Soldier's Wife, Crazy Life

Deployment

Advice For Your First Deployment

by 3 Comments

Advice For Your First Deployment

Advice For Your First Deployment

My next guest post is by a friend of mine, Jess.  She was the very first Army wife I met when we started this Army adventure. She was also my FRG leader.  I asked her to write about advice she would give someone who was getting ready for their first deployment.  Our first deployment was in 2006 and Jess was there to tell me a little bit of what to expect so I just knew this would be a great post!  Thank you Jess 🙂

Stressed? Emotional? Perhaps even a bit stand-offish? Sounds like you’ve got a deployment coming up. The bad news is your Soldier is leaving. The good news is you aren’t alone!

There is no specific way to handle a deployment, especially your first deployment. Some people take it all in stride and seem to brush off the hardship. Others seem to physically break down the second their Soldier marches away. Still others seem to change entirely and don’t seem to return to normal until their Soldier is back in their arms again. No matter which category you find yourself falling into, remember this: You are STRONG. You are CAPABLE. You CAN do this!

Just as parenting a child has no actual guidebook, deployments don’t come with magic spouse field manuals. However, let’s not speak that phrase too loudly. I’ve seen some pretty crazy things put into FM’s before. The greatest way to make it through the hardships of a deployment are to simply listen to your heart, listen to other’s advice and pray. If you feel overwhelmed, talk to someone! Believe me, there are a lot of us out there who are willing to listen and lend a hand (or a shoulder) when necessary. Don’t be afraid to ask.

One of the greatest things you can do for yourself is to set personal goals.. You don’t have to get crazy with it; the point of a goal is to be able to accomplish it. Set mini-milestones throughout to ensure you stay focused and on-target. A big favorite that I’ve seen is weight-loss/healthier lifestyles. Say you set a goal to lose 25 pounds throughout the year. Remember to start off in small increments, and celebrate each 5 pounds you are able to lose. This is a great way to have something realistic to look forward to in a relatively short time! The greatest part is-IT’S ALL YOURS! It’s very easy to lose yourself in the constant stress during a deployment. Don’t forget that your Soldier still needs you just as much as you need him/her. Take care of yourself, even while supporting your deployed loved one.

If I could offer just one last bit of advice, it would be to stay busy and not forget that the world is still going round. It’s very common to feel bad about going out and having fun while your loved one is away, but remember, you need your personal time as well. It’s ok to go catch a movie with the girls, or secure a babysitter for a few hours of pampering at the salon every now and again. You are HouseHold 6. You keep the home fires burning. You can’t take care of anyone else unless you take care of yourself first. Make yourself a priority, especially while your loved one is away. Don’t lose yourself to the chaos and stress, and always reach out if you need help. You follow a long legacy of the Silent Ranks. You can do this!

 

 

Dinosaur Deploys

by 4 Comments

My next guest poster is Laura from Military Word of Mouth.  She has a great idea for kids to help them through a deployment!  I know my boys would have loved something like this 🙂

Lately, I have been going through things trying to get rid of some stuff to prepare for our next move. Probably, pretty soon our landlady will be calling to let us know that someone is coming over to see the house to potentially rent for next year. While going through a bookshelf, I found one of my son’s photo albums from last year.


It’s just a small 4″x6″ album that I found at Walgreens for like a $1.00, but to him it was priceless. You see it contains photos of his dinosaur on an adventure, and not just any adventure, but an adventure with his daddy. When my husband deployed last January, my son gave my husband one of his dinosaurs to hug whenever he missed him.

So, my husband took pictures of the dinosaur on his deployment adventure and would send them to my son either by email or by snail mail.


I can not tell you how much my son loved this, but when he saw the pictures, his face would beam. He even asked if he could bring the album to show and tell to share with his friends at preschool.

Having a parent deployed is such a hard concept for a young child to understand and accept. This is such a simple way to help ease their pain, if only for a bit. If your spouse is deploying shortly, ask your child if he or she would like to share one of his/her small stuffed animals. If your spouse is already deployed consider sending it over in the next package you mail out. Have your child be the one to put it in the box so he feels like he is helping his daddy miss home a little less. If your spouse doesn’t have a camera, throw in a disposable one.

Top 25 annoying Army Deployment Questions and Comments

by 4 Comments

Stephanie has offered a guest post to me 🙂  She blogs over at Mama Clementine!  She is a SAHM of four, been an Army Wife for 11 years and been through five deployments.  Thanks so much for the post Stephanie!

Top 25 annoying Army Deployment Questions and Comments

 

annoying Army Deployment Questions
Rakkasan  Deployment 2007
Matthew 11, Dylan 7, Lauren 5 

This morning I was reading a post over at Caffeinated Catholic Mamaof how people have lost all sense of personal-space and privacy, either because of our over sharing techno culture or maybe just a general lack of manners. She gives her wonderful list of Top annoying and prying questions from absolute strangers, Here.

While writing in her comments I was thinking that for me, being such a Counter-Culture Mama, the lists of random rude questions and offending comments from those that it just does not concern, could go on and on…ad infinitum. So, I thought for fun, I would make a small project out of several lists of obscenely annoying Questions and Comments that I have gotten from strangers, all neatly compiled into categories. 🙂
What follows is a list of my TOP 25 way too personal, yet oh so popular questions and all to common comments, that I have received during my husband’s Deployments.
      1. Oh, is your Husband Deployed ?
      2. Do you Miss Him ?
      3. Is it Hard ?
      4. Will they send Him home for the Birth ?
      5. Is it your Husband’s Baby or Jody’s ?
      6. Does your Husband know you’re pregnant ?
      7. Do you know who the Father is ?
      8. What will you do / How will you have a Baby by yourself ?
      9. Why do you have / keep having kids if he is gonna be gone so much ?
      10. Your children are so young, If he gets killed, they won’t remember him.
      11. Why do you have kids when, He could get killed anytime ?
      12. Your so Lucky you live off the government, the rest of us have to work.
      13. If you didn’t live off the government you wouldn’t be able to afford all those kids.
      14. Maybe your husband will die and you’ll get all that money.
      15. You should take out some more insurance on your husband, because he has a good chance of being killed.
      16. But, just think of all that extra money at Tax time.
      17. I don’t know how you could do that, I could never let my Husband do that.
      18. (My Sister-in-laws fave way of relating to me)…I know just how you feel, my Husband was out of Town, on the road, for two weeks last month !
      19. How can you be Faithful for 15 months ?
    annoying Army Deployment Questions
    Deployment 2003
    Dylan 2yrs

    20. Do you worry about your Husband cheating on you ?

    21.  You don’t think your Husband will wait a whole year do you ?

    22.  Don’t you all just sleep around with each others Husbands anyway ?

    23.  So, has your Husband Killed anybody yet ?

    24.  You could have gotten out / why would he stay in / It’s his fault he is Deploying / So he’s getting out after this right ?

    25.  Using up my time by going on a long rant about how you feel about the war and whether or not we should be “Over-There”

    ….and the  ***** Extra Credit Bonus*****

    So Wow, it is Just like Army Wives on The    T.V. Show

     

    The First Day they are Gone

    by 2 Comments

    The First Day they are Gone

    The First Day they are Gone

    The first day they are gone really sucks.  When they leave in the early morning vs afternoon/evening, the first day is even harder.  Why?  Because when they leave later in the day you have less of a first day to get through. You can come home and go to bed and then before you know it, you are on day two. This is such a little thing but the time of day makes a big difference.

    The first day they are gone you walk around your house in a daze.  You want to be out doing something but you don’t want to at the same time.

    The first day they are gone you see something you bought together at the store and looking at what you bought makes you cry.  You see their dirty laundry and the pile makes you cry. You would give anything for them to come home and add more dirty laundry to the pile.

    The first day they are gone you realize you can toss that almost empty bottle of shaving cream because no one is going to be around for a while to use it up.  And then you cry because no one will be around to use the shaving cream up.

    The first day they are gone you sometimes forget and then remember quickly that they are not coming home that night.  That you will be on your own for dinner, bedtime and you will sleep alone. Earlier in the day, you can almost pretend they are just at work. After dinner, you can’t do that anymore and reality starts to set in.

    The first day they are gone you wonder what he is feeling, what he is doing, where he is at. If he is scared or how much he is missing home. If he cried too even though you rarely see tears in his eye. If he wishes that at that moment, he had chosen a career that never took him from home.

    The first day he is gone you try to figure out how you are going to make X amount of days.  You wonder how you will be both mom and dad and how you will handle life when your children realize daddy won’t be coming home at night for a while. You know solo parenting is difficult and here you are having to do everything once again.

    The first day he is gone you are hit hard with how hard this military life can be sometimes and how strong you will have to be to make it through the deployment.

    The first day they are gone sucks, it really really sucks and you pray the second day they are gone is a little bit better. Because after day one is over, you are officially in deployment mode and you have a long road ahead of you. But at least, after day one is over you know you have one less day to get through until they come home.

    Want a Guide for the First 30 Days of a Deployment???

    Tour of Duty Preparing Our Hearts for Deployment by Sara Horn

    by Leave a Comment

    Tour Of DutyI am excited to share with you a book review of Tour of Duty Preparing Our Hearts for Deployment by Sara Horn.  Since becoming an Army wife in 2005, I am always on the lookout for a good book about our life & how to get through it.  I was excited to see Sara Horn had come out with a new devotional book on deployment.

    Deployments are such a part of our military lives but getting through one can be very difficult sometimes.

    I have been through 2 deployments and I felt like this book touched on so many of the thoughts & feelings I have experienced during the separations.  Included in each chapter are verses, questions and even “Tips for Military Wives.”  I think this book would be an awesome Bible study and would love to do it with a group of ladies someday.

    I also will be rereading this again when we start our next deployment.  There were some parts that I read where I knew it would be very helpful to go back and read during the middle of a deployment.  The chapter called “Facing the Giants” especially as it deals with those what ifs or worries we all seem to go through when our husband is deployed.

    Another thing I really liked about this book is her comparisons to biblical characters and what they have gone through in their lives.  It makes you realize that although our struggles might have looked different, they dealt with a lot of the same emotions we might deal with right now.

    One more small thing, I really really liked the cover of this book.  Something about the pink on the green 🙂

    The book has a Facebook page and you can buy the book from Lifeway 🙂

    I received a free copy of this book from Sara Horn for this review!

    Guest Post: Re-integration take 3

    by 1 Comment

    Today’s guest post is by Lauren at Faith and Deploying!  Check out her blog too 🙂
     
    Coming Back From Deployment

    “The snooze setting on an alarm clock should be banned” I remember thinking that the very next morning after my husband had only been home for approximately 6 hours and had to report for his in-processing. My husband has a habit of snoozing for HOURS! And his alarm goes off every 5 minutes. I definitely did not miss the snooze button during deployment number 3, or the tossing and turning, or the side swipes of the elbow at 3AM. I didn’t have any expectations this time when my husband came home like I did the last two and I think that helped us more than my husband will admit. He wanted to relax and while I did resent the fact that he was living in a hotel in beautiful Guam for 5 months having someone cook and clean for him, if he wanted to relax, well then it was his R&R. He did manage to clean up some things and help out more when I asked and I found myself not nagging him like normal. Usually I only had to request once, maybe twice if I asked through a text message and he seemed to want more time with me not sitting at home (which was completely out of the ordinary). Don’t get me wrong we had our fair share of blow ups and I definitely said my fair share of mean things, but honestly this re-integration has been the easiest. I think I amount that to how well we did this deployment with talking and not holding grudges and learning about our marriage.

    The hard thing about re-integration is you have lived another life, one without your husband there to rely on. You realize you can cry alone, fix the power washer as you scream at it in your back yard, manage to discipline the dog, cook dinner, and catch up on emails all without any help. You are the Queen on your Lair and then suddenly, even though you might prepare for it, another person is suddenly there always in the way and making a mess. I don’t think they mean to make a mess, but let’s be honest they have lived in a 12X12 box (if you’re my husband) and only had 1 maybe 2 bags of possessions. The only taste of home is probably whatever came in the care packages you sent. So now an 1800 square foot house becomes fair game for shoes, socks, jackets, underwear, or just mess that you have no idea where it comes from. Let’s face it, it’s an adjustment.

    I think the longer you are married the easier it gets. You learn to balance more and explain your way of living to your husband so he can help mold his bad habits out of the house when he is home. But he’s lived a different life too, one where all he had to do was get up to work every morning. If he wanted to sleep until 3pm and snooze that rotten alarm all morning long and eat whatever he wanted and play his video games for hours he could. But now that he is home, things are different. There is suddenly someone who needs attention and duties to fulfill with the house. Responsibilities he hasn’t had to think about or do for 5 months. It’s an adjustment.

    I haven’t quite figured out the knack to re-integrating, but I am happier with this adjustment period. I find myself less reliant on my husband and more independent. I have no problem leaving him and going to a meeting or going out with my girlfriends. And we have no  issue just telling each other when we are upset. It’s an adjustment, but I’d rather have the adjustment and have him home than to not have him anymore. And I may just have to disable the snooze button on his alarm…..

    Since the time for baby is getting closer and closer, I figured it might be a good idea to have some guest posts. My mind is mostly mush these days and not sure how much blogging I will feel like doing right after he is born.  If you are interested in writing a guest post for my blog, please feel free to email me about it at juliethearmywife@gmail.com.

    Battlefields and Blessings: Stories of Faith and Courage from the War in Iraq & Afghanistan Book Review and Giveaway

    by 9 Comments

    Stories of Faith and Courage from the War in Iraq and Afghanistan

    I was contacted by Jocelyn Green a bit ago about participating in a Veteran’s Week Blog Tour for the book Battlefields and Blessings: Stories of Faith and Courage from the War in Iraq & Afghanistan.  I am a huge fan of her book Faith Deployed so I knew any book she was apart of was going to be great.

    Battlefields and Blessings is a book made up of a bunch of different stories/devotionals. Co-authored by Jane Hampton Cook, Jocelyn Green and John Croushorn.

    The book has 1 entry for each day of the year. Now I read the book all the way through over a few weeks.  But you could also just read 1 entry a day based on the day or a couple each day.  The entries are from different people associated with the military in some way.  From Chaplains who work at the Pentagon who were there on 9/11, to military wives having to get through deployments.  A lot of people who wrote them have about 3-4 entries each.  I found this pretty cool because it let me know a little bit more about each of the people who wrote them.  At the end of each entry, there is a short prayer for us to read.  I could really see this book as a great tool to have during a hard situation such as a deployment. There are stories of faith, what people have gone through and some very inspirational thoughts that just stick with you.

    The people who wrote in this book felt very real to me.   Sometimes there were entries from a husband and wife and it was great to hear from both of them.  There were stories about 9/11, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and life back at home.  Stories from mothers and wives and from those who have been to war.  I also really enjoyed the layout and even how the book was put together.  Just a great mix of people.

    The one entry that sticks out to me was from a military wife Kerri Hartwick who lost her husband in Iraq.  One of the prayers listed said,  “Lord, prepare my heart for whatever you have in store for me.”  Really this is what we have to deal with in life.  We don’t know the future or if our prayers will be answered but we can know God is there for us through whatever we must go through. There were many other entries that made me feel very encouraged as well.

    Would you like to win a copy of this book?  Trust me it is amazing!  It is also autographed by Jocelyn Green.

    Here is how the giveaway will work…

    It starts now!  And it ends Sunday November 14th, 2010 at 11:59pm Central time.

    To enter please answer this question:

    What encourages you the most during a hard time?  Any favorite verses that come to mind?

    That is it!  Good luck 🙂

    PS make sure I have a way to email you if you win 🙂

    For more information here are the websites…

    Battlefields and Blessings: Stories of Faith and Courage from the War in Iraq & Afghanistan

    Faith Deployed

    I received a free signed copy of the book Battlefields and Blessings: Stories of Faith and Courage from the War in Iraq & Afghanistan for this review.  And an additional copy to giveaway to one of my readers.


    Prayers During a Deployment

    by 11 Comments

     

    Prayers During a Deployment

     

    Prayers During a Deployment

    Prayer has always been a part of my life.  When my husband is deployed I pray for him.  I also know he is on about 5-6 different military prayer lists at different churches around the country.  I know his family is praying for him.  I know his friends are too.

    But this is where I am stuck.  Will praying keep him safe?  I pray all the time he is safe.

    But the reality is people who have prayed for their husbands (or wives, sons, daughters, etc) have lost them 🙁   It’s hard because I just don’t understand it.  And maybe I am not supposed to.  Maybe I am just supposed to pray and trust that God will protect him?  Will more prayers from more people help him?

    I know that when people pray for my emotional state, I do feel better.  When we pray for families of the fallen, I hope that they do feel a little more comfort.  But praying to keep people safe is where I get confused.  Not that we shouldn’t do it, I think we should but I just get confused by it all.

    Prayer just feels very complicated to me right now. I want to believe that prayers will keep people safe, that they will heal them and that by doing so it will make life better. I want to believe I have power over it. At the end of the day, I really don’t and that is a very hard thing to let go of. I don’t want to have to think that my husband might not come back from war. I want to believe that he will be 100% safe and return to us so we can go on with our lives.

    With the recent news of even more deaths, I just get even more scared about my husband being over there.  Honestly, it terrifies me.  Mix that with bad feelings I have never had before, I just feel lost. It’s a scary thing to have to go through. To make a will, to have those discussions, to be afraid of a knock at the door. It is all a part of Military life and deployments and something the spouse just has to figure out a way to deal with.

    The reality is, that most of those who go over there come back. Most of them are okay and most people go on and have a life after deployment, although there might be a lot of struggles along the way. All we can really do is pray for them, pray for us and rest in the knowledge that God is there no matter what happens in the future.

     

    Anyone else struggle with this?