Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Understanding bereavement in military households
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Understanding bereavement in military households
Until I felt the effects of sacrifice last year, I never knew what strength truly meant. At the time strength did not seem possible during my husband‘s year long deployment. A favorite quote of mine by an unknown author matched my situation. “You never know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice you have.” During this year long sacrifice, I found strength not only in myself but also from the love between me and my husband. 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. The dreaded day arrived too soon. There I stood four months pregnant, feeling both scared and worried, on a warm sunny August day getting ready for our tearful goodbye. Being a military spouse, you know that you will...
...egories: physical, mental, and spiritual. Physical strength can be defined as; the quality of being physically strong, or capacity to sustain the application of force without yielding or breaking.” (Diaz 238). Reading this book brings about many different gestures of strength bringing about different emotions and showing that you can deal with heartache, pain, and every other emotion in various ways, but just like Cheryl Strayed said “Let yourself be gutted. Let it open you. Start here.”
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.
The novel Warriors Don’t Cry by Melba Pattillo Beals has many themes that are shown. One of the major themes that stuck out to me was inner strength and perseverance. Inner strength means to have Integrity of character: resoluteness of will: mental resistance to doubt or discouragement. Perseverance means steadfastness in doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success.
Imagine a camp where having the chance to see the ones that were significant in life was banned. Imagine a world where on a daily basis ,people got tortured in disturbing, immoral ways right in front of many viewing eyes from young to old. Image a camp where loved one’s life’s got stolen from them for all the wrong reasons. Strength and health was no longer an obstacle that had to be dealt with. The only thing left to do was to stride for something that could keep you going for the long run. What would happen then? Something new begins to grow. Something so powerful that it could possibly outshine strength and health. Hope. Hope is something that could get you farther than strength and health.
I watched the people board the train as I stood in silence in line with the other soldiers. My breath was held suspended as I saw my very own best friend, Josh smiling at us and waving. These innocent people looked so happy, probably imagining of the nice new homes that they would be placed in . Little did they know. I followed the president's instructions which were to make sure nobody escaped and to not make eye contact or interact. Goosebumps trailed up my spine as I thought of what Josh and the others would have to go through in the next hour or so. A single tear slid down my face as I thought of losing my best friend, and not being able to do anything about it.
But things change when husbands and babies come along. When I had my first baby and had to leave him for the first time, I cried uncontrollably the entire trip. My feelings of missing him only grew. Several times, I broke down in the middle of a service when I saw a child. When my second baby came along, I decided that I could no longer have both this career and a family.
So, thanks to my son-in-law, I realized once again that it never too late to learn something new like the HEART Act, and that maybe someday I’ll be able to help a military family make the best of a tragic
My dad first received his P.C.S. (Permanent Change of Station) orders on the 14th of April, 2013, which was earlier than we had expected. I was working on an art project when my dad walked in the door and greeted my mom with a smile and an envelope in his hand. Inside was a letter saying that we were moving to Mildenhall, England. My family had suspicions that we would be moving soon, but we didn’t expect to report to our next assignment less than three months
As a military spouse I am well aware of the sacrifices that I have made and continue to make to support my husband in his chosen career. However, just recently as my children began to grow to an age of asking questions and learning to understand I began to question how this lifestyle may ultimately impact their emotional and physical wellbeing. With that in mind I decide to look at research that had a focus on how recent deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan had affected the children of those deployed men and women.
The military community is filled with some of the country’s most dedicated and brave citizens, and military bases are always full of people from all different places with a variety of unique experiences. Being a member of a military family has exposed me to a myriad of different types of people, which the average person my age does not get to meet. Having this opportunity has shown me the value of honor, determination, and hardwork, all of which have motivated me to attend college, and hopefully medical school.
Being a military family means you always should be ready to move. Growing up in this environment, you can really adapt to moving to new places. I knew that if I decided to be dramatic about moving I would really affect my family. So that is why I was not sobbing until my eyes were disoriented, or ear-piercing screaming at what could have been. I was not fighting everything to stay or making life inflexible. Many people might ask, if I was leaving everything behind, why would I not be upset at that young age of 11. The reason is that I am a part of a family of seven. Anything we do, affects all the others in some
Exhausted and drained of all motivation I once had, I tried to argue with them. I had given up. “I cannot take this anymore.” I sobbed, ruining my makeup even more, when everyone was finally ready for delivery. “I just can’t do it anymore!” I remembered my boyfriend grabbing my hand, my hand felt so small in his at that moment, he looked me in the eyes and said, “Please, it will all be worth it in the end. I know you don’t feel like it right now but have faith in me.” I did. I trusted him with all my heart. I pushed and pushed. I cried from the pain and frustration. I tried giving up numerous times after that but my boyfriend kept repeating, “Don’t give up yet, you are so strong.” I didn’t feel strong at all at the time. I felt like the world was out to get me. However, I kept pushing and pushing and then an hour after pushing with everything I had, my baby boy was born. Six fifty-six pm on September nineteenth of two thousand seventeen is a time that I will never be able to
It would be my third time going away for six months, but I have to concede that the third time was considerable measure harder to my better half and me than the first two-time. This barrier of miscommunication would be known as a long-distance relationship. Long-distance relationships are an example of obstacles that cause miscommunication not only for myself but lots of people around the globe. Nowadays, it might be a lot less demanding to have long-distance relationships with other people due to new technology, but it can be troublesome in light of in person, or face-to-face communication. For my significant other and I, there was quite a bit of miscommunication due to misconception each other. Due to the lack of internet connection that I had during my deployment, I could not do video chat because the intranet connection would go in and out often, and there are no cell towers in the ocean for us to talk on the phone. The most I could do was email when the intranet was stable, and emailing lead to misconception each other, which prompt heated
“How Deployment Stress Affects Families”. U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, 31 Oct. 2013. Web. 10 Nov. 2013.
Steve, my husband, was deployed with the Navy to the Middle East. His attachment, VRC-30 Detachment 2, was temporarily stationed in Bahrain. My husband wanted me to experience a country like none other. He convinced me to book a trip to Bahrain for nine days. With the help of my husband, I booked my flight. It was so exhilarating. After the initial excitement dwindled,