Monthly Archives: May 2009

I’m mourning the loss of my Battle Buddy. She’s not really gone, but our husbands are home safely from Afghanistan, and the “battle” that bonded us is over. We still talk every couple of weeks, but gone are the twice-daily phone calls that got us through the long weeks of last year’s deployment. Gone is the shared set of emotions – anger, fear, loneliness, depression, pride, love – that we weathered together.
And I miss her.

Kelly and I spent twelve months of our lives in identical situations, as our husbands were paired up overseas to mentor the Afghan National Army. We met during the pre-deployment briefings a few days before our soldiers left. We experienced every stage of our first deployment together. Though we live three hours apart, we managed several dinners at a halfway point on the highway. She took me to the spa for my birthday weekend. We made the 5-hour rode trip together to attend the funeral of one of our husbands’ fallen comrades, sobbing our way through the service with my head on her shoulder and her hands clasped tightly around mine. We were each other’s source of strength and understanding. There were daily emails, 3-hour phone calls, and countless messages passed between the two of us and our husbands, when one of the guys was able to call before the other. The four of us were linked in a way that is hard to explain. My husband, Paul, wrote Kelly’s number in sharpie inside his uniform so that if anything happened to her husband, she would hear it first from his best friend. Kelly’s husband, Mark, took Paul’s goodbye letter to me, keeping it safe in case it was ever needed.

Paul and I were on R&R in Australia when we learned of the death of a soldier in his unit. We called Kelly in the middle of the night. I needed her.
“How’s Mark?” I asked.
“He needs Paul,” she answered.
Paul needed Mark, too, so he returned to Afghanistan on the next flight.
Paul needed Mark more than he needed me.
And I needed Kelly.

The deployment took my husband away for a year, but it didn’t take my need for a best friend, a confidante, someone to lean on. Kelly became that person. And now that our soldiers are home, it seems like we should release our death-grip on each other, and bond with our husbands again.
But my husband didn’t know me during this deployment the way Kelly did. And Mark and Paul don’t understand the bond Kelly and I share anymore than we can comprehend the new ‘brotherhood’ they claim.

And to be honest, as we both try to navigate marriages in which both partners have changed so much, I’m not sure Kelly and I have ever needed each other more. So why does our closeness seem like a betrayal now when it was essential to our survival just a few months ago?

When the guys came home from the war, Kelly and I rode to the airport together. The four of us headed for the bar and spent the night immersed in karaoke and pitchers of Bud Light. We laughed and told stories of our time apart. Kelly met Paul and I met Mark face to face for the first time. And I had visions of shared vacations and lifetimes of barbeques in each other’s backyards. But in the first glorious days of homecoming, no one tells you how difficult the next few months will be. No one tells you that the man you married will seem like a stranger, and the world he shares with fellow soldiers will always seem foreign and just out of reach. All the prayers and wishes you sent into the universe during the deployment have been granted – he’s home safely and you’re supposed to have everything you’ve ever wanted. He’s your best friend again, and the one person who might be able to understand why you still feel so lonely won’t be able to pick up the phone on a Sunday afternoon – because now her husband is home, too.

Read more from Katie Dyer at Heroes At Home

Yesterday, I had my wisdom teeth out. I woke up and took myself to the appointment. Then I brought myself home, stopping by Burger King for a milkshake and the video store for a chick flick on the way. I spent the day on the couch, doling out my own vicodin and gatorade. But I didn’t feel lonely – I felt strong, independent, and capable. And even with my eyes half-swollen shut; I could see that these feelings were a direct result of the deployment.

My husband returned from Afghanistan three months ago. As an Army National Guard wife in the middle of a deployment, I spent a year learning that being alone was valiant; doing things for yourself meant you were a survivor; needing no one demonstrated your service to our country. And it hasn’t worn off yet. I developed a new sense of self during that deployment year – a sense that I really was capable of anything. I could take care of our 15 acre farm, our 100 year old farmhouse, our 6 dogs – and I could do it all without knowing on a daily basis where Paul was or when I would hear from him.

Those days I spent staring out the kitchen window, wondering if the sedan would pull up carrying the soldiers that would tell me my husband wasn’t coming home – those were battles just as hard-fought at home as the ones Paul waged in the deserts of Afghanistan. National Guard troops are spread out – there are no spouse clubs or weekly coffee dates, no bases with row houses filled with neighbors in the same unit. In the National Guard, there is you, and your soldier, and a world full of civilians who sometimes don’t understand. During a deployment, it’s just you and the civilians. The sense of purpose I felt last year at being part of the mission, supporting a soldier that I loved while he carried out work I believed in, isn’t easy to just put on a shelf now that he’s home… to be taken down and dusted off the next time orders come. It’s not something I can let go of that easily.

But when I woke up this morning and my mouth hurt and there was no one to complain too, I wondered if it’s possible to be too independent. Is it dangerous not to trust anyone but yourself? Even soldiers on the battlefield rely on each other to keep them safe. Still now, in the uncomfortable transitional period of post-deployment, Paul is more at ease sharing his feelings with his buddies from the front lines than with me. But last year, I fought most of my toughest battles alone. And when you become the person who always has it all together; when you don’t need to lean on anyone, and would rather die than ask for help… well, sooner or later, you will be staring at the paperwork in your dentist’s office and not know whose number to put down in the ‘call in case of an emergency’ slot.

Perhaps my civilian girlfriends will read this and say “why didn’t you call us?!” And the answer is simple: because I didn’t need to. But the truth is I would have liked the company. Getting loopy on vicodin is only really fun if you have a buddy there to remember all the crazy things you say, and re-tell them over drinks at next week’s girls’ night.

Military wives are the strongest, most capable, resilient women I know. We have to be. But let us not forget that whether the battlefield is the homefront, the doctor’s office, your workplace or anywhere else you wage war on a daily basis… deep down, it’s OK to still be the girl who needs someone there – if only to grab a fresh bag of frozen peas out of the freezer, because she knows how important it is to get the swelling down before it ruins your plans for the weekend.

Read more from Katie Dyer at Heroes At Home