Wait… who told you I was defensive?

Inevitably, as posting season rolls around, we hear, think and talk a lot about different homes, different jobs, different cities.

As it currently stands, this spring we are heading to another end of the country where DH will have a different job, away from his home unit for a few years.

Now, I’ve spent enough time around the Army that I am not willing to confirm anything until that moving van pulls away.  Plans change.  Military plans change more.  

But, assuming things go as they are looking at this moment, we will be somewhere new this Summer.

Somehow, someway, we have spent the last 12.5 years in the same posting.

And life has looked very much the same year after year.

Predeployment.  Deployment.  Training Exercise.  Course.  Predeployment.  Deployment.  Domestic Deployment.  Exercise.  Course.  Predeployment.  Deployment……..

You get the idea.  

Now, with a new location comes a new job.

Most of the time when soldiers who are a part of DH’s unit get a job away, they go somewhere to teach.  It’s a few years in country at one of the schools.

So, after being in a deployable position for his whole career this far, the most common response I get when people hear about our tentative upcoming move?

“It’s nice he’ll have a few years home.”

Well, sure.

But this isn’t a teaching posting.  It’s just a different kind of deployment posting.  Trust DH to find one of the only jobs he could get posted to that still deploys.

And that’s ok.  Because I think he’s going to like it more than any of the other options.  He’s a soldier who at this stage of his life, still loves doing soldier things.  And some of those things, they include deployments. 

And I have amazing people in my life who may not understand that, but support us whole heartedly.  I have been infinitely blessed by those friends around me. 

So it stings a little less when I hear the… other people. The ones who know the least about us but have the biggest opinions.  Opinions about why he would take a job like this, or what kind of person that makes him.

Now, I can be a little over protective.  So for the record, if you don’t know us, there are some things you should not tell me.

Don’t for one second tell me that being a soldier who deploys makes it impossible for him to be a good father.  When he’s home, he attends every dance recital, field trip and concert he can get to.  He books a leave pass to attend a grade 4 class trip to the Hockey Game with Freckles (ya, we do that here in Canada!).  He rushes out of work so he can attend Eating Clinics with Monster. He lays on the carpet still in his uniform from work and makes life size art with Drama before dinner.  Even when it means he doesn’t have time to hear himself think before his head hits the pillow because he’s spent every second since he’s been home giving his attention to the 3 little people who think he hung the moon.

A lot of times, he’s away.  He’s missed a lot of events in our kids lives.  A lot.  But being physically present is not what makes someone a good father.  I know men who are home every day and don’t connect with their kids like he does.  You don’t know the dad who had his whole Troop call from Exercise to sing his daughter Happy Birthday. Or the man who fell asleep at the hospital each night after work cradling his premature baby.  Or the father who talked to the Padre when coming home on leave from deployment and brought home a stuffed camel for his 2 year old so he could best be prepared to win him over after months away.  

That soldier, he’s the best father I know.

And don’t even think about telling me being a soldier who deploys makes it impossible for him to be a good husband.  When he’s home, he puts the kids to bed after a long day just so I can have a break from them, even when he’s just as exhausted.  He cleans up after every dinner.  He tells me I’m beautiful and he lets me squeeze the breath out of him when I just. need.  to.  squeeze.  something.  Sometimes, when he knows I’m having a really bitchy day, he won’t even complain when he comes home and I’m wearing his Recce sweater.  

A lot of times, he’s away.  He’s missed a lot of events in our marriage.  A lot.  But being physically present is not what makes someone a good husband.  I know men who are home every night and don’t connect with their wives like he does.  You don’t know the husband who arranged before he left that someone would bring me flowers and cards from him whenever I was having a hard time during a deployment.  You don’t know the man who walked for as long as it took in the desert (I’m willing to bet it was longer than I picture but shorter than he remembers it when he tells the story) at every opportunity to use the one SAT phone available at the other camp, so that he could check on his pregnant wife, just to graciously listen to her bitch about her uncomfortableness and the heat back home while he stood in his flak jacket in the Afghan sun and told her he loved her.

You can’t possible know the incredible person who has done exactly what he promised my father he would do and spent every moment he could making me happy.  All while a lot of the time, not even living in the same Province or Country.

That soldier, he’s the best husband I know.

And while you’re at it, don’t tell me that my husband will ‘for sure get PTSD if he keeps pressing his luck’ by deploying.  And don’t tell me that he must not like it home much if he always wants to leave.  Or recite me statistics on military infidelity.  Or tell me that the fact that I believe my husband doesn’t drink just makes me niave because ‘they all do over there’.  Those things just make you sound like an ass.

I don’t tell you why your husband must not be a good father because he works late every night, or leaves for the oil field to work 3 out of 4 weeks, can’t hold a steady job, or is always on his blackberry even when he’s home. 

One day, DH will reach the point in his career when he’s ready to stop doing a job that requires him to leave sometimes.  He’ll be done.  That happens. 

But for now, if he got a job behind a desk, a job that didn’t do all those soldier-y things he likes to do, he’d be miserable.

Recently, I had to go in and see the base social worker as part of the screening for DH’s new position, as this new unit deploys on very little notice.

And the Social Worker asked that same old question that always makes me cringe.

“How do you feel about your spouses upcomng deployment”.

Well, if I say I want him to go, I look like a bitch.
If I say I don’t want him to go, then I’m holding him back.

I’ve had a few deployments to think of a better answer.

I feel like it’s his job, I feel I like that he has a job that he enjoys, I feel I’m glad he gets the opportunity to do something he loves, and I feel that will support him while he does it.

That’s the truth. It doesn’t mean it won’t suck and I won’t complain and it won’t be heartbreaking each time he leaves.

It does mean I know in my heart being a soldier is God’s plan for his life right now.

It does means I know he’s doing what he’s meant to do.

If you asked DH right this minute, he’d tell you he’d deploy again in. a. heartbeat.  

That doesn’t mean he doesn’t love his family.  

That just means he loves his job.

If for one second he thought he had to choose one over the other, he’d walk away from the military and not look back.

But he doesn’t.

He can be a soldier, a husband and a father all at the same time. 

Comments

comments

Related posts:

2011 – Posts I Wrote