Well my soldier has been home for a week. We have had a wonderful time together and I think that he and his wife are leaving here feeling the love, support and rest they really needed to experience. We’ve had days of sitting around the house just talking and reminiscing and then a few days of sight seeing and doing some fun things out of town.
Even though we have had a wonderful visit together the upcoming deployment is weighing heavy on us. I have noticed it creeping in even though we have only talked about it at minimum. The other night we were all laughing and enjoying some funny clip we were watching and then something was said about Iraq, and we were all silent for a moment. I had to leave the room.
I have people ask if the second deployment is worse than the first. I don’t think the two can be compared. I am far more knowledgeable (I hope wise too, but that’s yet to be seen) about what to expect than the first time. That lack of insight with the last deployment actually was not like an “ignorance is bliss” kind of state. I wasn’t fully ignorant of what was going on in Iraq. I’m not ignorant this time either. I am just not sure who to reconcile it all. I wondered the other day if I would struggle with the moments heightened awareness when you are doing some mundane task around the house and the realization hits you like a ton of bricks that at that very moment your soldier may be fighting for his life.
When Mike’s boots hit the sand this time, my youngest son is entering BCT (he is Reserves while in college). We have a running joke that every time Mike deploys someone in the family enters BCT.
We can do it. We will all get through this time together, and in true form to our family we will do it together.
It doesn’t mean we’ve gotta pretend to like the hard parts.
