Expectations

I never expected it to be so damn windy in Texas.  I expected it to be still, dry and hot—something like Arizona, maybe.  Of course, nothing is really what I expected it to be when I married Caynan. 

I never expected to feel so lonely, so isolated, so out-of-place and out of sorts all the time, always in that in-between place of neither here nor there, neither this nor that.  As an Army wife (excuse me, Army "spouse"), you are no longer a civilian but you are not a soldier either. 

I don't know what military life was like before 9/11, but I can tell you what it is like now: and it isn't quirky and whacky and "just like civilian life but different."

Casualties of War

My ex-husband called me the other day and asked me what a "Blue Star wife" was.  I explained that it was a wife whose husband was serving in combat. 

Then I asked him if he knew what a Gold Star Wife was.  Of course he didn't.

"That's a wife whose husband has died in combat."

"Wow," he replied, "that's, uh, kind of sick, isn't it?"

I laughed.  I knew what he meant.  The "gold star" comes across as a quasi-cultural "WAY TO GO!" for the surviving family member (as the term technically applies to the entire family).  And let us not forget the "silver star" for the family of a servicemember wounded in a war!

There is no star for a lifetime of sacrificing one's own career and/or educational aspirations to support a servicemember.  In times of peace, as well as war, the military demands that family comes second to the military.  ("Army needs come first!")   The household moves are frequent (every two to three years).  The inability of the servicemember-parent to participate in parenting brings tremendous challenges to working in an era where two-income households are the norm for maintaining a decent standard of living.  The lack of family, friends, and community makes loneliness an expectation, not just a fear.

What color star should a spouse get for years of living like this?

These designations are all "unofficial" of course.  Everything pertaining to the familial appendages known as the spouse and children of the servicemember is unofficial.

As for Army spouses (like myself), we exist in this in-between world.  We are no longer civilians yet we are not "soldiers" either.  We are expected to live the military life without being seen, heard, prepared, paid, or recognized for our service.  We are called "the silent ranks" but really, we are invisible too.  The "new" Army likes to say it "recruits the soldier but retains the family" but the reality of "if the Army wanted you to have a family it would have issued you one" remains.

We are outsiders living inside an institution that doesn't want to see or hear us.  Civilians and law-makers lack interest in our experiences with the military as well as with the wars--yet our experiences with these are second only to those of the servicemember.   There aren't any star-studded galas for our service and sacrifice or public service announcements and national dialogues about how war affects us (and/or our children).

Veterans' rights advocates talk to the "signature" wounds of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder.  Both are "invisible".  Both are hard to diagnose.  Both fundamentally alter the servicemember in ways that are complex and confusing--to the afflicted and the non-afflicted alike.

Also unseen, however, are the injuries of those who love the servicemember, whose own changes, traumas, afflictions frequently go unidentified and untreated as well.  We call our returning warriors with invisible injuries the "walking wounded"; I include military spouses and children in that definition.

You don't have to wear a uniform to be wounded by these wars—but no one outside of those of us impacted seem to know this. 

There are many things that I may not be able to tell you about actual combat, but this much I know is true:  by the time this deployment is over, my husband will not be the only veteran in this marriage.

A Call to Arms

Nothing prepares you for war.  There is no training center for the spouses.  You are either going to make it or you won't. 

My husband, Caynan, is a helicopter pilot for the Army.  A few nights before he left we went over all the materials the families were given by the unit in preparation for their departure: the handy flip chart with emergency information about my husband's unit, how to get a Red Cross message to him in case of a family emergency here (as if they would let him leave the combat zone for it anyway), information about communication black outs, who will contact me if something happens to him, etc..

When I go inside the house, Caynan has gone up to bed already.  He has been feeling sick and nauseas for the past few days.  It must be that pre-deployment bug.  It's a nasty SOB.

We were supposed to watch a movie in bed together but he just wanted to go to sleep.  I sit on the floor next to the bed and started rubbing his back.  He didn't even open his eyes.  Much to my horror, and for the first time since we knew he was going to deploy, I started to weep (you know, that silent, expressionless weeping where tears roll down your face through no effort at all on your part).

Feeling like I needed to do something, say something, I told Caynan I loved him.

"Oh, that makes me feel better, hearing that," Caynan said softly.

I smiled quickly and kept rubbing his back.  The tears continued.  I swear to God, I could be blind-folded and if one thousand men were placed in front of me without their shirts, I could identify my husband just by feeling their bare backs: the skin, the angles, the slopes.  So many years, I studied and loved his back, from the nape of his neck to the shoulder blades to the small of it just below his waist.

Caynan opened one eye, "Okay, please stop crying, you're going to make me feel bad."

I did--as quickly and wordlessly as I started.

You cannot be a military wife without knowing how to compartmentalize your emotions.  Sometimes those feelings, or those tears, sneak up on you, but you learn how to reign them in.  The faster you learn how to do it, the better off you are.   But other times, when you find you can't feel anything at all, you wonder:  where does compartmentalization end and disassociation begin? 

A few days later, we spent the day in our ghetto pool (three by fifteen feet of "fun in the sun" courtesy of Super WalMart) with Caynan.  Caynan is holding me when I ask what he wants done with his remains if something happens to him… and since I went there, does he have a preference regarding particular personal items going to either boy?  Caynan lets go of me as looks at me as if these are unreasonable questions.

"Why do you insist on talking about these things?" he asks.  "You know how I feel about this."

I do know.  He doesn't like to have these conversations.  But who does?  Tired of being the villain I point out the reality of situation, "You're right, it won't matter to you by then, when you think about it," I say.

I am not meaning to be cruel, but factual.  Without a word, Caynan gets out of the "pool" (I use this term loosely) to get another beer.  This conversation is over in his mind.  Easy for him:  he won't be the one stuck making these decisions if something happens when he deploys.

When Caynan returns he is determined to...