A soldiers wife~

There is something about the military that never leaves you. Its been two years since Jeremy was in the Army but it feels like only yesterday I was pacing desperatly in front of the phone waiting for him to call. Yesterday Kattie and I dove into deep conversation about deployment. Her husband, Paul, is currently serving his 4th tour in Iraq. When he comes home in May he will have been gone for 15 months. I'm not going through what Kattie is going through right now. Part of me wishes I was, only so that she wouldn't feel so alone. We did the previous 3 deployments together... an experience like no other that will bring best friends even closer together. No, I'm not in her place anymore. Yet, I feel strangly drawn to the media, to poems about soliders, to pictures of our past. Its like, I just can't seem to get it out of my head. I can't seem to move on completly. I long to be the Army wife I once was... but at the same time, I never ever ever want those experiences again.

Right now I can assure you that my heart is swollen and I'm trying to hold back tears. I posted a bulletin on myspace yesterday that litterally had me almost bawling. A bulletin that most of my friends will over look just because it mentions the word soldier in the title. A bulletin that everyone else will close out of, unchanged, the same as they were before they opened it. What they don't understand is the truth that it holds. The sincerity of the photos. The tears that some women will shed because it was their loved one that died. The ignorant people, the untouched people, the unthankful people... these are the people our soldiers fight for.

My husband may read this. It might bring back a collection of memories to him. The sounds. The smells. The sights. Things I've never seen and can only imagine. He knows things that not even the photos he brought back with him can describe to me. I don't want to know the things he knows. I'm thankful I didn't have to see the things he saw. I'm thankful It was him who heard the explosions, the gun shots, the screams. I'm thankful it was my husband and not yours. Something you'll never understand that I'm thankful for. I'm proud of my husband. I'm proud of myself. I'm so very very proud of my best friend, Kattie, and her husband Paul for being so gracious. For enduring what no man or woman should have to endure. I'm thankful for all of the thousands of men and woman that have shed blood and died in a country full of hate...just so that you and I may sit here on our asses and write blogs.

If you chose to open the bulletin message on my myspace this is what you saw. A poem of truth. A story in the pictures. Lines that read things such as "You roll your eyes as a baby cries. He gets a letter with pictures of his new child, and wonders if they'll ever meet." or something like "You hear the jokes about the war, and make fun of men like him. He hears the gunfire, bombs and screams of the wounded."

Let me assure you. My husband and every soldier like him, was and is happy to have served for such an ungrateful country. My husband misses it. He longs to be over there instead of here with me. Not because he doesn't love me. Not because he doesn't want to kiss his kids goodnight everynight. No. He longs to be there so he can protect you while you sleep. So he can make sure you have food on your table, money in your bank account and gas in your car. He loves you and thats why he is amazing. He doesn't have to know you to want to make sure YOU can kiss your kids on the cheeks, so that you can hug your spouse. So that you can be the person you choose to be. You see, being a soldier or a soldiers wife, it never leaves you because it changes you. So do me a favor. The next time you see a soldier...or an x-soldier... go shake his hand. Tell him that you are thankful. That you love him the way he loves you. Unconditionally.