Seems that the ball just keeps on rolling here! Tami , aka Marine Mom at http://spaces.msn.com/faefyre , is covering the story about a young  Air Force Police Officer who was shot while home on leave by a San Bernadino Deputy.  She has the links and the right idea on this one.  After reading the link she has to Mudville on this one, I have to say that something stinks over in San Bernadino and it needs to get fixed.  Hopefully with enough media attention AND FOLLOWUP from people like you and me.... as in you keep asking your paper to do updates on this one, things will get cleaned up over there.  I think on this, if we keep the pressure on the media, they will keep pressure on the government system.  It also seems to me that "The Arnold" should be doing at least something here.  People in this country shouldn't have to live in fear of their local police.  That's not what this country was built on.

 

So, head over to Tami's at http://spaces.msn.com/faefyre/ and give her all of the support you can!  I think she's right about this one.

 

God bless!

 

A Mom in America

Well, there is another Hero at home tonight!  It has been officially announced at Lovemytanker's site that the long awaited day has, indeed, arrived and "CO" is now home.  This has been a very long haul for this family.  I'm used to seeing it from the enlisted end of thing, but Lovemytanker is one CO's wife who has done her job and certainly earned her stripes on this one!!!  It's never easy when you're the wife, but when you're the CO's wife, it's particularly rough, especially with a deployment in Iraq!

 

CO, I have absolutely no idea of what you were doing in Iraq, except that you are a "CO" and I assume by your wife's screen name that you are hopefully a tanker!  Those things combined allow me the giant mental leap of assuming that you also have a complete and thorough knowledge and understanding of sand now!  I cannot imagine what cleaning your vehicles was like, let alone maintaining them there!  Your wife, who has supported you through this, and your unit has been steadfast and unwavering all of the way.  Lovemytanker, I think by now you know what this means.... You're off the "Unsung Heroes" list and you, your husband and all who have served with him and their families are now Heroes!  God bless you both!  You will always have my thanks and my respect for all you have done for our Nation and the Nation of Iraq and her people!

 

Welcome home, CO!

 

Lovemytanker, enjoy this time together!!!

 

God bless!

 

A Mom in America

 

I'm writing this one through tears of joy!  The 224th Engineers are now back in the States!  Shane called our Unsung Hero, Aron this morning from Maine.  He's here.  Another unit of Hero's has landed, safely home.  God bless each and every one of them and every single one of their families!  They have all been through much and now they are home and the process of healing begins. 

 

To Shane and every soldier who was with you, I send my thanks, my love and my prayers.  You have all given so much and this post falls so far short of the gratitude I owe to all of you.  You stood up for me and all that is important to me as well as this Nation and for the Nation of Iraq.  Tonight, as all of you begin to "inprocess" and "reacclimate" and you become engulfed by the feeling of none of this being real, know that it is.  Know that you are home and that you were incredibly missed by your nation, your friends and most of all by your families!  They have stood through all of this with you and are Hero's just as you are!

 

Thank you!  God bless and Merry Christmas!

 

A Mom in America

 

 

PS

 

Oh, and Aron, honey?  You're getting kicked off of the "Unsung Hero" list kiddo!  You deserve a medal for this one, but I don't control those... HOWEVER, I do control this site.   YOU are now a Hero.  YOU'VE done that.  YOU'VE been there and God bless you, YOU'VE made it through!  That's Hero stuff on MY site.  Enjoy tomorrow! 

 

CHRISTMAS WISH

"There's no such thing as Santa," jeered the group of older boys

"there isn't any reindeer, any elves or magic toys."

"Oh yes there is" I cried aloud, my little fists curled tight,

"He's on his way with loaded sleigh to visit us tonight."

"I made the most important wish a boy could ever make

and I've been good for oh so long, been good for goodness sake.

"And though the tears burned in my eyes, I swore I wouldn't cry,

I didn't want to be a man, but promised dad I'd try.

That night was spent, just mom and me, like many nights before;

the house was never quite the same since dad went off to war.

We had our Christmas dinner and we sang O Holy Night,

We read about that meany Grinch and cheered when he did right.

But sadness showed within Mom's eyes as she stood by my bed,

and tucked the covers to my chin and kissed me on the head.

"Don't worry mom," I whispered "things are gonna be all right."

"We're sure to get our Christmas Wish when Santa comes tonight."

I tried my best to stay awake and listen to the roof,

for telltale ring of jingle bells or clop of reindeer hoof.

But snug and warm it wasn't long before I gave a yawn,

And would have gone to sleep but for the noise out on the lawn.

Then came the clump of heavy boots across the hardwood floor,

the tread somehow familiar like I'd heard it once before.

As quiet as a mouse I crept, my eyes flew wide to see

the silhouette that stood alone before the Christmas tree.

His frame was lean and fit, he had no belly big and round,

the heavy sack a duffle that he placed upon the ground.

He didn't wear a stitch of red, the uniform was green,

And not a single jingle bell, just medals could be seen.

And then the strongest arms on earth wrapped 'round and held me tight,

and I knew then that Santa really rode on Christmas night,

and Christmas Wishes did come true, just like I knew they had,

For Santa came on Christmas night and brought me home my dad.

 

"Borrowed "  from Yankeemom's site 

 

God bless!

 

A Mom in America   

Oops!  I forgot!  Devildog has a prayer request up for a military family from a military Mom.  Please go visit her site and her link and show this family your support through prayer and visits! 

 

God bless!

 

A Mom in America

Okay, everyone back in from their break?  I know this has been a long one, but this part is important too.  We're going to discuss you, the Unsung Hero's.  While you have been taking care of the house, the car, the kids, your soldier, your soldier's unit, your soldier's unit's families, something else has kind of been neglected here.  It's probably you.  You've been feeling really tired, run down, depressed and are chalking it all up to the deployment.

 

From experience, I can tell you, it may not be.  From experience, I can tell you, go get a physical, now....before your soldier comes home.  All through the deployments and even for many years before, I was suffereing from a disease that I didn't know I had.  It was killing me while I was busy taking care of everybody else.  I was exhausted for a reason.  I was depressed for a reason other than just normal deployment blues.  Because I was so busy with everyone and everything else, I didn't even take the time to think that the problem might be a physical thing with me.  It turned out that it was.  I had a thyroid disease called Graves' Disease and it was attacking my heart.  There are several kinds of thyroid diseases, but all can be worsened by stress and all magnify what you have to deal with on a day to day basis. 

 

Now, if you are feeling this way, does it mean that you have thyroid disease?  Not necessarily, but there may be something going on, other than the deployment and there's nothing more fun than having to deal with a major illness, like Graves' Disease, as soon as your soldier gets home.  If you get checked now, you can get things taken care of now, so that when your soldier does come home, you are at your best or at least on the way to getting there.

 

I'm big on getting your thyroid checked because it happened to me and made those deployments a lot harder than they had to be.  Get checked and make sure you're opperating at your best because if you go down, the whole support system for your soldier and your kids goes down too.  Stay healthy and stay well!  Take the time, make the time, now  to go get a physical even if you're feeling great.  Do it now, so you won't have to do it then!  It's only an hour or two, but it's time well spent for your own peace of mind and your soldier's.

 

God bless!

 

A Mom in America   

Okay, back to the "Briefing room".  Today's topic of discussion, the ever popular ID card thing.  This is directed to all of you Guard/Reserve type family members.  While saying "You need to have an ID card" seems over obvious, I'm saying it because, at the end of the Vet's deployment, yes, our unit still had wives who had never taken the time to get their ID cards. 

 

Some felt that because they already had healthcare, either from their own jobs or from their spouses', and because they weren't going to use a commissary that they had to drive two hours to get to, they didn't need it.  Wrong.  That is not why you get your ID card, ladies and gentlemen.  You get your ID card, because, God forbid, if anything should happen to your soldier, that is your ticket to get to him or her.  If it is already in place, you've eliminated the time and aggrevation of having to get one in the middle of a crisis situation.  That's the first reason to have it in place and the most important one.  If for no other reason, get it for that. 

 

Second reason, it's a lot easier to get onto any post State side that your soldier arrives home at with an ID card.  You want to be there with your soldier, without having to do paperwork every time you go onto post, get your ID.  It makes it easier. 

 

Another perk of having the ID card is the whole AAFES thing.  Now, I know that nobody out there really cares what's onsale at AAFES this week, however, with your ID card,  you are enrolled into the military system.  You can access AAFES online.  I know, that's not a big deal.... until your soldier is out in the desert and needs a camelback for drinking water.  It's a whole bunch easier to just go online and have AAFES send it over than to go out to a survival store somewhere and hope that you find one and then ship it yourself.  You can access the clothing sales there as well, so if your soldier needs something, like black wool socks or brown underwear, you can get it there without having to drive those two hours to the post and two hours back and then mailing it over there. 

 

Then there is the healthcare thing...  While it is true that many family members do have their own healthcare, it is also true that those same family members have their own co-pays too.  With double insurance you don't.  I also found that the perscription plan for Tri-care was a whole bunch better than the one we had.  When you have kids, you have doctor's bills and co-pays, a lot of them.  You don't have to if you've taken the time to get your ID.

 

So, if you haven't already, get your ID card, today.

 

God bless!

 

A Mom in America

 

   

 

   

Alright, as everyone settles back in from their coffee, soda, juice or whatnot, .... let's continue with the briefing.

 

We are all, by now, checking into exactly what the VFW and Legion can help us with, in the practical aspects of our lives, but that leaves the entire emotional end of a deployment still unattended.  Yes, it's wonderful that you can IM with your spouse when he's halfway around the world.  Iit's great when you get the phone call, but there are those days where neither come, your teenager is acting up, your 8 year old is throwing up and that stack of bills needs addressing before the electric gets shut off.  You are overwhelmed, worried about everyone and are looking down what seems to be a very long tunnel called "the deployment" and aren't real sure of what you're going to find at the other end of it.  Unfortunately, that kind of day seems to come a lot more frequently than the phone call/IM days, and the truth is, they are.  You feel horrible, and the depression you have been fighting begins to enfold you.  Whadaya do?

 

Unfortunately, picking up the phone and chatting with the faceless psychologist with a Master's degree at the nearest base, 200 miles away, kind of lacks the personal touch.  That person doesn't know you.  They don't know your kids.  They don't know your spouse.  The only thing that they do know is that you're another spouse facing depression.  They tell you to go to your doctor and get meds, take the happy pill and everything will be okay.  While there are times when medications are necessary to bring one out of depression, there are other alternatives that should probably be explored first. 

 

The first thing to look at when depression starts setting in is "What's your isolation status?"  How many adults have you spoken to today in a meaningful way, face to face and with eye contact?  If your answer is none, you need to look at that.  I'm not talking about the cashier at the grocery store.... if you can find one, or the gas station guy.  I'm talking about someone who knows you, knows your family and your situation.  If you do not have a network of people you can talk to, face to face, completely as you are, then you are setting yourself up for depression. 

 

Ah... a question in the back.  Yes.... "How do you get a "network" when you don't know anyone?"  Good question!  In today's world, with people spread out all over the country and transferring all over the place this does happen.  The thing is, there are places where you can develop a network for yourself rather quickly and easily.  One of the best is your local church or place of worship.  If you were established in one prior to the deployment, keep going if you can.  There are times when that might not be a doable thing.  For me, it wasn't.  I found that attending the church we went to as a family was making me worse than not attending at all.  I became "the deployed soldier's spouse" instead of just me.  Every time I went, everyone would ask me the same obligatory questions and it became very grating very quickly.  The kids felt the same way.   It wasn't that we didn't love the people there.  It wasn't that they didn't love us.  The problem was that we needed a place where we could be ourselves with other people.  Solution in this situation... change churches.  We did and it worked very well for us!

 

We found a church during the Vet's first deployment that had a great youth program, lots of people my age and great small group meetings!  I made friends with people who accepted me for who and what I was and so did my kids.  Through the youth program and the small group meetings we each developed our own networks of friends that we could hang out with and talk to.  During the break in deployments, our Pastor got to know us as a family.  When the Vet was on his second deployment, the Pastor knew us well enough for me to be able to go to him when I had  problems with the kids.  I could honestly ask him "Is this me or is this kid out of line?" and get a fair answer.  When things were rough, I could go in, tell him I needed a sanity break and talk things out... and again, if I needed physical help with something, there were enough people there from all over the community that answers could be found and our needs could be met. 

 

I would say that every community has "Houses of Worship" in this country.  You don't have to drive hours and hours to get the help you need.  You just need to access the help that is where you are.  Small group meetings can be a wonderful way of making friends who believe the same things you do!  It can be a place to not be "Mommy, Daddy, deployed soldier's spouse", but to just be you and to explore things that aren't about the deployment but are about you. 

 

So, now that your list of resources is growing, it's time for another break!  Go out, stretch and we will hook up again in a little while.

 

God bless!

 

A Mom in America

Okay all of you Unsung Hero's,  it has come to my attention, once again, that we are having a slight problem due to lack of briefing at deployment time.  Yes, we all did them.  We all did the sitting in the cafeteria at the center to hear the Red Cross tell us how to contact our soldier in an emergency at home, how to work the healthcare... or at least how we are supposed to be able to work the healthcare in a computer programmers dream world, how to get our ID cards .... which, by the way if you are a spouse and don't have one you are WRONG!...get it NOW, and what's on sale at the commissary this week.  I was bored too, but it's information all of you should have so you can throw it out at the end of the deployment.

 

You see, there is a really huge problem in this war that has never been addressed by the military.  Large numbers of Reserve and Guard troops were deployed this time.  Now, at first glance, this would not seem like a problem, but for the families it is.  It is not uncommon for them to be living several hours from the center that their spouse deployed from.  Compound that with another hour or two from the nearest real military base where their benefits are, and you realize that we have a lot of families who have absolutely no military support through these deployments.  So, in short, all of those great military benefits that everyone just knows they have, they actually don't because they can't get to them.  ( Alright ladies, stop the snickering in the back.  We ALL have our stories!) Military housing?  Nope.  Commissary?  Nope.  Military hospitals?  Well, in case you haven't noticed,  they're closing all of those and besides, they couldn't handle the influx of soldiers, let alone the families. 

 

It is now November 1.  Time to get the notebooks out or get ready to bookmark because the unofficial "Mom's Briefing for How to Survive a Deployment in the Real World" is about to begin. 

 

As the leaves continue to drop outside, temperatures begin to drop as well while Halloween passes and  things are starting to get tough.  The furnace that you didn't have the money to service over the summer because the deployment check isn't matching expenses and there's that whole issue of fuel prices to compound this, now won't start.  The car... is making a disturbingly strange sound and the tires and brakes are shot.  It's getting cold and besides being the only parent there for your kids and trying to be both, trying to fix everything that breaks around the house, being Mommy doctor for the kids because they're all sick at this point, and being the loving, supportive wife to your soldier who now speaks a foriegn language to you on the internet and phone and has absolutely no clue of why you're so upset about the heater anyway, you've got winter heading in and the roof has started leaking.  Welcome to the world of a military spouse of a deployed soldier!

 

What is a poor military spouse to do?  There is no one to call on for help.  The system that is supposed to be supporting her is not accessible because it's several hours away.  If she's lucky she has family nearby, but in a lot of instances, that's not the case.  Who can help? 

 

Mom's rule #1.  Don't Panic!

 

Help is closer than you think and if the government would take the time to realize this, the entire situation with families would get a whole lot easier real quick!

 

Most communities in the United States have one, two or both of the following organizations that would love nothing more than to help you make it through this time.  They are very military friendly and they know the system.  They are....

 

Your local VFW and American Legion

 

That's right, ladies, the VFW and Legion are there and waiting for you and in these days where everything is breaking, and you don't know who to go to because no one seems like a friend, they want to help you.

 

Yes, these are the old guys who sell poppies on Veteren's Day and Memorial day.  They are out there with their buckets, rain or shine.  They're just a bunch of old Veterans who hang out down at the hall.  That's true, to an extent.  The thing that most people overlook though, is that they are also the business owners, the firemen, the mechanics, the lawyers and just about everything else you can think of in the community you live in.  At the beginning of this war, these organizations got busy immediately compiling lists of businesses and companies that want to help you, both nationally and locally.  They have been and continue advocating for military families with Congress and they are probably the most underaccessed jewel that military families have in this country.

 

If you want help with that furnace?  Call them!  They can either hook you up with someone who will give you a discount or send Joe over to fix it for you because he knows how!  These people are Veterans.  They know what you are going through and have been through it themselves.   The thing is, they can't help you if they don't know you're there.  Most communities have a branch of either one or the other of these organizations.  Many have both.  They are there to help with just about any situation you can come up with.  No, right now you don't have "your man" around the house.  That doesn't mean that you can't have "your man's older brothers" help you out.  They've been waiting for a long time to do so.  If you can't find the local phone numbers to these two organizations, try contacting them through these links below. 

 

 

It's hard for me to write this one, but it's still something that needs to be said.  Over the past few days, actually the past couple of months, I've seen a part of myself still perking that I had really hoped was left behind when Tom came home from Iraq.  You see, during that time when he was gone I became one of "them", the "untouchables" of our society.  On this site, they are known as the "Unsung heros".  They are the families and particularly the spouses that are left behind by the soldiers who are fighting this war. 

 

I call them "untouchables" for one of the things that hurt me the most through the deployments... the complete lack of human touch that lasts the entire time" he" is gone.  Infants in hospital nurseries die after a few weeks without that one human response of touch.  Military wives endure years without it and there is no loneliness that hurts more than to live this way.  The simple act of being held by someone, anyone for a minute or two where you can completely relax and rest is something they know but can't participate in because "he" isn't there.  Even friends cease to hug a military wife during this time and if they don't, it becomes the "sterile hug" ... as if the person giving it is saying "I don't want to be contaminated by where you are right now."  The receiver of it is equally protective, sending out an invisible message that says "Please don't touch me because if you do, I'll break."  To them it's easier to live the year or years as a china doll than to risk the possibility of finding a hug that will equal the one that they live for, so they retreat inward where they think they won't break, not recognizing the splinters of brokeness surrounding them in that place.

 

Equally disintegrating is what happens to the emotions.  When one or more of the people you live for are gone, when they have willingly walked out of your life, not knowing if they will return alive or not, it rips apart everything, every feeling you have built your life on.  There is no brokeness that hits you more deeply than this.  None.  And when they leave, your life leaves with them.  You can't just pick it up and move on.  You can't say that it doesn't matter.  There is no "closure" to that experience until, one way or another, they return.  Then you can "pick up and move on" but until then, you exist and that's about all in a place like the desert.  The heart, rather than bleeding to death shuts down.  The mind tries to as well.  Everything becomes flat and unending.  Everything takes on the same color, just has different hues that are all flat, barren, empty.  Anyone who says that the wives and families don't know the experience of the desert has no clue because these women have faced one of their own as well.   They know the desolation of this war equally as well as any soldier, just from a different perspective. 

 

The mind continues to work, to drift.  Somewhere the anger is there and it's real and roiling inside of them.  One of the things that really cracked me up the most was that every person on the planet decided that because I was a military spouse, I had to be accutely interested in "their take" on the war in general and politics in particular.  I can't even begin to tell you the number of rectal cavities I have redug on people, face to face,  for inflicting their opinion on me.  I felt it was my "duty", afterall, to "stand up for my soldier."  I felt I had to "defend him" for the decision he had made to serve, for the decision I had made to marry him, for the life we have chosen to live.  I didn't anymore than anyone working or living anywhere else did, but because of what we had lived through and seen, I felt that I did.  A part of me still does feel that way sometimes, but I'm beginning to recognize it for what it is... an expression of the pain I know from seeing so many friends die, giving up so much of my life and risking the loss of what I love most, my husband and kids.  To us, though, what we see in all of this makes us take that risk.  Our world is a very different place than most of this country lives in.  We haven't always seen everything from the comfort of our livingroom chairs.  We've been "out there" all over this planet.  What we've seen and known, on and off of military bases tells us what we have to do,  so that the rest of our country won't have to know the realities we have because in a lot of places, those realities aren't fun.  And yes, it is better that most people don't know about them.

 

I'm also beginning to recognize the "attackers" for what they are.  You see, I'm not the only person on the planet who has felt pain so intensely.  Everyone feels pain.  It's part of living.  Because we are at war, a lot of pain that people feel, whether it is because of this war or not, surfaces.  The war becomes the expression of all the ills of our society, the embodiment of all that has ever hurt people.  The President becomes the spouse or father that betrayed them or just didn't care how they felt.  Unfortunately, the china dolls become the target for these people because they are a "real", reachable face of whoever hurt the attacker.  The really interesting thing about their "assaults" is that they almost always aim directly for the heart.  If they only knew... 

 

And now, over the past few days, I see my "china dolls" have been active.  At first I felt, well, let them have their fun.  It's a way to blow off some of the steam.  End of deployments are the hardest part.  All you want is for "him" to come home and to try to feel whole again, to pick up your life or like a friend of mine said "delete it and just move on".  Now I realize that they can't.... Not until "he" is home,  not until they can take down the procelain mask and find their way out of the splinters.  I'm finding it takes a while to become "touchable" again.

 

God bless!

 

A Mom in America

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

          

Earlier today I made a promise that I intend to keep.  I told one of the Unsung Hero's that I'd be posting more on the military pay thing.  I'd love to say that these people are just underpaid, and that was the beginning and end of it, but it's not.  It's only the beginning for these families.  We see in the "Brilliant Kid" post a very glossed over view of what a soldier endures overseas.  What we really don't see and hasn't been seen at all really by the media is the story of these "Unsung Hero's", the families.

 

What that post doesn't describe is the complete heartbreak when Dad walks out the door on a deployment that Mom has no idea of when it will end.  It doesn't describe the activation briefings that sometimes do and sometimes don't happen that don't really give any information anyway.  It doesn't describe getting ID cards with the kids and trying to smile at the camera when all you want to do is die.  Never mentioned what it's like to be a Mom, a Dad, a Grandma, and Grandpa and every other important adult in your kid's life because you're stationed in California and the family is on the East coast.  Didn't talk about how those 10 minute calling cards that everyone donates for the soldiers cover exatcly 30 seconds from Iraq, or what it's like to get a phone bill with 2, 10 minute collect calls from there.  I also didn't see anything mentioned about the knot you get in your gut when your soldier tells you about burning the shit pots for the first time or that he hasn't had a bath in 2 weeks or that a camel spider crawled up his leg the other day.  Also didn't mention the feeling you get from  those phone calls you get where one word is on the answering machine from him the day you know someone was killed in the unit.  Doesn't describe the funeral of a brother, crying with the family or the guilt of being thankful yours is coming home.  Nope, didn't see any of that mentioned.

 

Another area it didn't mention was the ever popular Tri-care!  Dealing with regional receptionists on the phone when your kid needs x-rays, who don't know whether it'll be covered or not.  Wondering if the blood tests will be covered for your teenager with mono or, God forbid, you get sick and need meds.  You see, military Mom's seldom go to the doctor.  That money is saved for the ever present strep throat and double ear infections that two of the three kids always have... and between the doctors who don't want to take Tri-Care and the regional Tri-Care that doesn't want to pay, it ends up coming out of the activation pay which is usually smaller than the one the family started on.  If she's lucky, Mom lives close enough to a base to use the hospital there.  Unfortunately, if she wasn't on the patient list prior to 9/11 01, she won't be seen there because the base hospitals can't even handle the number of soldiers that are coming through now.... And we all know what happened to Walter Reed.  Anyone out there know how many other military hospitals have closed down from this Clinton decision?  Most on the East coast.

 

But these soldiers are overpaid.....right?

 

Then there's the fact that along with becoming Mom, Dad, Grandma and Grandpa and every other significant adult in your kid's lives with the fact that you have to become a financial wizzard because Dad is in Iraq with no money and you have no idea where the paycheck is because it went into the wrong account or is late because of a national holiday and you have absolutely no idea how long it's going to take for the check you send to get to him so you send half the paycheck hoping it will arrive in time for him to get something to hold water in so he can drink while he's on duty and tempretures are hanging around 130 degrees where he is for most of the day.  Then you're a secretary too because ALL of his business along with your regular family business has to be taken care of and if something goes wrong in the unit, you're also volunteered for doing the letter writing campaign to Congress to get things straightened out.  You see, if the real story was told, the media has done nothing to improve the conditions for our troops over there.  It's been the families who have done that.  They get the letters and begin writing their own, without drawing attention from the media to the problem, to their Congressmen and Senators and walking the long process of taking it to the Pentagon and through there.  They create the stacks of paper that indicate a problem that needs addressing in Washington.  Most of the time, by the time the media realizes there is a problem, the investigation is already underway because military families got on it immediately.  No one thanks them, but they are the cutting edge of what is happening for our soldiers over there or anywhere for that matter.

 

And then there is the issue of "Family Support".  If her soldier is in either the Guard or Reserves... well, let's be honest, there isn't any.  These women have absolutely no training, no counseling and no knowlege of how to work through the labyrinth of military red tape.  They are ususally stuck at least 1 and 1/2 hours to 4 hours from the nearest base and thus get no military assistance.  If the unit is okay, sometimes they can make it.  Sometimes, the strain of being so completely alone in a world that is completely hostile to them, which Cindy Sheehan seems bent on assuring, disintegrates the tenuous tie that is the only thing the left behind spouse, who is usually a woman, has to grasp too.  The marriage ends before the soldier even knows it was in trouble.

Even if they make it, the rebuiding of the marriage is incredibly difficult because life has continued, relationships have been  made, and these two people who wanted to spend eternity together are on two different planets now.

 

But the military is overpaid....

 

This doesn't even look at problems of college tuition, handling older kids or living through the culture shock and PTSD most soldiers encounter upon returning.  That's a whole different issue as well as reacqainting both the soldiers and kids to living in the same house.  You see, there is the whole trust issue with the kids when Dad comes home.  You think the insurgents were hard to face?  Try facing three or more kids you walked out on, because in their minds, that's exactly what happened. 

 

And the military is overpaid.....

 

 

Well, let's just say that anyone who even considers saying something like that to me EVER will not only be voted "OFF THE ISLAND" but "OFF THE PLANET" as well.  Screw taking the place of the soldier.... take the place of his wife for just one day during a deployment.  Bet you don't survive!

 

THAT is just a glimpse at why these are Unsung Hero's!

 

Done that!  Been there!  Got the tee shirt!

 

A Mom in America