One husband. Three
kids. Five deployments. Thirteen moves. Seventeen
years of military marriage. Thirty-nine years
of military brat status. An overseas tour.
A baby born while Dad was deployed. When Jacey
Eckhart adds up the elements of her life,
she doesn't find the script for the season
finale of "Desperate Housewives." Instead
Jacey has found the material for over 400
newspaper columns. Since 1998, "The Homefront"
has run in The Virginian Pilot, in Norfolk,
VA, home of the largest Navy base in the world.
Her book, "The
Homefront Club: The Hardheaded Woman's Guide
to Raising a Military Family" is now available.
I just don't get it. Why can't our military folks be like those people
on the Starship Enterprise? I always loved those episodes in the old
show when the little starship family all happily deployed in their
quarters together.
"I could do that," I told my husband before his first deployment.
"I could zip into one of those velour outfits with the pointy breasts.
Strap into a pair of high heeled black go-go boots. Braid my hair
into a checkerboard and poof!"
"Poof?"
"Yeah, poof!" I said, arms akimbo. "I'm ready to go on a five year
mission. To seek out new worlds and new civilizations. To boldly go..."
"I think that's why they won't let you join the military," Brad said.
"Besides, Star Trek only showed the families if one of them was about
to die. Especially if the guy had a red shirt on. And he worked in
Engineering."
"Oh. Well. Forget I said anything."
But I still secretly thought the Department of Defense ought to adopt
the idea of deploying the whole family on the ship of the future.
For years, I thought that. Then I read about this Kentucky National
Guard couple.
Sgt. Amanda McCormick and Staff Sgt. Todd McCormick deployed to Iraq
with the 940th Military Police Company, a Guard unit from Walton,
Ky. They are one of four couples in their unit who married prior to
the deployment last November.
In a letter emailed to her Congressman, Sgt. Amanda McCormick complained
about a policy that prohibits deployed married couples from indulging
in any sexual contact, including kissing and hand holding.
"We are stationed on the same base, in the same unit. Instead of that
fact being comforting, it has made us sick with worry," McCormick
said in her letter, which she also shared with her local paper the
Herald-Leader. "We are not allowed to live together. We are not allowed
to spend time alone with each other. Basically, in a nutshell, we
are not allowed to be married."
Not allowed to be married? Just because they aren't having sex? Tell
that to the rest of the married people in their unit. Tell that to
the married people waiting at home. Tell that to every other dual
military couple who manages to figure this thing out without writing
their congressman.
Deployment isn't a slumber party. It isn't a honeymoon. It isn't some
campy TV show. There aren't quarters for married couples any more
than there are velour uniforms or high-heeled combat boots or room
to raise families on ships or aircraft of any kind.
That isn't the news the McCormicks want to hear, I'm sure. I bet they
would much rather someone would suggest that they have the same rights
as prisoners and that they be granted conjugal visits. That it isn't
natural for married couples to be in the same place yet refrain from
having sex!
But here is a hard truth. We expect more from our military people.
We expect them to put the good of other people, even other people
in their unit, above themselves. We expect them to learn that marriage
-- civilian or military or something in between -- is about so much
more than a physical relationship. It has to be or it does not survive.
That's a hard lesson to learn. It's a hard lesson for every one who
goes through a deployment. It is especially hard for a young, newlywed
couple to learn.
But the McCormicks have a choice here: they can see this as the worst
deprivation, or they can count themselves lucky. Unlike most of the
other married folks in their unit, they can talk face to face. They
can eat together. Their boots can touch under the table. She can watch
him laugh. He can watch her walk away and think about what she might
look like in some go-go boots.
The McCormicks are experiencing one of the biggest events in their
lives. I'm sure it is as hot and stressful and dangerous as it can
be. But they are, at least, together.
