Chicks Dig the Uniform

*nodding* So much meat here. I can’t speak to the British methodologies, but I know with the American side of that coin, part of the “Family Preparedness” speechifying is such crap. They tell the spouses to not put too much undue stress on the servicemember returning from an “in harm’s way” deployment (and my ex was in Afghanistan also). What they frequently fail to do is warn the servicemember that life at home is enormously changed, because the spouse has had to *do it ALL*. That was part of the huge blow-out with my ex and me. He expected that he’d come home, and life would continue as though he had not been gone for 11 months solid. When that didn’t happen, he grew resentful. The kids didn’t understand why he was so short with them for coming to me with everything. There are just so many layers that civilian families do NOT truly understand.

And, I am SO thankful to be completely out of the military life. Being a military spouse is, in my personal opinion, the toughest job in the military…and I respect that role tremendously. Best wishes to you and E.

I admire Maria for posting these valuable insights into deeply personal experiences while knowing full well that the ensuing discussion is going to be derailed by one or two pompous windbags saying “With all due respect, I see no reason why any respect is due to those who murder for hire on behalf of a morally bankrupt imperial ruling elite.”

Thank you, Maria, for posting this. Few people talk about what it’s like to be an army wife. Few people are capable of putting that jumble of feelings into words. Thinking of you and hoping for a safe return soon.

Your ability to frame emotional candor with an unsurpassed skill at using the written word is as enlightening, as it is humbling. Thank you for provoking thought on matters of the heart as much as of the mind! You and Ed are both pretty amazing people!

it’s astonishing the number of people, from acquaintances to call centre staff, who think the level of contact and risk of an infantry officer deployed to a war zone is about the same as someone making a business trip to Barcelona.

This is interesting and would support what one sometimes hears anecdotally about the number of people who have no real understanding that there is a war going on and what that entails. You would think the abundance of news sources might counteract that, but apparently not.

Thank you for writing and sharing this.

Hi Maria,

I apologize about my lack of clarity. The marriage with my ex did not end as a result of deployment (not directly anyway); there were other long-standing issues. If anything, I stayed with him longer than I probably should have because I was also raised by a military retiree; I was taught that one does NOT leave a servicemember during a wartime deployment. Truly, though, there were many other issues. My point was that there are all sorts of emotional/psychological complexities involved with couples and families who experience deployment.

Divorce in the military (compared with civilian life) is a subject rarely explored; deployment is one aspect of the difference, I suspect. My suspicion, though, is there are other factors involved. Again, I cannot speak to how things go in the UK; in the U.S., there is much blather about “family unity” and “support” — but it really is just chatter. In practice, spouses (often very young spouses) are left to their own devices without any guidance. Alcohol abuse by servicemembers is a subject that I’ve discussed before (purely observational, no research into the topic); and very little is done to help a servicemember or his/her family when all of the “unit morale” gatherings bleed into the home life and wreak havoc there. I long felt (and still feel) as though it was a kind of conspiracy of silence.

Yes, I have many thoughts on how the time and distance of separation (coupled with the effects of war/violence on the human psyche) play out for servicemembers. Regulations regarding length of deployment changed under Bush43’s administration; prior to Afghanistan, active deployments were not terribly different from what you note for the UK (6 or 7 months – I don’t have the specific regulation, so I’m speaking from memory here). Under Bush43 & Co., deployments were extended and downtime between deployments was reduced by half. Half! On top of that, psychological services for servicemembers is another one of those subjects that I believe are “in name only”…just to look good on paper. But actual mental health services for servicemembers and their families is utter shit. That has been true since before I was born, and it has only gotten progressively worse, in my opinion. Not to mention, the machismo expectation by military command–which I firmly believe is one enormous contributing factor to the problems of PTSD and all of the complications connected to it.

Sorry for the delay in response, and for the textwall. I hope my thoughts are useful to you…and I’m glad to read that E is getting out. Happy for BOTH of you.

I saw some research a few years ago from WWI that showed soldier morale and combat effectiveness dropping drastically after about 6 months on the front lines, and requiring well over a year of leave to be repaired. If that applies to the current war (I would speculate that WWI was harder on soldiers, but who knows, the conditions may not matter as much as the time), then most of the U.S. soldiers must be dazed automatons by now. I’m afraid I don’t have a link.

“I wonder why the British troops have it so much harder in re. family communication than the US forces? A high-level command decision apparently.”

Maria implies that it’s a budget issue. The U.S. does spend a lot more so I’d believe it. Plus, with the U.S.’s longer and more frequent tours these efforts to boost morale and keep soldiers connected to home probably feel a lot more urgent to the commanders. The British may just say, “Well you’re only here 6 months and then off for 2 yrs. You’ve already got it way better than the Americans so shut up and write a letter.”

There seems to be a strong desire to find continuity and rationality in the surreal and post-modern “war” in Afghanistan. The tactics of the insurgents inflict random casualties through ambush and IED attacks, and these tactics render conventional notions of battlefield heroism and campaign progress moot. Thus, the focus on “military life” as a central concern and the treatment of the absurd situation in Afghanistan as the war du jour. Making Afghanistan just another “deployment” normalizes the conflict and renders it acceptable.

The civilian population in the US, and presumably the UK, quietly accepts repeated declarations of “progress” in Afghanistan despite amply evidence that nothing of consequence has changed on the “battlefield” for years. It is this passive acceptance of endless war that Orwell chillingly predicted in 1984. It has now become the new normality.

boo hoo —
sounds luxurious compared to the ancient world war: Vietnam 67-8.

29 hours late, but “pompous windbag” predicted by #3 has finally arrived.

What CPNorris said, Maria, about this essay’s deserving publication in a major magazine. And a larger public deserves ready access to it. Thank you.

A note on strains on marriages and other relationships: as a statistical matter, this shouldn’t be news. WWII veterans (whose deployments were not usually as long as what Maria describes and who had the full support and participation, even, of civilians at home) had a high rate of divorce so high that it kickstarted the general tolerance, then acceptance of divorce that social conservatives today so decry.

I don’t come from the country my husband serves, but I’m still startled and moved at how proud I am of him and the people he serves with.

Proud of the people in his immediate working environment, or of the whole British Army etc.?

Just curious.

That’s a powerful piece of writing.

However, I am struck by the thought, and it has taken me a couple of days reflection to make this point, that the BA is a volunteer army, its members are not conscripted, it is the choice of the individuals to join and to serve. Not to overplay the freedom to act of course, but ultimately the people involved could refuse to go through with their assignment, not without consequences, but it is possible. That fact diminishes my sympathy for those involved.

I appreciate that there are questions of duty involved etc., but delving into that can of worms opens up the bigger questions of what is the BA doing in Afghanistan, and imperialism. That’s a long way from the individual suffering of the couple so humanly described in this piece of writing.

It’s a trite point but I’ll make it none the less that the victims of the BA’s aggression in Afghanistan don’t necessarily get the opportunity to pull on our heartstrings via the internet through pieces of writing like this.

War is sh1t really, for all those involved. Maybe people should stop being involved, where they do have those choices.

Clearly what we need is a public education campaign. Rather than glamourising a career in the military, we should explain that there are many other ways to have fun in uniform. Teachers could demonstrate how not to sign enlistment forms (use a banana instead of a pen!) and other ways to avoid accidentally volunteering.

It is in fact possible to have Views about British aggression in Afghanistan and imperialism, as well as being unhappily cogniscent of the fact that many/most of the war’s victims in Afghanistan don’t have the ability to publish accounts of their experiences, without coming to a piece expressing personal anguish over the absence of a loved one who is a soldier and pissing all over it like you’re marking your political territory.

Maria, I hope your husband comes home sfe and sound and that things become easier thereafter.

Beautiful and moving piece.

Maria’s husband is someone who chose a military career, and now he fights a war he knows and admits has no purpose.
As a human being, he (and Maria) have all my sympathy (it is quite possible that in similar circumstances I would behave the same way); but, as a person who tries to think rationally, I find his behaviour a perfect example of the expression “the banality of evil”.

Despite the enormous cost to taxpayers, all the flags and bumper stickers, and frenzied activity of our military, the civil-military gap here in America is very wide. Only 0.5% of the population serves on active duty, and that 0.5% comes from an even smaller percentage of families (we joke that it’s a family business). That disconnectedness results in a lot of wild misconceptions about how we live and what we do. Some people sent me care packages full of cheap canned foods as if I were starving and homeless over there, and they talked to my wife as if my death or injury from combat were inevitable. Other people, in addition to asking my wife about plans to visit, would ask me questions like, “What is there to do for fun on the weekends over there?” My own mother asked me how I was planning to spend the 4th of July since she figured, of course, that none of us would be working on the holiday. It can be frustrating, but I try not to fault people for their lack of understanding. I’m probably just as clueless about people in some other unique walk of life.

My wife reported feeling the same irrational, inexplicable anger toward me for leaving her and going to Afghanistan on several occasions.

You make an astute point about daily communication with family putting more pressure on troops. I remember one night when another guy in my tent (Sam) was listening to his wife talk about their son who had gotten into trouble at school. Sam’s wife then told their son to sit down in front of the computer and she asked Sam scold him and administer discipline via Skype. He did, and listening to the whole thing felt surreal for me. Being able to continue acting as a functioning member of the family while in combat on the other side of the world can be great, but it’s also asking a lot on top of everything else that a soldier has to deal with.

On the possibility of having too much contact, wow, I don’t know how I’d react if I saw E. ducking for cover. Less is certainly more, sometimes.

Related, I’ve got my own grandfather’s letters home to family and friends from WW2 – he was MO of an infantry battalion – and there is a definite difference between the sets [stuff I put in my letters home to Mum and Dad] and [stuff I put in my letters home to my friends from university]. Mum and Dad get interesting buildings, encounters with fellow Scots, the occasional bird spotted near their bivouac. The friends get phrases like “the other end of the barn in which we had set up the RAP was being shelled continuously by an 88” and a bit more detail about exactly what state the fellow Scots were in when he encountered them.

Hi again, Maria,

Two comments you made (@34) helped to pull a couple of things from my memory. I’m going to attempt to articulate clearly — we’ll see how successful I am (lol).

The question of American military and Republican support. I don’t know what the percentages are between Republican/Democrat/Independent/Other – I’ve never searched for the numbers. Off the cuff, though, I would guess that more than half of the military leans Republican, and the reasons for this (I suspect) are multifaceted. There is a longstanding “rumor” (in quotes because I’m not sure what else to call it) that the military fares better under a Republican administration. Frankly, given the actual history, I personally disagree strongly with that assessment; the rumor, however, is pervasive, and it is perpetuated in civilian circles as well as military circles. Another facet, I think, has to do with what news is made available (cough-propaganda-cough). The most commonly read newspaper by most of the soldiers I knew during the entire course of my marriage with the ex was “USAToday” — which is chock full of right-wing talking points. (sigh)

The second comment was E’s assertion about PTSD. Quite likely, he is correct in the purest clinical sense – in terms of the checklist symptoms-to-diagnosis. The memory that surfaced when I read that, though, was of a man I met when I was living in Hawai’i. I worked at a clinic there, and one of the patients there (initially unbeknownst to everyone) suffered from PTSD (Vietnam era). Imagine my shock when he flashed back while I was recording his vitals. I had never actually seen a full-blown PTSD flashback, and this (truly wonderful) man transformed before my eyes. Bearing in mind when the Vietnam War ended, and the experience I’m sharing occurred in 1998…how many servicemembers remain undiagnosed for decades? Even my dad (Korean conflict era) has said he still has nightmares, and he’s in his 80s now.

There is just so much that needs to be explored…and my heart hurts for so many men and women who put everything on the line, and how badly our government (no matter which political party is in office) has failed them.

As far as political leanings of American service members, I recall seeing numbers published after the 2008 presidential election that showed 70% or more of service members had voted Republican. I’ll take a stab at why…

1. Denise is right about the persistent “rumor” that Republican politicians do more for the troops. Maybe it originated during the 1980s when we saw massive military spending under Ronald Reagan. Reality is that American military spending continues to accelerate regardless of which party is in power (because nobody wants to be accused of being weak on defense and not supporting the troops, and because defense contractors have cleverly spread themselves across voting districts all over the country).

2. At least in recent decades, Republicans have had unconditional love for everything related to the military. Democrats are more likely to question the conflicts we are in, the policies we have as an institution, etc. That’s not a bad thing for the nation, but many service members interpret it as criticism and disrespect from people (civilians) who, frankly, they believe are inferior (and that’s a whole other issue).

3. The sort of “tough love” policies proposed by Republicans resonate with us more than other groups of people. The prevailing culture of the military is “quit crying, quit coming up with excuses, quit asking me for a handout – I didn’t grow up with a silver spoon in my mouth either so I played by the rules, joined the service, worked hard, and earned what I have in life – toughen up and you can do it too.” That’s what you’d expect to hear from your drill sergeant or first sergeant. We are talking about an organization that is heavily weighted with men who have very traditional views about males being tough and strong and able to take care of themselves. Some people think this is ironic because the government takes care of all our needs, but I disagree. Our relationship with the government is as employee-citizens, not merely citizens. The benefits are compensation for the job, not some kind of public entitlement or safety net. Again, the culture is one of “you get what you earn.”

I don’t know how to thank Tim and others for their insights (with continuing thanks to Maria for prompting them). (I feel grateful even to r.laughlin, now that I’ve learned a little of his history.) Flashbacks, PTSD — yes, certainly. But the life-long effects of having seen combat (or having filled body bags, and god knows what other “ancillary” activities of military life) are life-changing no matter what. I grew up knowing that my uncle had a purple heart after being injured at Peleliu and that he also fought at Okinawa. Peleliu was the more formative experience for him, that was clear, but he refused to talk about it and insisted that he’d only gotten some shrapnel in his ass while sleeping in his tent. After he died (a little over 10 years ago), my father corresponded with some of my uncle’s old Marine buddies (though a college professor, musician, and a somewhat effete guy, my uncle maintained the most intimate connections with his WWII Marine buddies, from all walks of life). One of these guys detailed for my father their landing on Peleliu, drawing diagrams of exactly where they’d landed, the disposition of other American forces (mixed units) and the Japanese, the details of how it took them a full day to move 60 yards to the left their communications equipment since they’d landed in slightly the wrong place….

All this detail, some 50 years after the event. My uncle had never shared any of this with anyone in his family — and maybe the man writing my father had never shared the details with anyone in his family. But every moment still lived with the man (perhaps coming back to haunt him only in his old age), as they had no doubt lived with, and perhaps haunted, my uncle.

Just to say that post-combat “adjustments” go on for a life time.

I don’t know how people survive the contrast between combat and home, then going back into combat.

In this context, it’s interesting to note that bomber crews had the shortest tours – 25 missions – of any combat troops in WW2 before they were regarded as burned out. Part of this may be because of the very high casualty rates they suffered, but part of it may be the contrast that they experienced each time: living in the peaceful English countryside, and then flying over to cross the Kammhuber Line.

Hi Meredith,

Your uncle, I would bet serious money on this, would not have spoken with anyone about his wartime experience except someone who had been through it. Not necessarily the same war…just another warrior. My dad’s best friend endured a different war than my dad did. So far as I know, my dad never EVER spoke to anyone about his experiences in Korea except to his best friend…who was a Vietnam vet. All dad ever says about Korea is that he hated the smell, though he does occasionally allude to a tree on the DMZ line and something he saw there. The story of the tree is (or used to be) available online. I’ll see if I can hunt it down and post it. It might help to read that…I know reading about that tree helped me a lot – opened my eyes to a few basic truths that I would not have otherwise understood about combat reality.

Re Tim @53 and Denise and others who may be interested:
On voting patterns of US military personnel and veterans, see the posts linked here.

At least in recent decades, Republicans Americans have had unconditional love for everything related to the military.

Fixed.

You have to go to the far-left fringe of public opinion to find anything but absolute, unquestioning reverence for the military in this country. “The Democrats don’t support the troops” is a (highly effective) fiction of the right-wing noise machine.

Maria,

Your work is excellent and your sentiments (along with some of your frustrations) are echoed by my wife on a regular basis.

I know E and worked with him occasionally during his unit’s pre-deployment training, he does a wonderful job and is one of the small percentage of officers whom I believe are totally committed to the army with true selflessness (I’ve been in for 28 years and have met plenty that disappointly do not). That degree of effort does however come at a high cost to family life and I will be leaving the forces next year too as the return that we get for our dedication is not a price worth paying any longer.

I am biased as it written by my wife, but if anyone is interested in a book written by an Army wife about an Army wife then have a look at Poppy Day by Amanda Prowse. It is a work of fiction that starts with a young army wife whose husband is half way through a tour of duty in Afghanistan getting the knock on the door that families dread.

It asks the question ‘How far would you go to bring home the one you love?’ Originally printed by the Royal British Legion, 100% of the proceeds from it and all royalties have been donated to the RBL and it will be re-released this Nov, this time by a professional publisher who are honouring our pledge to give all monies to the RBL. It can be pre-ordered on Amazon at the following link.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Poppy-Day-Amanda-Prowse/dp/1781851115/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1346273888&sr=8-2

I won’t say any more for fear of spoiling it but the reviews from the first edition will give people an idea of some of the emotions that are explored in the book. This is probably a bit harder hitting and realistic than Joanna Trollope’s ‘The Soldier’s Wife’ as it is based on some personal experience. It is also very humourous though so is very uplifting (and it also has some great twists).

Alternatively, we will be at a Waterstones near you in December, it would be great to meet you, so please come and say hello (maybe bring your wives club along and we will sort out something special for you all). Details of event dates are at http://www.poppyday.co.uk or mail Amanda at amanda@poppyday.co.uk

Best regards,

Simeon

With apologies to those for whom, as primary actors or spouses or children or parents, these attempts at imagining are totally inadequate to the experience. We’re trying. We are longing for your return.

how many people realise that Irish troops have been sent to Afghanistan?

Not me for one. Seven of them, to be exact… I wonder what they’re doing? (quick google) “The seven Defence Forces personnel currently participating in ISAF are all located in ISAF headquarters in Kabul and work in staff appointments in planning and administrative roles. The Minister for Defence is satisfied that the work carried out by these personnel, particularly by those in the counter-improvised explosive device cell, represents an important contribution to this UN-mandated mission.”

Just to give another perspective, I’m also the spouse of an Army officer, as well as an Army officer myself. I’m in an all-male combined-arms battalion, and she’s in a mostly-male field artillery battalion.

I have to say my experience is quite a bit different. First, we both work twelve-hour days and often through weekends to begin with, so neither of our lives grinds to a halt when the other isn’t there. In fact, it isn’t much different to have her away than it is to have her here, other than that the house is generally cleaner because there is only one person making a mess rather than two. All of our bills are paid by auto-debit out of a joint account, so there aren’t any financial issues.

I don’t even know any of the wives of her fellow officers and certainly don’t hang out with them in their husband’s (and my wife’s) absence, as frankly, that just feels extremely inappropriate. For her part, she has no involvement with the wives in my unit because she feels no kinship with non-working women whose main concern is family (which we don’t have) and getting their husbands back (I don’t get the impression she much cares whether I’m here or not except to mow the lawn). Her experience is just too different from theirs.

We did go through many of the same issues the last time we reunited after a deployment (last fall). It was awkward just being around each other for a long time. We’ve had sex twice in the last year. She constantly yells at me about tiny things that she would find anyone else insane for getting mad about, like leaving a damn beer bottle on the table overnight rather than putting it immediately into the recycling bin. I actually appreciate the Army’s attempts at behavioral health services. We went through marriage counseling for a while. It was free, and the counselor seemed to know what she was doing. My wife was rarely able to show up, though. She couldn’t commit to dates in advance and cancelled all the time. You’re supposed to get out of virtually anything for a medical appointment, but she wouldn’t admit to anyone she had appointments because she doesn’t want to appear weak as a woman trying to cut it in a male profession.

I doubt our marriage will survive. I’m extremely unhappy, and though she never talks to me about anything other than work and triathlons, I imagine she isn’t very satisfied, either. We’d be divorced already, but I just don’t know what else I’d do. Neither of us wants to be single. It’s expected of officers to be married and it’s certainly easier to get by with two incomes. I have no interest in supporting a non-working wife, but the locations of Army posts and the periodic moves make it nearly impossible to find civilian employment for a woman as educated as me, and I’d like to be married to someone with comparable education (second-tier schools, but two masters degrees). Frankly, I don’t want to put someone through this who actually loves me and at least I know with my current wife that she definitely chose this life for herself and can’t blame me.

I’ll probably be out after my current contract, for all the typical reasons: to make more money, work shorter hours, stay in the country, and live in a real city again that has educated single women as part of its population. It’s too bad because I love my job. I love my soldiers. I can’t imagine getting the same level of satisfaction from any other type of work, so regularly watching teams come together and watching young people making major life progress and accomplishing things they’d have never thought possible, certainly things I’d not have accomplished as a teenager. I’ll never have another job where I’ll trust every single coworker with my life. I’d like to have a real marriage at some point, though, and it’s just not possible like this.

Belief in the mission is irrelevant

This is one of those things that civilians tend not to understand, but once you see it from the forces perspective[2] it’s blindingly obvious. We nearly had a fight break out at our singaround one week when a squaddie came in and told us his story[1]: the key point was that he was going to be shipped out either just before or just after the New Year, which (just to add insult to injury) would also mean leaving either just before or just after his birthday, and the army couldn’t or wouldn’t tell him which it was going to be. Anyway, that – and his obvious state of distress and anger, not helped by the beer – was difficult, but it would have been manageable. What nearly pushed things over the edge was a well-meaning (and rather drunk) sympathiser – We’re behind you! We want to bring you all home – they should never have sent you out there! and so on. This made the guy get really agitated – Don’t say that! Don’t say that! You can’t say that, you don’t know what you’re talking about! – to the point where they very nearly came to blows.

The thing is, whatever else about the rights and wrongs of military service – and about the suffering that gets inflicted on other people as a result – it is a very, very hard job, and you don’t want to make it even harder. Believing in the mission would make it harder, because any failure or screw-up would really matter – and of course, not believing in the mission would make it a lot harder. So you get the “pride in the job” mentality – just doing a job and doing it as well as we can – and if you can also point to something good that happened because you were there, so much the better.

[1] We brought this on ourselves. The problem was that the pub had a new barman, and when an unfamiliar but efficient-looking figure appeared in the doorway somebody called out “Here’s Chris the new barman! A big hand for Chris!” Whereupon he naturally explained that he wasn’t Chris the barman, he was Joe the squaddie, and…

[2] I am of course a civilian, but I lived in a Forces town – well, a Forces rural backwater – when I was a kid, and I’ve always had a definite respect for a certain kind of military worldview. The sense always was that anything you could do with muscle, firepower and organisation, they could do it – with the subtext that actually there wasn’t much you couldn’t do with those three things, if push came to shove. This also relates to the sense of superiority to civilians, I think – if you thought that, with a bit of effort, the Army could be ruling the country by the end of the month (I mean, who’d stop them?), it would be hard not to feel that civilians didn’t have a clue.

“Belief in the mission is irrelevant”

I don’t know about this. Perhaps it depends on your role in the military, (are you a career soldier etc), but anyone I’ve ever met that served in Afghanistan, (generally from the demographic that joined in their late teens and quit in their mid-twenties, )has been pretty adamant that they knew what the mission was and ‘believed’ in it to some extent. It might not have been the main reason they signed up, but it wasn’t irrelevant, especially not as they justified it to themselves in civilian life. I think Phil’s story reinforces that point, it has to mean something to the people that fought it. How could it not?

“This may be a British thing, though”

Its been British soldiers I’ve met. I never found that to be honest. (In fact quite the opposite, you couldnt get them to stop talking about it!)

Marie,

I heard your interview on RTE radio yesterday.

I found your piece very interesting and gave me a better perspective on how the difficulties my wife experienced while I was on deployments. I enjoyed my time in the Services and it gave me great benefits/ experiences which have been very useful in civilian life, I have no regrets about leaving the military., it was part of my life but I have moved on as I have no doubt your Ed will do the same.

Congrats on the blog.

Congrats on your interview and your writing, so clear a picture of the awful time before as the date draws closer, and the actual day; as a merchant navy wife in my younger days I can identify with many of the emotions and reactions you describe.

“anyone I’ve ever met that served in Afghanistan, (generally from the demographic that joined in their late teens and quit in their mid-twenties, )has been pretty adamant that they knew what the mission was and ‘believed’ in it to some extent. It might not have been the main reason they signed up, but it wasn’t irrelevant, especially not as they justified it to themselves in civilian life… How could it not?”

I completely agree with this. It might have been different with say the Falklands, but we’ve been at war in Afghanistan for almost 11 years now. Anyone currently involved would absolutely have known what they were signing up to do.

My husband is in Afghanistan now. Its the first time he has been away since I have been with him.

Not to critisise what you have written, because this is your experience but I don’t recognise this at all. I am in my 30s and we haven’t been married long. I have known that my husband would be going away for some time now so I’ve been prepared for this. He speaks to me a few times a week, he doesn’t expect me to stay in to wait for his call, if I’m in, I’m in. He has told me that he wants me to stay the way I always have been. So I’m going out every weekend just like I normally do – In no way does it feel a betrayal to “wear lipstick or a skirt”- I do this when he is at home and I go out alone so why not now – My husband would expect no less of me. Why would this be a betrayal?? My husband married a woman who takes pride in her appearance and enjoys dressing up for the sake of dressing up. I don’t do it to please him, or to please other men. I do it becuase I like doing it.

I look forward to hearing from him, but I appreciate my independence – and since we are thinking about starting a family when he comes home this is probably my last chance to have a quiet house and an undisturbed lie-in!

We don’t live on base and I have my own circle of friends who have nothing to do with the Army. They check how I am but I’ve made it clear I don’t want to waffle on about my husband, I want to get on with the here and now. He will be back soon enough, and we can pick up where we left off.

Please don’t think I’m cold or un-loving. My husband is without doubt my best friend. I love him and I miss him. But I am an independent woman and, just like when he is home, I have my own focus and interests and life goes on.

Before he deployed, I attended a briefing and was horrified at the dated, patronising information we were given (‘do make the effort to get out of the house while he is away’ – seriously???!!! and ‘make sure he tells you where the important documents are kept and where the fuse box/ stopcock/lawnmower is kept’ – I know ALL these things – its my husband that doesn’t!!!)

Becuase of the way we are, while he is away, he knows he doesn’t need to worry about me, which means that he can focus on what he is doing without worrying that I’m not coping, and I can focus on what I’m doing. I work in quite a serious, involved and often dangerous job and I couldn’t do my job if I didn’t have this attitude.

My life isn’t on hold while he is away. The thought of that horrifies me because we are very much a marriage of equals. Because of this attitude, every time we do speak, we have a great catch up and are happy to be able to chat, and we know that when he comes home we both have lots to tell each other.

Like I say, each to their own. I’m looking forward to him coming home, but I believe in living every day to the full and I’m not going to miss out on enjoying 6 months of my life because my husband isn’t here. I couldn’t deal with him being away in any other way!

What fantastic words you write, very descriptive ands emontional. I am a soldier of 21 years and have done my fair share of deployments. My first marriage ended with a mixture of me being unable to get back into life, being continually restless, bored and doing some things that I now regret. I didn’t understand any of what was going on until I was diagnosed with PTSD after my divorce.
Years later I can now read your story and empathise with those left at home.
I grew up around the Army (pad brat), but I had forgotten what its like to be the one left at home waiting and trying to catch a glimpse of my dad on the tv.
Your story should be published to the wider community, the sooner that people realise that we are not going away to summer camp and that our job effects everyone around us, often moreso, the sooner people might have more understanding.
I know when we go away we are purely focused on our task, we have no thoughts on politics, we have trained and we have a job to do, but its when we are crashed out in our bunks after a long hot day that we think of home, when we wish we were elsewhere, at home in a warm clean bed, but these thoughts fade with sleep and the next days task or patrol. Your words bring it all home, thank you.