I think it's easy to be frustrated when a soldier makes it home before yours does. My husband just arrived home from deployment number three a little over halfway through. There hasn't been a deployment yet though that at least some of the soldiers haven't come back at off times from the rest of the unit.
First deployment, even though we had been extended to 15 months and in the heart of the surge in Iraq, there were still soldiers that returned early for one reason or another - some had been hurt, some had become pregnant and some had family members that had significant health issues to include one of our spouses being diagnosed with cancer.
Second deployment was a little different. I was one of those that returned early - about four months in to a year long deployment. My back just wasn't holding up and with our change of orders from Iraq to Afghanistan, the expectations of our unit were going to change drastically. I wasn't the first one to return home early from our unit and I ended up becoming one of quite a few that would return home early over the course of the next eight months.
Now on to number three. My husband was on the first flight out, which to most was transparent besides a picture posted of the four of us from the day he left. I still went to almost every deployment ceremony to take pictures for one family or another. I watched as families trickled out over the course of a month after my husband had left. Then starting a couple of months ago with a memo, I started seeing faces reappear here that had left long after my husband had. They reappeared before we knew he was going to be coming home early.
With each situation, I saw the unfortunate bitterness. The thing I think is very interesting about that bitterness, it's only at home. Even when a soldier returned because of being pregnant, for the most part, little was said, we were all too busy to really care too much about it.
When I was getting ready to head back, I struggled with leaving my soldiers, but they all supported me. I was sent off with hugs and well wishes, genuine well wishes. Eight months later when the soldiers were getting ready to arrive home, I braced myself for cold shoulders and the sore feelings towards me… but there wasn't one. As those soldiers walked in the hangar to turn in their weapons and I started shaking hands to welcome them home, those hand shakes were quickly shifted to hugs as the soldiers pulled me in for them.
This deployment had been much different for us though… this is the first time I haven't been on the soldier side of things. As my husband shared that it was that time, the soldiers he had worked most closely with sent him off with words of well wishes, with hugs and a genuine happiness that he was returning home. He had that anticipation and when he arrived home, he was happy to be home. The first day he was home, we spent the day making goodies to send in care packages to some of the single soldiers he was deployed with. They knew and understood why he was coming home and they supported him.
On the other side of it, I have braced myself for weeks, every since we knew for sure he was coming home early. I didn't really tell anyone because I anticipated there would be negative feelings, whether they were shown or not. I saw how last deployment changed many of the relationships, even those that were close during the other parts of the deployment, when one of the soldiers arrived home early. All of a sudden, you aren't sharing in something together, you feel like the other person is no longer your ally. It's like they have morphed into this different person.
The fact is - that person doesn't change just because their soldier is home. I never saw one person whose soldier came home early turn their back on the spouses they had been friends with. They still were available when there was a bad day or when there as an emergency and the kids needed to be watched.
Even though I was a soldier last deployment, I was still a spouse with a deployed soldier. I didn't understand the thought process of this perceived morphing then and I guess I still don't know. Over the last months as other soldiers have come home, I was honestly happy for those families… some of which I didn't even know at all. As military families, we know how much our soldiers miss out on, so I celebrate when a soldier doesn't have to miss something. No different than now that my husband is home, doesn't make my heart break any less for our little military family who will have an empty chair at their table for Christmas or for upcoming birthdays, etc.
Recently, I have deleted myself off a lot of the local military spouse groups. I found that I didn't understand a lot of the needless drama that takes place. The new form of bullying that has arisen. As soldiers, although we didn't always get along, we did what we needed to in order to support our fellow soldiers. That didn't mean things were always rainbows and kittens, but you do what you have to in order to make the mission happen. I guess that's why I'm at such a loss on why this doesn't carry over to the other side of the family. Maybe that's why I've stuck to just a few close people and kept my distance otherwise.
Bottom line - this life, this military life we live in has enough challenges, why do we add more to it?
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