Something in common
I went to a pre-deployment briefing tonight. It's the Army's way of trying to make sure all the wives being left behind know basically what to expect from a deployment. What that amounts to is two hours of PowerPoint presentations and guys in BDU's talking-- there's lots of good information shared, but much of it is repetitive if you've spent any significant amount of time around the Army.
So I took the chance to people-watch a little. The military community is a very interesting thing. In some ways, it's completely diverse. There are people of every color, from all walks of life. In a meeting like this, with spouses, you'll see homemakers, career women, and girls that look like they just finished high school--lots of those, actually. Many of us would never have met each other outside the Army, and many of the women in the auditorium tonight I will never say a word to.
But we all have something in common, the women in that room tonight with me, we're all staring down at least a year away from our husbands. And the funny thing is how normal it feels. Not that I'm looking forward to it, and not that I think it will be easy, but it's just something that I've accepted as part of the military lifestyle. It's something we have to go through. It's rather surreal, sitting in an auditorium with a few hundred people, listening to a commander tell us about casualty notification procedures. I sat there wondering what everyone else was doing with this information: How many were personalizing it, imagining themselves being notified about their husband's death, how many were just blocking that whole part of the presentation out, how many were purposefully making the information just another piece of data-- nothing special or emotional, just another bit of information to filed away. And I couldn't help but wonder if someone sitting in that room with me tonight would be made a widow sometime in 2005. Looking at these faces, most young, some with children, some leaning their heads on their husbands' shoulder, I just couldn't help wonder what challenges, hardships and heartbreak faced each one in the coming year.
We share so much in common, and yet we each must face this test alone. There are friends and families for support, but when it comes down to it, on those nights when you lay in your bed crying, wanting nothing in the world more than to just have the man you love wrap his arms around you and tell you it's okay, on those nights, you're alone. On those nights, you have to face the pain and lonliness and fear of all of this by yourself.
So I took the chance to people-watch a little. The military community is a very interesting thing. In some ways, it's completely diverse. There are people of every color, from all walks of life. In a meeting like this, with spouses, you'll see homemakers, career women, and girls that look like they just finished high school--lots of those, actually. Many of us would never have met each other outside the Army, and many of the women in the auditorium tonight I will never say a word to.
But we all have something in common, the women in that room tonight with me, we're all staring down at least a year away from our husbands. And the funny thing is how normal it feels. Not that I'm looking forward to it, and not that I think it will be easy, but it's just something that I've accepted as part of the military lifestyle. It's something we have to go through. It's rather surreal, sitting in an auditorium with a few hundred people, listening to a commander tell us about casualty notification procedures. I sat there wondering what everyone else was doing with this information: How many were personalizing it, imagining themselves being notified about their husband's death, how many were just blocking that whole part of the presentation out, how many were purposefully making the information just another piece of data-- nothing special or emotional, just another bit of information to filed away. And I couldn't help but wonder if someone sitting in that room with me tonight would be made a widow sometime in 2005. Looking at these faces, most young, some with children, some leaning their heads on their husbands' shoulder, I just couldn't help wonder what challenges, hardships and heartbreak faced each one in the coming year.
We share so much in common, and yet we each must face this test alone. There are friends and families for support, but when it comes down to it, on those nights when you lay in your bed crying, wanting nothing in the world more than to just have the man you love wrap his arms around you and tell you it's okay, on those nights, you're alone. On those nights, you have to face the pain and lonliness and fear of all of this by yourself.
posted by Rebekah at 9:10 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home