Soldier's Wife, Crazy Life

surviving deployment

Guide to the First 30 Days of a Deployment

by 14 Comments

Guide to the First 30 Days of a Deployment!

Deployment! I know I talk about deployment quite a bit on this blog. Deployments have been such a part of my life for so long, I have a lot to share. As time goes by, I get further away from my deployments but they still will always stick with me.

I have been thinking about what I would need if I was a new Military spouse getting ready for her first deployment. I know I would need encouragement, I would need to know it was going to be okay, and I think some sort of guide would help.

Guide to the First 30 Days of a Deployment

I remember reading in a magazine years ago that the first 30 days of a breakup are the hardest. This followed with an article about what to do each day to move ahead. A deployment is like a breakup in some ways. Although it is one that doesn’t last forever. You go through a lot of similar feelings of loss and sadness. Of wondering if there was a way your spouse didn’t have to get deployed and then eventually coming to some type of acceptance.

So here we go…

Your guide to the first 30 days of deployment.

Day 1 will be the day they leave, usually, it has been the morning for us so I did have a full day to get through before bedtime. If your spouse deploys at night, you can call the next day Day 1.

Day 1- Breathe. Relax. Get your kids together and tell them that you are all going to get through this. That you are there for them and you will make it through.

Day 2- Come up with a plan. A list of things you will do when your spouse is gone. Work on your hobbies? Redo the kitchen? Come up with at least 10 different projects you can focus on.

Day 3- Make a list of 5 friends you can call. When you want to get together with someone. Or if you really need something. Don’t be afraid to ask for help during the deployment.

Day 4- Buy some pretty stationary to write love letters on. You will be glad you did.

Day 5- Call your mom and cry your eyes out. If you don’t have a good relationship with her, call your Mother-In-Law, your sister or someone you can cry to. It’s okay to cry about this.

Day 6- Go get some ice cream or a yummy treat. You need it. You have made it almost a week.

Day 7- Find a new book to read. Go to the library and pick out a few. Ask your friends for suggestions.

Day 8– Start your first care package. Make it a themed one. Put all his favorite items in there.

Day 9- Start on your project list if you haven’t already. Complete at least one of them. Want to paint something? Pick a day you will do that, buy the paint and get started.

Day 10- Plan to have people over. Don’t know anyone in town? See if you can attend an event to meet people.

Day 11- Take your kids somewhere you have never been before. Maybe it is a new park. Maybe it is a new mall. Do something you haven’t done in the past. And take pictures.

Day 12– Write in your journal. Get it all out. Don’t have one? Go buy something pretty and start using it. You will be glad you did.

Day 13- Make a nice dinner. No cereal tonight. You are almost two weeks in. You got this.

Day 14- Plan a trip during the deployment. Make plans to visit home. If you can’t afford to travel, try a day trip. Put something on the calendar to look forward to.

Day 15- Try to attend an FRG meeting. Find out when the next one is and put it on the calendar. They might get a bad rap sometimes but they also can be a good way to connect.

Day 16- Start another one of your projects. Make plans to get it done.

Day 17- Binge watch a show. It’s okay. If you can’t binge watch, find time to watch a few episodes. Take your mind off the stresses of the last few weeks.

Day 18- Buy some bubble bath and enjoy. Grab your book and soak for a bit. You might have to wait until the kids are in bed but it will be worth it.

Day 19- Send another love letter. Make it silly. Spray some of your perfume. Why not?

Day 20- Talk to your spouse about an after deployment trip. Just throw out some ideas. You will want to go somewhere if only for a day or two.

Day 21- Invite a friend out for coffee even if you don’t feel like it. Talking with others will be good for you. It will be nice to get out and enjoy some girl time.

Day 22- Buy a new piece of clothing. On a tight budget? Hit the thrift stores. Just find something new for you.

Day 23- Join a new group. Heard of a book club you always wanted to try? Send an email and find out more details. Connecting with others will really help the time go by faster.

Day 24- Plan a potluck to celebrate one month down. Invite other spouses going through a deployment. It might seem like a little thing but making it through that first month is a big deal.

Day 25- Call his mom. She might be worried. She might be lonely. It will be good to hear from you. You are the two people in the world that miss that man more than anyone else.

Day 26- Start exercising every day if you don’t already do this. It is a great stress reliever.

Day 27- Plan another package. Ask your spouse what they need.

Day 28- Start a blog. Blogging during a deployment can be a great way to get things out. Don’t forget about OPSEC.

Day 29- Take your camera out for a photo walk. Doesn’t matter what kind of camera. It will do your heart good to get out there and take some new pictures.

Day 30- Celebrate the fact that you are now 30 days in. You are on your way. You got this deployment! You are making it, even if it is just a day at a time.

Going through a deployment right now? I hope this helps a bit!

Just know that you are not alone and a lot of us Military spouses have been through it before.

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

How To Conquer Deployment Sadness

by 4 Comments

How To Conquer Deployment Sadness

It’s D day. You have to say goodbye. You drop them off. You hug and kiss for the last time. You drive away and then what? Sadness, just sadness and it can last for a while.

At least that is how it goes for me. Just a feeling of sadness. Sad that you had to say goodbye, sad that you are alone, sad that you can think of everything they are going to miss.

So how do you conquer this deployment sadness? How do you start to feel joy?

Well…we are 3.5 weeks in to this deployment and I think I have turned a corner. I don’t really feel that sadness as much. Yes, I am sad he is gone, I miss him like crazy and I still hate the fact that he is deployed but it is different than it was the first few weeks.

I knew this. I knew that as sad as I felt, it would get better and it has.

I saw a friend of mine the day after he left. She asked how I was and I said I felt like I was in some bad dream. It just didn’t feel real. It just felt sad.

Now if someone asks I can say, “I am ok, feeling a bitter better than I was.”

The first few weeks were so stressful, so painful and so exhausting. It wasn’t that I wasn’t sleeping, I was just emotionally spent. It still felt like he was here. I still had his laundry to put away. I kept thinking things like, “It was just last week we all went to the park together.” It is hard. It is like they are a ghost and they are just gone. You have to get used to that. It takes time before you get into your deployment mode and start to think that you actually can get through the next 200-300 days without your husband.

It is never going to feel normal. Never. It never will feel completely right. I can have a wonderful day, get home, put the kids to bed and then shed a couple of tears because I miss him. It isn’t going to feel 100% right again until he is home. At least that is the way it is for me.

We can have fun, we can have good days, we can go a whole week without a tear but it still will not be right until he is home.

So, how do you conquer the sadness? I don’t think there is much you can do. You can stay busy, you can journal, you can remind yourself 1,000 times that the deployment won’t last forever and that you won’t feel so horrible the whole time but the only true cure is time. You have to get through more and more days until you hit that deployment stride that will take to you the end.

It is just like when you are getting on a freeway with a really long on-ramp. You seem to be going in a circle for a while then finally you emerge on the freeway headed to your destination. That is how I feel right now. I have survived the first few weeks of yuck. Our one month mark is just around the corner. I am finally on the freeway. I still have a long way to go but at least we are finally headed at a better pace.

I really do think the first month and last month of a deployment are the worst. You just have to get through them. One day at a time or one hour at a time if you must.

Anyone else just hit this point?

Staring The Big Fat Deployment Mountain In the Face

by 4 Comments

Staring The Big Fat Deployment Mountain In the Face

When deployment is staring you in the face, you can’t help but think of the time your husband is going to be away. I am already thinking about my kids and how much they will change. When my husband gets back my oldest will be working his way to 10-years-old. Wow! That is a weird thought. My now 6-year-old will be 7 and in the middle of his 1st grade year. My now 2.5 year old will be getting close to 3.5 and will be a completely different child.

When thinking of the upcoming deployment I am also thinking about how the kids will react. I am sad for my oldest. He is going to take it the hardest. He will also remember this time period. My middle son, I just don’t know. My 2.5 year old is going to have a hard time but being that he is so young I don’t think it will really affect him long-term. At least I hope not. You never really know about the little ones. The ones that can’t fully tell you how they are feeling about it.

We have been through deployments before but this one feels different. It will be different because all deployments are different. This is also the deployment that wasn’t supposed to happen for us but with the Army being the Army that changed. I am still trying to get over that but it is hard.

I have been thinking about the time that he will be away and how all of us will change. When he gets back our kids will be different. I will be different. We will not be doing the same things we are doing right now. There will never be another time like right now for our family. Where my 8, 6 and 2-year-old are getting ready to enjoy the summer. Where I am working hard to further my own career from home. Where I sit at the base of a deployment shaped hill and wonder how on earth I am going to get to the other side.

IMG_5193

Maybe he just needs to leave. I know that statement is hard for people who have not gone through a deployment to understand. When you know they have to deploy, when there is nothing you can do to change that, you have to let it go and when you get to that point you are just ready for it to start. You want to start counting down.

When my husband went to JRTC earlier this year I had quite a few, “Oh my! How can I make it through a whole deployment if this is so hard” moments.  But then I started to think about it a little bit. Once the deployment starts and I have moments like that…the deployment will have an expiration date. It might change a few times but I will have a general idea about when it will be over. I will know it won’t last forever. Maybe that will make it a little easier than just having him away for pre-deployment training thinking about future fears.

On December 31, 2006 I stood on the balcony of my German stairwell apartment watching the fireworks with my husband. It was New Year’s Eve and I was not excited about 2007. I knew it was going to be a hard year. I had no idea how hard. My husband was home on R&R. I thought he would be gone for another five months and it ended up being 11. That is a little bit about how I feel right now. That I have something ahead of me that doesn’t look too good. Lonely nights, lonely days, missing him, missing all the little things our family does together that we won’t be able to do for a time. It isn’t fun. But it is what it is.

I know that time will pass and we will get through this deployment. I will be writing a homecoming post sometime in the future. I will get through it somehow. I know it will change me. I am not sure how.

All I can do is pray and find ways to stay busy. I am not looking at this deployment as a way to become a better person. Right now all I can do is figure out ways to survive it. Maybe that will change. Maybe one day I will wake up one morning in a few months and realize that this deployment can be more than that for me.

But for now…I am in survival mode. I just need to get through this. I just need the time to pass so our family can be whole again.

Are you also Staring The Big Fat Deployment Mountain In the Face?

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

Too Much Deployment

by 7 Comments

Yellow Ribbons

I am sure by now you have heard about what happened in Afghanistan. An Army staff sergeant shot and killed 16 Afghan civilians, including nine children 🙁

There are a lot of reasons why people think this happened. Maybe he had been deployed too much, maybe he was having too many personal problems, maybe he just went crazy or maybe he just did something awful.

One of the first things I thought when I heard about this is that he probably had been deployed too much and for too long.

And he isn’t the only person to be in that position. There are a lot of Military men and women that have simply spent too much time over there. They are not given enough time at home. Not everyone can handle that although some can. What should the Military do about it?

Back in 2007, we were a part of a deployment extension. Our 9-month deployment got pushed to 12 months and then to 15. I still remember sitting with some ladies right after the news hit. We were in shock. We could not believe that our husbands were going to be deployed that long. Some friends of mine got pregnant on R&R and assumed that their husbands would be there for the birth. Not only did the husbands miss the births but they came home to 2-month-olds. My middle son was born in the middle of this deployment. Ben came home from R&R when he was 3 days old and said goodbye to him when he was about 2.5 weeks old. He didn’t see him again until he was 11 months old. I knew of other people that went over a year between R&R and homecoming. And then there is what happened up in Alaska. Some of the Soldiers had just come home, others about to leave for home and some still in Iraq.  All to be told that they were to spend four more months in Iraq.

The thing about this is that even though this was in 2007 and even though Ben has been deployed two more times since then, that 15-month deployment still stings. That was just too long of a time to have a husband deployed. Too long to have him in a war zone without any break. It was hard to them, especially when they hit the year point. They should have been getting ready to go home but they still had a few more months to go.

HomecomingI pray so hard that we never have to go through something like that again. When your husband joins the Military, you know they will be gone but you are still human and super long deployments just break you.

And now, it is 2012 and I think, “How did I get through that?  How did I go so long without my husband?”  I guess somehow you just get through things because you have to.

When I hear stories like the one up above I want to ask the Military to please make things a little easier for everyone. Please try harder to give people longer periods of time at home. Try your best to avoid sending anyone there over a year. And please, help those that are having trouble after deployments heal before they have to go back for another tour. I hope that is not asking too much.

Can I Really Make it Through This Deployment?

by 8 Comments

 

Can I Really Make it Through This Deployment?

Can I Really Make it Through This Deployment?

I was looking through some of the keywords that people use to come to this blog and “Can I Really Make it Through This Deployment?” came up a few times.  I want to tell these people that although it does seem hard, you can make it through.  The time before they leave can be really difficult.  You wonder what it will be like, if you can do this time alone, if you can parent alone if you can handle him being in a war zone, etc.  It is hard to know exactly what to expect, even if you have gone through one before.

You never really know how you are going to feel or what the deployment will be like.

Each one is a little different.

There have been times during all of our deployments that I just wondered how I would make it one more day.  I felt burned out and just done with everything. But somehow I was able to pick myself back up and get on with it.  Sometimes it was because of a lot of prayers, other times it was getting together with a friend and sometimes I would even have to give myself a pep talk.  A lot of tears might have been shed but that is how I got through the deployment.

I think we try to be strong and don’t think we can ever cry about what is going on.  We even hear people say we shouldn’t complain.  But some days you just have to break down. You just have to let everything all out before you can move on to the next day.  It is ok to have a bad deployment day, to have ice cream for dinner, to cry to a friend. This is all a part of getting through the months or even years alone. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

Each of us handle this type of things differently and just because a friend never seems to have a bad day, it doesn’t mean you can’t or won’t.

So to those of you afraid for your first deployment and think you won’t be able to make it through, if you love your husband, if you are committed to him, then you will.  You will be able to make it through.  You will get through the X amount of months and come out stronger on the other side. You will. Sometimes it might feel like you are just getting through one day at a time. The days can feel long and frustrating. That is all apart of your journey. Try to remember that deployments don’t last forever and you will be reunited with your spouse once again and the whole crazy thing will be over. You will get to homecoming, I promise. You will be back in his arms and the deployment will be a part of your memories, for good or for bad.

What advice would you give to someone facing their first deployment?

 

* this post contains affiliate links!

Writing Handwritten Letters When Your Spouse is Overseas

by 2 Comments

I left for college in 1997 and email was very new. My dad hooked us up with Prodigy and then AOL when I was in high school but it wasn’t until I started college that most of my friends had email too. For the first few years, we still wrote handwritten letters to each other. 

I loved that and I miss how we use to do that all the time. I had this box filled with stationery and I loved getting it out and writing my friends letters. Updating them on my life and what was going on.

By the time, I graduated college email was more the norm, and these days we mostly use email for business reasons or transactions, or to get promotions to our favorite or not-so-favorite stores and restaurants. As much as I love how easy it is to connect with pretty much anyone these days, I miss those handwritten letters.

Ideally, each deployment would be filled with handwritten love letters between my husband and me but it just didn’t happen that way with us this last deployment. Communication was actually a big issue between us and one I hope we can work out before he has to leave again. There is something special about getting a letter in the mail written in his handwriting knowing he touched the same paper I was reading. There is something magical about it all.

I do have to be thankful, though.  Back when my Grandparents were going through WW2 all they had were handwritten notes.  No chatting on Skype for them.  No phone calls and no emails. They also didn’t even know when my Grandpa would be home. Can you imagine? What a different time we live in.

Writing Handwritten Letters To Your Spouse Overseas

Do you write a lot of handwritten letters during deployment or do you depend more on email/Skype?  Do you write handwritten letters to friends?