BEING A MILITARY WIFE ON VETERAN'S DAY

So, remember in the introduction when I said I would be honest? I meant it. Sometimes even when it means sharing embarrassing stories and selfish parts of myself that aren't fun to look at. As a new military wife trying to figure stuff out, I know I pounce on posts of sincerity and raw experiences of other wives. I like to have my experiences normalized, and see that other people are sometimes as nutty as I am. I don't know if my future self will look back on this with more maturity and smile knowingly, or cry, or hide in shame, but I hope this brings some encouragement to someone...or just to myself when I read where I was then and the thought process I have sometimes! Although I admit, I haven't changed that drastically in the last few months. This is one of the posts I wrote hidden away on my old blog a number of months ago:

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I am a military wife. To say that marrying into the military was not on my radar before I met my husband would be an understatement. It wasn’t on my list of deal-breakers, it wasn’t in the back of my mind. It wasn’t anywhere. I simply didn’t think it could happen at all. There is a possibility this is due in part to the fact that I thought for a long time I would end up doing long-term missions overseas, and would move somewhere and end up marrying someone in whatever corner of the world I found myself in.

Enter my future spouse. Not only was he in the military, but he absolutely loved being in the military and was good at it, and had no intentions of getting out anytime soon. On the contrary, he wanted to stay in the military for a very long time. Clearly if I wanted the man, I had to make peace with this thing that he did that he loved so much.

Ironic as it was, thinking about what I had assumed my future might become, learning about the military was like stepping into a foreign land. Because of my cross-cultural experience I viewed the military as its own culture, which was to my benefit as I tried to navigate a million acronyms and terms I had never before been exposed to. There were even doubles of acronyms that meant different things depending on context, and there were ranks to learn and the organization of companies and battalions to try to grasp. Child’s play. There were mentalities unique to the military, and little things like learning the army is totally unpredictable and you don’t learn things when you wish you could learn them. It seemed at times just thinking about it that the army’s sole purpose was to come up with the best ways to challenge any woman who dared to be a planner and to desire some semblance of consistency or expectations of what a future might look like.

So there I was, doing my best to throw myself at the military culture with a hunger for knowledge and understanding and the nagging feeling that I would never understand it all. Sometimes it feels like my highest accomplishment would be knowing what a PCS was, what the name of the newest ACUs was, and that a staff sergeant’s rank is signified by three chevrons and a rocker - nevermind that I never used to know what chevrons and rockers might refer to prior to this exposure. I spent a lot of time researching, looking up what it’s like to be a military spouse, learning about Tricare insurance and how different women have navigated deployments, separations, and reintegration. I tailored research assignments for grad school to learn more about the military.

Still a baby in the army world, I learned that my boyfriend, fiance and eventually husband goes into “army mode” before a drill weekend or any military exercise. His mind is on the mission, where it needs to be, and I learned when we were dating that I would feel better if I took advantage of the time when I had his attention and then left before he fully went into packing and army mode so as not to expect him to be significantly engaged with me. In marriage, I know I need to recognize the shift and be okay to step away and get my mind in a place it would be almost as if he were not home at all, and to alter my expectations.

After a few freak-out moments, lots of processing with my husband and with friends, and LOTS of time with God and researching what to expect and what I could do to promote healthy adjustment in the various cycles of military life, I finally felt relatively psychologically prepared for the fact that he would be leaving for a year every five years. I still didn’t know what it would be like, but I geared myself up for it and braced myself for what was sure to be a series of roller coasters. I reminded myself that every five years still guaranteed me 4 years at home, and I liked the pretense of control that expectation provided for me. In addition, that the fifth year would be like a reset year - it would suck, but if I had been depending on my husband too much or putting anything in my life ahead of God, the sheer need I would have for God in those years would force me to examine myself, re-orient my priorities, and grow.

Turns out, all that can change in the blink of an eye. But of course it can! It’s the military. I knew that. I had read about that. And let’s be honest, nothing had really happened yet. Practically nothing has. But I am a planner. Planners and people who analyze (okay, over-analyze…and then analyze again) do not like uncertainty and ambiguity. The upcoming deployment this summer I had psychologically prepared for. I knew it was going to be rough, but I was ready to show ourselves and the world that we could navigate deployments successfully and have one under our belts as a married couple to look back on for future deployments and remind ourselves that we lived through the last one, so we can live through the next ones too. Until it was suddenly discovered that whoever was holding the ADOS position my husband had was originally intended to stay behind during the deployment and be in charge of everybody who would not be deploying for various reasons. I didn’t believe it and assumed still that he would be going on deployment, but it became more and more likely that he would be staying home…closer to a 99% change. So we allowed ourselves to get excited. I started to assume it was more likely than not that he would stay, but knew it could change. Until it seemed less likely all of a sudden, but just as totally uncertain, and I realized I had let my psychologically prepared-ness wall slip a little in the process.

When my husband suggested he wanted to maybe move from National Guard to Active Duty, I was totally on board. Supportive and encouraging, as much as I knew how to be - it was a surprise, but I rolled with it. Until the next few days when I started freaking out. All of a sudden I saw that my fragile plan to graduate from grad school and then go wherever my husband ended up for a potential PhD or another position within the Guard, with my 5 year rotation safety net and expectations, were blown away in the wind. I started visualizing a PCS every 2-3 years, and a different rotation schedule - maybe one that deployed every 2 or 3 years instead of 5, which I really wasn’t sure I could handle. How could my husband be gone for a third of our life?? And even then, no rotation is fixed, because with a PCS comes a new unit and a new rotation. And what about kids one day…middle school is four years, and high school is four years, but if we move every 2-3, they’ll never get to complete a phase of their lives in the same place! What if they never formed secure attachments? After having some time to process and pray, however, this too became something that I decided we could handle…though a shorter deployment rotation still doesn’t sit well with me.

I had to get used to the idea that my husband would be gone a lot, and whenever we have kids in the future, I will be essentially a single mother every few years but with the added bonus of having to try to explain to little ones where daddy is and why he won’t be coming home for a long time - hopefully without melting into a puddle of tears myself. I had to get used to the idea that my main support system would be gone for long periods of time. I had to get used to the idea that one day my husband could be injured or killed or survive but come home a different man than when he left. I believe my husband is strong and resilient, but I also know that experience is a merciless teacher at times and sometimes imparts lessons that are not adaptive.

I would be the one waiting at home, staying up late for a phone call in the middle of the night. I would be the one waiting at home, comforting small children while my own support system seemed absent. I would be the one with challenges in my career if I ever dared try to get a job PCSing all over carnation. I am the one willing to enter a land completely foreign to me in the military culture - whether that “land” be literal or figurative. I am the one putting even the most elementary things I thought I knew I could expect out of my future or take for granted in a box and tossing it out the window, and not being able to replace those expectations with anything remotely concrete. I am the one worrying at home about if my husband will come home alive, if I have seen him for the last time, and if he does come home, I am the one waiting to try to figure out how to put our family back together again. I am the one waiting to be as supportive and encouraging as I can in reintegration, whether it’s easy or the hardest thing I have ever been faced with. I am the one waiting in the wings, living in uncertainty. When I said “I do” and one of our swordsmen said “Welcome to the army,” I agreed to all of these things.

Don’t get me wrong. Any wife that thinks she has earned the rank of her husband is crazy. Any wife that thinks her husband’s accolades and accomplishments are her own is nuts. As my husband says, the soldier writes a blank check that can be filled out for any amount up to and including his life. This deserves to be honored, respected, and regarded as distinct from the demands of being a military wife. The soldier does more, sees more, sacrifices more firsthand. Unless he dies, in which case he is not around for the unimaginable pain to be experienced by the loved ones in his wake. It is the ultimate sacrifice to lay down one’s life, but the irony is that the ones that are gone do not suffer as those that survive.

I am also not convinced that there are no times the wife suffers as much as the husband. When I had spine surgery at age 13, I knew how I felt, how I was doing, and that everything was going to be okay. It was the most physical pain I had ever been in, but psychologically I knew it was all uphill from here. My parents, on the other hand, were still being heavily psychologically and emotionally drained, threw themselves into my care, and took the brunt of my irritability, changing moods, and high-maintenance, hourly needs. The soldier lives in the moment, knowing he is alive and his loved ones are safe. The wife lives with the knowledge that at any given moment things might be okay, or might be forever changed and this day forever tainted in her memory. Studies have shown that watching someone you love in agony produces experienced pain for the observer that can be seen in brain scans. When a soldier comes home emotionally different or physically different, this rings true.

So, on Veteran’s Day, I think that day is reserved for those who have served. I don’t think a military wife should go gallivanting around the city getting as much free stuff as she can by the association she has with the military through her husband and not through her own merit. If an establishment wishes to honor military ID dependent cards, however, I wouldn’t feel guilty about that. Those who wait also serve.

And this is why on Veteran’s Day, when I thought I certainly wouldn’t take advantage of everything but there was a free car wash I could get that seemed to take dependent ID cards, I got excited. It was a silly thing. I spoke to my husband on the phone, and he said something negative about wives who go without their veteran husbands to take advantage of stuff, though he thought it was okay for me to get a car wash. I have experienced a double standard of my loving husband, accepting when I do things sometimes but not accepting of when others do the same or very similar things. I felt guilty and didn’t get the car wash, though he told me I should, but on the phone I got very defensive. My pride was hurt. My sacrifices and my role undermined. I had thrown myself into military culture, assimilated the military wife into part of my identity, and signed on for a roller coaster of being part of military life, and that identity seemed invisible and unimportant. All I had set aside for military life, with my life dictated heavily by the army and my dedication to support and encourage my husband in his endeavors and military career seemed to have gone unnoticed. This was all ridiculous, of course. My husband appreciates, loves, encourages, and supports me and is the greatest listener and most patient man I know. But one statement sent my defenses shooting up like fire and my mind going seventeen million miles an hour in approximately 1.3 seconds.

I felt invisible and caught between two worlds. Military is becoming more and more part of who I am, even though I am not and should not consider myself to be a service member. I am a civilian, but I am part of military life. Civilians do not understand what it is to be part of the military. Yet, I am not truly part of the military either. My life is dictated by the military, my husband works for the military, I might move with the military, I have benefits through the military, I am in a military culture, but I am not “in the military.” I am fully in the civilian world, particularly since we do not live on post right now, but am not truly understood by it.

The service member gets accolades, awards, certificates, acknowledgement, recognition, promotions, and has graduations for each school attended. The accomplishments are noted, as they should be, and are applauded. The military wife supports and encourages and…what, shuts up? Being a supporter and encourager is absolutely huge to me. But I felt I needed recognition too. I had a unique role too. That’s why I got all crazy proud and defensive that day at the gas station on the phone.

And then I asked myself…why do I need recognition? I don’t need a special day, I don’t need strangers walking up to me telling me I’m awesome. I wouldn’t believe them anyway, let’s be honest. They don’t know me, and I really haven’t given that much. Basically nothing. And then I thought, why am I so proud that I demand acknowledgment and recognition for doing my job? There’s no upward movement for the military wife - no promotions or anything like that to say we’re doing a good job. But what have I really done, anyway? I am a verbal processor, and my primary love language is words of affirmation, so words - or lack of - are critical to me, for better or for worse. But I was convicted for feeling the way I felt.

I knew I needed to spend some time with Jesus this morning. I started off this post yesterday to get some of this out of my system before my husband came home so that I could focus on him after totally going crazy earlier. He deserves it, though any soldier worth his salt feels awkward receiving thanks for their service. Because every soldier knows of someone who did more, lost more friends, sacrificed more, is more worthy. The most worthy soldier in the world is likely to be the humblest, knowing others gave their lives and having been close to them personally and knowing what excellent and praiseworthy men of character they were. But no matter what circumstances determined the amount to be written on the check ultimately, all the soldiers signed a check to the same end. All the soldiers had a common purpose and wrote a blank check to be filled up to and including their lives.

I was convicted of speaking too soon, for my lack of patience, for being a people-pleaser, and for wanting the acknowledgment of men more than the approval of God. I was being proud when I should have been humbled. Not humbled by my husband, or humbled by other soldiers that have given more, or by their widows, but by God.

I wrote out verses in my journal and wrote out prayers. I prayed that God would forgive me for speaking out of turn. The military is a world of ranks, power and prestige, yet is built on forging ahead for the guy next to you and humbly laying down one’s life for another. We respect and honor these men, as we should - lifting up those who do not exalt themselves. Yet without Jesus, not one of these men can please God. And likewise, if they cannot please God or even stand in His presence without Christ there to make him stand, who am I to think I earn or deserve acknowledgment for anything? How haughty and arrogant! Why do I get defensive, and have such a battle with pride?

One deed is put on a pedestal while another is not, one visible while another invisible, one praised while another lives in the shadows. Yet if neither bring glory to God, what good are they? And if they do bring glory to God, why be upset when the focus is not on us but where it belongs? Have we done anything commendable on our own? Let us shake off the idea that we are entitled to anything, and loose the chains that keep us self-centered when comparing ourselves to others. Rather, let us look heavenward, see the great expanse between God and man, and marvel that He has any interest in us at all.

I praise God that I’m not who I was, but I praise Him ever so much more that He will not leave me as I am. I am so far from who my Lord is. I prayed that He would humble and grow me. I prayed he would help me not to need recognition or acknowledgment from man - even my husband. I prayed that God would help me to see Him in everything I do, and would teach me to prize wisdom above all else, being slow to speak, even-tempered, patient, content, and utterly reliant on Christ. I asked the Lord to harness the fire within me and channel it to serve Him and Him alone.

Who am I? I have done nothing significant or praiseworthy. My story does not belong anywhere near those recorded in the Bible. Saying I could die for Christ and then failing to live for Him is cheap and hypocritical. I have not been persecuted, struck down, or tortured for the name of Jesus. I have lived in comfort and my troubles are like vapor in the face of stories like Job’s, or like Paul or the rest of the apostles.

I want to be grateful and take nothing for granted. I asked God to forgive me and grant me grace to see myself and the world the way that He does, and that God would open my eyes. I am in such desperate need for God. This post did not end the way I originally thought it would when I was venting to avoid another rant later in the day on Veteran’s Day. But it has reminded me that the smallest glimpse of Jesus and who I am in this world is enough to bring me to my knees and get yet another fresh start. In light of eternity, a car wash seems pretty silly.

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Proverbs 17:27, “A man of knowledge uses words with restraint, and a man of understanding is even-tempered.”

Proverbs 17:17, “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.”

Proverbs 19:11, “A man’s wisdom gives him patience; it is to his glory to overlook an offense.”

Proverbs 19:21, “Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the LORD’s purpose that prevails.”

Proverbs 19:23, “The fear of the LORD leads to life: Then one rests content, untouched by trouble.”

1 Corinthians 3:7-9, “So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labor. For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building.”

Let our faith be shown by our fruit, not touted by our own mouths.

2 Corinthians 3:1-5, “Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, like some people, letters of recommendation to you or from you? You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everybody. You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

Such confidence as this is ours through Christ before God. Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God.”

2 Corinthians 4:7-12, “But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.”