Deployment Reflections — preparing for Afghanistan

January 30, 2009 By Claire
Posted in Spouse and Family

We are gearing up for deployment. We don’t know when. We don’t know any of the specifics. All we know is time in garrison has been cut very short, and we can count on saying good-bye again much sooner than we had anticipated. I am already gearing myself up by fleshing out the new fears cropping up for me.

Fear of the known, fear of the unknown, fear of what lies ahead, fear of what will be left behind, and some fear that wasn’t there with Iraq. Even though I am working through those fears and handling them better with each passing day, I have other struggles that are a residual affect of being in a very close and primary kinship with a Veteran who is preparing for another deployment.

I struggled being out in public sometimes with the first deployment. As a matter of fact I have set up house and decided to stay inside as much as possible this time too. Time spent outside will be doing yard work or running. I have a feeling I will be spending a lot of time refinishing old furniture (a hobby I acquired with the first deployment), taking up kickboxing again, and anything else that will allow me to get rid of some of the anxiety and fear that can be consuming. Hobbies and exercise occupied my mind and my emotions for a while. It kept me at home and out of the stores and the general public.

When I walk through malls, stores or other such places during some holidays like Independence Day or Memorial Day, I find myself on the edge of tears. When I watch the news I want to scream some days. I am sick of hearing the constant bad news. I am sick of them referring to soldiers like they are just numbers to be reported. I can’t seem to get myself past this grief reaction some days.

It’s all way too real for me now, but it hasn’t always been that way. There was a day and time where I thought for a moment about the meaning of our flag, the meaning of our Constitution and our Country’s history and rich heritage. Really though, I was just living and doing, buying, making and enjoying — you know doing the things that we assume make us American.

Last Memorial Day, I was waiting for Mike to come home. He was in transit and somewhere between Baqubah, Balad, Kuwait and the US. I was anticipating the empty seats on the plane that would fly them back through that passage and onto American soil. The unit he served in took more loss than any other in the Brigade. I had my own private memorial service for each of the men we lost. They were never nameless, faceless statistics to me or the other family members of the men in that unit.

His unit spent more time outside the wire than in. He was exhausted, and vicariously I was too. That Memorial Day, I walked through the store and passed isle upon isle of stuff for people to buy, and decorating those isles were small plastic flags. A grief laden anger began to well up inside of me. I touched a plastic flag picnic table cover and I thought “Is this what he fought for this year? Is this what we buried our sons for? We take this symbol that we cover their coffins with and eat on it?” I couldn’t hold the tears back. I walked quickly out of the store, my face red and wet and my sobs quietly choked back. I probably looked insane to the shoppers around me. I don’t care.

The cost of freedom is not calculated at the store or in the economy. The benefit of freedom is not either. I am free today to write these words, to express my anger, joy, fear and ideas because there are defenders who defend my right to do so. I worship every Sunday according to my beliefs as a Christian, and I sit under the teachings of a man of God who preaches scripture without fear of being imprisoned for it — though his words would cost him his life in other places.

Our soldiers do not give us our freedom, but rather they are the guardians and defenders of that very God given trait. God made man free, but our military fights to keep those who would deny us that right at bay and in check. That is what what I must reflect on daily. I must remember moment by moment, that my beloved son is fighting for that — not the rest of the white noise in our media that tries to infilitrate what the meaning of being an American is all about. I must continually reflect on the freedom that God gave me, and remember with respect and love those who have preserved it for us. In doing that I think I can find even more reason to embrace that protecting my freedom is a soldier’s job, but living as a responsible and decent American is mine.

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