Words from an Army Wife

First saw this on Arfcom. Thanks to DW_Drang, who saw it on Blackfive

Anyways...wanted to make sure credit was given first...so, This Op Ed originated at the Eugene, OR Register-Guard

We’ve marked the end of the fifth year of war in Iraq, and the 4,000th soldier killed there. They hold a peace rally downtown. There are dozens of people there. I’m sure many of them are the same people I see on the street corners — their signs say “Support the troops, not the war.” I watch them with tears in my eyes.

I believe in my heart that the demonstrators are good people. They want what I want: for the war to be over, and for all the soldiers fighting it to come home. They are hopeful, passionate, and they have no idea how much it hurts me to watch.

For some people, the war is a cause. It’s a chant, a picket sign, a march through town. For some it’s a political stance.

But I am the wife of a deployed soldier.

For me, the war is the reason I sleep alone every night. The reason that on most nights I’m not sleeping. It’s the strain in friendships that used to include both me and my husband, Paul. It’s the dinner invitations from other couples that no longer come. It’s learning to ride the tractor and unfreeze the well and remembering to start both cars on a regular basis so the batteries won’t die. It’s doing my chores, and his, and trying not to be lonely at night when the house is too quiet and there’s no one to talk to.

For me, the war is knowing that — best case scenario — these changes will define my life for the next year, and worst case, the changes will be permanent.

I want this war to be over more than anything I’ve ever wanted in my life, but that’s not why I cry. I cry because I am so relieved that Paul isn’t home to see this.

My husband fights this war. He risks his life every day. We have both made sacrifices for it. And to hear them say that it’s “a waste of time,” that it “will never make a difference,” that “we should call the whole thing off” — well, if that’s true, I’m not sure I’ll get out of bed tomorrow morning. There has to be a reason that our family — and thousands of others — are enduring this.

Paul believes that he is making a difference in this world. I have to believe that, too. As an Oregon National Guard wife, there is an unspoken code that assumes you won’t participate in anti-war sentiment, but that’s not what stops me from joining them. As I watch, I feel anger, not kinship.

The fact is, I didn’t really understand war until I married someone who fought it.

When I met Paul, he was already a combat veteran. He had served peacekeeping tours in Egypt and Israel, and tours that were anything but peaceful in Iraq. When he flirted with me, I told him I didn’t date military guys. When I caught him reading “The Art of War,” I thought he was a barbarian. When I met his Army friends, I was disgusted by the glorified battle stories they told. When he quit his civilian job and started wearing a uniform every day, I was proud when people thanked him for his service.When he left for Afghanistan, I quit my job to start a military support business. Sometimes you don’t know how you’ll react to something until you live it.

Lately, I read blogs by soldiers on the front lines. It’s the fastest way I know to be depressed and inspired all in one sitting. One of them writes:

“It’s easy to say we shouldn’t be at war, when you’re not the ‘we.’e_SEnS”

I didn’t become the “we” until Sept. 17, 2006, the day I married Paul, three years into the war in Iraq. And even then, I am only the “we” in the sense that I am joined legally and spiritually with a man who is. I’m the “we” beside the “we.”

The protesters say they support the troops, but not the war. To me, that’s impossible. I spent 10 years as a newscaster. If someone told me they supported newscasters but hated the news and thought it should be taken off the air, how supported would I feel? How can you say to someone, “I support your right to do your job — I even benefit when you do it well — but I think what you do is horrible and wrong and I’m resentful that it’s being done at all”?

How can we support the troops when we’re constantly telling them that what they do every day is wrong and they should be ashamed of doing it? How can we expect them to do their jobs well if by doing their jobs they are carrying out a war that we have labeled immoral? And if they don’t do their jobs well, don’t we all suffer?

Maybe what people really want is for the war to end — but for the protection our troops provide to continue. Without it, they may not have the right to speak out about the war, or the missions that comprise it, or the troops that carry out those missions.

Last summer we were in Ashland for a military ball. All of the soldiers and their dates were staying at the same hotel. When it was time for the party, we emerged from that hotel to a dozen female protesters, dressed in black and lining both sides of the sidewalk. They held hand-made signs about the body count in Iraq. We either had to cross the street, or walk right through them.

Paul and I were holding hands and looking forward to the evening. He was wearing his navy blue dress uniform and I had on a new white dress, strapless with a knee-length ruffled skirt. The air was comfortably warm and the sun had just started to set — the kind of summer evening in Oregon that makes you forget all the rain.

We walked through the protesters. They were silent. So were we. I shook my head in confusion. Why do people assume that if you wear a uniform, you’re in favor of the war? And how could they possibly think that 300 Oregon National Guard soldiers in town for a party had anything to do with planning the war they were protesting? These guys are just cogs in the wheel, following orders and hoping to come home alive.

“You’ll join us when your husband dies,” one of the protesters whispered.

I wheeled around, but felt Paul’s hand tighten sharply around mine before I could open my mouth. We kept walking. That night, we didn’t yet know about the deployment. What I did know was that my husband was a good man, and that neither of us wanted this war.

Paul joined the Army when he was a teenager — seven years before Sept. 11, 2001. He joined before we knew what the world would look like today. He joined because he feels that it is his duty to serve his country.

And thank God. Because what I now understand is this: The future of our country — our honor, our dignity, our freedom — rests on the shoulders of volunteers. Volunteers! And if my husband didn’t go to defend us, who would?

He didn’t have to go. His brother and father didn’t. My brother didn’t. (My father did, during Vietnam, but I never thought once about his service or sacrifice until I married Paul.)All of us could choose to stay home with our families and wait until the terrorists come to find us individually. I’m pretty sure that in Monroe, Ore., population 680, chances are good they never would.

But instead, Paul and thousands of men and women like him left their families, put their lives on hold, and went to meet the terrorists head on. And shouldn’t our reaction to that be solemn, tearful, overwhelming gratitude?

Forget “support.” We owe them our thanks.

There was a time I might have attended a peace rally. But that was before I became an Army wife. Before I understood the things that only become clear when your husband — or son, or brother, or father, or sister, or daughter, or wife, or mother — is the one fighting the war. When you are part of the “we.” When you have lent your loved one to Uncle Sam to fight for all of those who have their loved ones safe at home and out of harm’s way.

And here’s the dirtiest secret of all. I believe there should be mandatory military service for all of us. Maybe if every American served this country, we would all be in it together. We would all ride the wave of hope, fear, pride, panic, uncertainty and unconditional love that comes with being a military family in the middle of a deployment. We could all support each other.

And no one could condemn what my husband does for a living, because their husbands would be serving beside him. Freedom would cost each one of us exactly the same amount — instead of being a gift bestowed by a very few that pay a tremendous price. A gift that so many of us forget to say “thank you” for.

My husband has lost dozens of acquaintances and two very good friends to this war. One died in combat. The other returned safely from his tour of duty, but couldn’t forget the things he had seen. He killed himself a short time later. Paul thinks of the first every time he faces dangers on the battlefield. And he thinks of the second every time he does what he has to do to stay safe. The guilt from both is always with him.

I want my husband to come home. I want the war to be over, and for no other families to have to go through a deployment. But more than that, I want the 4,000 deaths that we have suffered in this war to mean something.

The truth is, I don’t care about life in Iraq or Afghanistan or what happens there. But I care very much that every American soldier who gave his or her life didn’t do it for nothing. I don’t want our country to make any more sacrifices for this war — but I want the sacrifices we have already made to matter. Unfortunately, I can’t see any way to have both.

This line made my blood boil
“You’ll join us when your husband dies,”