In our house “the big D”, or deployment, is never really brought up. We understand that it’s a part of military life but F (as we will call my husband from now on) is not eligible to deploy yet so we figure it’s something to worry about when the time is closer. However, a deployment came up at work for 1st Lieutenants and Captains. F will be eligible next year after he makes 1st and is highly interested in this voluntary deployment. I can all but guarantee that, when he makes 1st, he will apply for this deployment. I know it’s still a year away but, just hearing him talk about it made me all nervous and scared. I really don’t want him to go away for 6 months, let alone to a dangerous area. Granted part of this voluntary deployment is spent somewhere stateside, it’s still 6 months of him being gone. We were apart for 3 months when he did OTS (Officer Training School) and that was hard enough…and we talked everyday! It makes me so nervous already.
Not to mention TDYs. I would say 75% of last year was spent separated from my then fiance because of various TDYs. This year we joked that maybe we could actually spend all the holidays and other important dates together because we definitely didn’t last year. Now here we are, just a few days into 2011, and F already has dates for a TDY. I know I’ve gotten used to them, and they’re never really long anymore, but I still don’t like them. If there’s one thing that makes a military marriage so painful, it’s the huge amount of time spent apart. No matter what people say, it never gets easier.
I know exactly how you feel. Sometimes just knowing they're going to deploy/tdy is as hard as having them actually gone. My husband is slotted to deploy late this spring, and it definately can get to me sometimes when I focus on the things like he'll be missing my birthday for the 3rd year in a row or I'll be missing his birthday for the 2nd year in a row or that he'll be gone for our 1st wedding anniversary....but that's the beauty of us military wives, we think about that stuff, agree it stinks, and move on :) Does it get easier? Nope. Do we learn to accept it? Yep.
ReplyDeleteAnd that's why we have friends who are in the same place as us, because we are truly never alone in these things.