportunity to spend time with other military kids that are going through the same things they are. We will get extra pay during Dallas' deployment that we are going to save up so we can go to Disney World as a family, and we will buy the tickets at a discount at the recreation office at Fort Campbell. In short, we have the opportunity to serve our country, but our country has also served us.

3. Doesn't he come back different? Okay, I think this might be one of the biggest misconceptions, that everyone that comes back from war is suffering from PTSD and has suicidal thoughts, and every military marriage is on the rocks. Obviously, those things happen, and PTSD (post-tramautic stress disorder) is a very real disease. I'm not going to lie, Dallas has a few aches and pains (plus hearing loss) that he probably wouldn't have if he wasn't in the military. For him, he thinks it's a small price to pay and if he is okay with the creaky ankles and an achy shoulder, I guess I am too. We've also been blessed that Dallas hasn't been injured, physically or emotionally during his deployments. Obviously it would be a different situation if he had. Emotionally, it's always been an adjustment when we are all back together. I have to remind myself to let him help me with things like taking out the garbage and remind myself that I don't need to prove to him that I am supermom. He is really good about easing back into things like discipline and respects the fact that I hung up the pictures a certain way and don't appreciate him "fixing" it. We work really hard on our marriage and his relationship with the girls before, during, and after separations and I can honestly say they have only brought us closer. Dallas' cousin shared a quote about separation that is so true, ""Absence is to love as wind is to fire; it extinguishes the small and kindles the great." -Roger de Bussy-Rabutin. 
When it comes to family time in the Army, it's feast or famine. Very few weeks has Dallas worked 8-5. Obviously there are weeks he works 70+ hours and weeks he is totally gone, but there's also been weeks that he works less than 10 hours. He has 30 days of leave per year, plus more if we are moving. Good thing he isn't paid hourly! When we do have those "feasts" of time, we try and make the most of them, and focus on quality rather than quantity. We've gone on a lot of cool vacations and taken our kids to see some cool stuff. We play lots of games and watch movies and go for walks and stay up late talking. When we do have time together, we make it count. One of the deals we made when we decided to be full time Army is that when he's home he needs to be home and making memories with our children. He's definitely kept his promise and his relationship with our girls shows it.
The military isn't perfect. We've definitely had hard days and times we've wondered what we got ourselves into. Even though it's a crazy life, we love it. No matter what, we try and say, "Come what may, and love it."

Dallas and Amaya at the Month of the Military Child Carnival at Fort Lee.