It's Veterans Day.
This time last year, dh had been home from his final deployment for just a few days.
I have no profound insight for you this year. For the first time since the conflict in Afghanistan began, I've been able to say, "My husband has been home for a full year." That's amazing to me. Sure, he's gone on a bunch of business trips, but civilian trips are far different than the, "They shot at my plane" military trips or even just the two week long, "This is what you do when you're left in the desert with no supplies" trips.
Honestly, I'm becoming used to being a civilian. I don't think we will ever fully assimilate to the civilian world. I can't consider us "military" any longer because we're not in the thick of that. It's an insult to military families to call our family "military" when we don't have to fear deployments. At the same time, we can never be fully civilian because we have survived deployments. No matter where we go from here, my husband will always be a veteran--whether he likes it or not. Still, we find ourselves moving away from the military mentality. It's freeing and heart-breaking all at the same time.
Instead of rambling any longer, I'll direct your attention to my post on the topic last year.
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2 comments:
Thank you to your husband, your family, and all of the other military families out there. You gave up more than we can ever know.
On a lighter note, my own husband just found out for today that he does not have to attend his (reserve) unit's training in December because at age 40 he has finally aged out of reserve duty! Wahoo! I'm happy and relieved and it'saboutdamntime all rolled into one, and that's with a husband who was never gone for more than a few weeks at a time. I can't even imagine a long US-style deployment...
Personally, I just can't f*cking wait to be done with the whole thing. We'll see how I feel 7/8 months from now, though. Leah
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