The air was warm, the beams of sunlight shined on my skin, and the sweet laughter of my daughter came as she ran about. I could hear the bark of the neighbor’s dog in the distance, the scraping sound of a jogger's sneakers on the gravel sidewalk and I could smell the sweet aroma of the ripening peaches coming from the tree in our backyard. It was a brilliant summer day just like any other. My husband, Matthew, pulled in. Our daughter ran to him as he walked up the drive, “Daddy, Daddy,” she shouted as she wrapped her arms around him, embracing him with love. My husband sat beside me and began to speak. My heart began to beat slowly and erratically at first, my eyes began to burn in their sockets and a lump rose in my throat. The hair on my arms stood on end as my eyes began to fill with tears. “I got orders babe, I’m going to be shipped out in eight days.” These words my husband spoke would be the begging of a whole new life, a whole new fear. This day my life changed forever. On this day I learned my husband was going to be deployed. Although this is an expected part of military life, this deployment was different. My husband is a Navy Seal, and this deployment would be the first of its kind. I wasn’t able to know where he was going, what he would be doing or who he was with. All I knew was that he was leaving. I didn’t know how long he would be gone for and had no I had no idea where he’d be going. We have always been a very close family. I never really found the need to find an outside support system. I always had my husband with in a phone calls reach. I never really made friends with the other navy wives in my husband’s unit, It wasn’t that I didn’t want to I just would rather spend the time with my family. I never needed o... ... middle of paper ... ...learned through the support groups. My husband’s absence became a part of my life instead of the end of my life. I learned it is absolutely essential to have girlfriends who support you and understand how tough deployment is on a spouse distancing yourself from people who don’t understand becomes almost inevitable. So it is of most importance to keep people around that do. We were able to sympathize, talk in the wee hours of the night and be such a huge comfort and inspiration. Truthfully, they’re a big reason I endured the deployment as well as I did. Staying busy is absolutely imperative. This is what I had forgotten when I allowed myself to become bound in depression. Every single day has to have purpose and goals. Keeping your mind on track is beyond importance. It also helps so your spouse knows your focusing on something other than being sad while he’s away.
Deployment is a word that all military spouses and military families dread to hear. When my husband came home to our barely moved in house with news of his deployment to Afghanistan, I was devastated. Though we received terrible news, we also felt incredible joy that same week. I was pregnant with our first child. We were overjoyed by this news but it also meant that my husband would be away the first eight months of our son’s life.
I have come to find out that Military couples are no different from anyone else. We have weddings, honeymoons, children, expectations, goals and
For weeks leading up to his trip, it was all I could think about and it kept me up at night. My husband had been in the Navy for almost 8 years at this point and had been on two Middle East deployments in our marriage so I was no stranger to being alone, but this time was different, this time I had another tiny human being that I loved more than anything in this world to keep alive. I distinctly remember the day he left on that trip being the worst day of my life, I stood in our house and cried uncontrollably and thought to myself, there was no way I was going to be able to do this alone for one day, let alone two weeks. I went to her and spent an hour crying, telling her everything that had happened in the last year, she hugged me and assured me that there was nothing wrong with me, just something a little unbalanced inside me and that we were going to work together to fix it.
All throughout this semester we have learned a great deal about the homecoming of our military veterans. From the wounds they live with, to the battles they face at home, and these men and women’s reintegration into society. Today I would live to focus somewhere else. Not on the soldiers who risk their lives and return home scarred and different, but on the families who missed them and welcomed them back home and back into society. These mothers, fathers, wives, husbands, sons, daughters, siblings, are tasked with the tremendous task of helping and loving a loved one who has been changed by war.
Once again the line Oprah uses “you’ve been missed, you’ve been needed, you’ve been cried for, prayed for” it shows the emotional side of things. When the line is being said the emotions run deep due to the fact that the images show how hard it is without the other person being around. There is a scene where the mother is laying with her boys in bed because their father is being missed at that moment. When Oprah says “you’ve been needed” there is clip of a daughter being dressed by her father. This impacted me because it should be the mother’s job to dress her daughter but she is somewhere being brave for our country. How often do we see women in the military compared to the men? It seems to be a lot harder when the mother is missing since she isn’t there to nurture like it has been seen in other women. I think the author does a great job of matching the scenes to the words being said and conveys how needed the troops are in their families
Growing up I always had to deal with the fact that my father was involved in the military. My father was deployed twice: once in Germany, and later to Kuwait. I was only four years old when he first traveled and almost every day I asked where dad was. The second time I was fourteen, and I was devastated that my best friend wasn’t going to be home for a year. Both times he left, it was awful for my mom, my brother, and me because he was the one person that kept us together as a family and once he was gone we were just broken. A military family goes through more than a regular family does in a year. Those veterans have families, how do people think they feel. Children who live in a military family have a higher risk of depression, anxiety, and other mental issues. Although many people believe that we should send our soldiers overseas to keep our country safe, there is no reason why our
The children in military families face daily challenges because of deployment to war. Some do not understand why their parent has to leave, how long they will be gone or where they are going. The effects of deployment on children differ from the age they are. For example, an infant is going to act completely different than a teenager. Depending on the child they may feel unsecure because their comfort level has changed once their parent, guardian or older brother or sister has left. These people may be the only people around their house that they can trust. There is many different factors in how your child will react during the deployment process. You have to mentally and physically prepare your child for deployment, you must know how they are going to react, in order to watch out for them to keep them secure. Not only you have to prepare yourself and your child for deployment but you also need to prepare for them to come home and the challenges you may face as a family. Parents should support and watch their children of every age through every aspect of deployment, even when the family member is coming home, help them feel secure in their home, and help them talk though the emotions they face throughout the process of deployment.
Tomorrow, I thought to myself. I was not ready to leave all the memories and laughter I had lived. I felt like I was leaving a piece of me behind, I told myself that I could not turn back. I had to move forward to start a new chapter of my life. At that moment, I began to hope and mostly believe in new possibilities. As I woke up, tears were falling down my face. I couldn’t believe that I was going to leave my hometown, my native land, my motherland. I had no words to describe the desolation I felt. My body tightened; immersed in my despair I finally decided to go and take a cold shower and brush my teeth. I had confusing and anxious thoughts. I was feeling defeated because I couldn’t do anything about it anymore but at the same time as a natural optimist, I was
Military service has become a very valiant thing that is often regarded as something a hero would do. There are countless stories from men and women who get to go home to their families, while those they tell about, they do not. This can have quite a lasting effect on a soldier, sailor or airman, and the pain it brings can translate directly over to their families. Many problems are faced by families with a deployed family member, even when they come home. There are many more problems faced by families who 's loved ones do not come home. The effects of military deployment become large problems for some people to deal with. Extended military deployments create a vast range of negative emotional and financial effects on families that can change the way they operate at home and emotionally. Children are especially susceptible to emotional stress and instability compared to adults, who display different types of emotional symptoms. In addition to the obvious dangers of deployment, there is also emotional family separation that the deployed family
Some wives didn’t have children or hobbies so they had to pick up some to past the time and volunteer to keep busy especially if they are far away from their family. While other’s had to find something to occupy their time to keep their minds from wondering other wives had incredibly busy schedules to attend to since the no long have that other person there to share it with. The best advice given was to trying not to worry too much and to find something to keep you busy. An idle mind has a lot of time to worry so stay busy and around family and loved ones. Whether it’s finding a job, being with friends and family members, staying busy, and keeping up with the children all are ways of coping with their loved ones being gone and ways to help with the newly acquired duties of a Soldier’s
Military veterans transitioning into civilian life often face difficulties due to the lack of sufficient family support, social support, resilience and positive coping styles. During their life in the military, soldiers are trained to see the military life as normal and safe; therefore, they can find it hard trying to connect with loved ones and non-military society when transitioning. Their experience in the military can also leave them mentally, spiritually or emotionally ill, which can cause stress, depression and other mental or emotional problems during their transition. Soldiers who have successfully transitioned found help from family members, previously transitioned veterans and different veteran affair programs. Programs that focus on building resilience and developing positive coping styles allowed them to work their way around stress and depression. Therefore, encouraging military veterans to participate in programs that lower depression and stress can
I disliked this part of the vacation as I didn’t like to say goodbye to the country and the people here as we’d probably never see each other again for a very, very long time. As we arrived to the airport, our family were all hugging each other and saying their goodbyes. When we got to the entrance, I screamed out “Goodbye Kelly. Good bye Linh. Goodbye everyone in Vietnam!” Tears poured out of my eyes like a tsunami as I spoke these simple, yet, difficult words. We all waved back and forth as we separated. My heart aches as my mind flashes back of all the memorable moments we had here in this wonderful country. Once everyone boarded back on the plane, I told myself that our vacation went by really fast. I stared out of the window as the airplane was slowly lifting off from the ground into the night sky. I reminced and started going through all the things we’ve been through. I softly spoke to myself “We’ll meet again, Vietnam.” Those were my last words in that
Reflecting on my emotions all throughout the quarter, I can finally say that I am starting to get through the fact that my husband is not around anymore. I can finally say, that I have seen a change in me, a change that has only served to see what I am capable of. I feel like I can finally see clearly that I don’t really depend on anyone, and that I can accomplish anything I set my mind to. Yes, it is nice to have someone around, but I feel like I now have learned to ignore my true feelings and focus on the emotions that are really going to take me somewhere. I am tired of lamenting my husband’s departure; I am tried of feeling incomplete or incapable of doing things. Therefore, I am starting to realize, that I have had experience with what
It was the day before Christmas Eve and normal families would be wrapping last minute presents, but we were not. It was the same type of weather, cold and with the reflection from the sun to the snow. At last, the car stopped and was put in park. There was a ceremony for the soldiers where the governor, and other important people I don’t know the name of, were. It was about two hours later when I got to hug her, and tears dripped from my eyes like raindrops coming down from the clouds. You will never know if they will come back home once they leave for that certain purpose. You will never know when you gave them the last hug before they left, will be their last. Luckily for her, my sister, and the rest of her unit, they all came back safe and
During the preparation process I almost pulled the plug several times from fear, worry, and doubt, but I pulled through lots of support and love from my friends and family. However, before I left there were lots of tears, I was going away from 4months to a place where I knew absolutely no one, and I was leaving my comfort zone.