The continuing saga of Kolja

[labug]

Yes, alot of folks here would like this I'm sure so I'm bumping it. I am in awe.

"Those who wait, also serve."

[purgatory]

Kolja, thank you do much for posting this. I also appreciate that you (as a service member) respect the sacrifices we - the military spouse- make in support of your career. I wish my H would have found this and sent it to me.

When I stop crying, I'll post more.

[kolja]

My first two cruises were as a single dude. Logistically, I had it pretty much wired. Dad checked on wherever I happened to live at the time when he was nearby on business; I knew what utilities to suspend, and even managed to time grocery runs and eating so I never had to throw too much out, or be rudely surprised by any science experiements 6 months later. But, no matter how much of a hardass I tried to be, the fact that no one was at the homecomings to see ME was kind of uncool. And, after everyone left with their families, having to bum a ride home (to hope the truck still started so I could go get something to eat) was also unfun.

It was DEFINITELY better having someone to come home to Even if things never improve, I'll be grateful for having at least had that opportunity!

[25yearsmlc]

Not much new to update. Dad's visit went well, we had a good time skiing and a nice visit to Leavenworth (WA, not KS). Work goes well, even if at the moment left over desserts from a work potluck are 5' from my desk... at least tomorrow is a 5 mile day!

My year-long suspension of on-base driving is over, which is fortunate because weather has taken a nasty turn and the last couple days I've been glad to not be bicycling on and off base. Before moving, my wife was very interested in how the base-access decals on her car would be renewed (it's mildly curious as to why she cares, since she won't be a dependant much longer the way things are going). I found out, it will actually be pretty easy - when I told her, she said she'd see what she can do and that was it. Maybe it's not as important to her now that she's moved. Other than that things between us have been quiet. The space isn't all that bad, actually - and watching the balance on a few debts start to tick down makes me glad to at least have the FINANCIAL opportunity this presents.

Only somewhat related, I came across this on the internet, about military wives. I'd wanted to send it to my wife, since she's seen me through 2 of my 5 deployments (a 7 month cruise before we got married, and about 6 weeks last summer... though in fairness that one WAS to a nice Air Force Base in Europe and hardly counts as a hardship). Anyway, I know she probably wouldn't care to see it right now so I thought I would post it here. It's poignant - makes me grateful for what she HAD brought into my life, and hopeful that she'll continue to be a part of it in the future.

============================================================

What a Military Spouse Knows

As many of you know, my husband came home from our third deployment not too long ago. During the deployment, a reporter asked me to share “What I Knew” about deployments and military life. This was my answer:

As I forced my hands to unfurl from his neck, feeling the familiar sting in my nose as tears pushed against my will, the words rattled and echoed in my brain. “Not again.”

I watched him walk away–that uniform, identifiable gait—and my heart bent and splintered as the reality of a third deployment began to shower over me.

I picked up the phone, dialing the numbers my numb fingers always meander toward, and sat in silence while she tried to ease my pain. “I can’t imagine…He will be home….I’m here.”

And then she said six words that shot through my ears, penetrated my brain, and stiffened my spine: “You know how to do this.”

She was right. I do know how to do this. I intimately know the all-too familiar lump in my throat. The year of being both father and mother, making the best of a situation. I know exactly how one year feels as I X each day off my calendar. And I know how to ensure that while our lives are on hold, we still live.

The truth is I know a lot:

The thought of being alone for a year doesn’t bother me. The fear of being alone for a lifetime—does.
Flat rate boxes can hold twenty whoopee cushions, four kindergarten projects, and five perfume-scented letters.
Technology can be a double-edged sword—one side delivering his face; the other a brutal live-action feed of explosions and camouflaged body parts.
Murphy’s Law is a constant companion. The moment he walks out the door, anything that can break, collapse, bleed, or explode–will .
Five hours of uninterrupted sleep is a gift from the deployment gods
Holidays are hard, but manageable.
Deployments come and go, but sand from his boots never leaves.
Nothing can replace a handwritten letter. Through those beautifully folded pages, he is holding my hand again.
When the National Anthem is played, I know goosebumps will rise on my arms, and a lump will fill my throat.
The silence in communication following a war zone attack is agonizing.
Laughter is a powerful ally.
Each deployment offers two options: grow or regress. This is a choice.
Cereal is always a dinner option.
Videos of lost teeth, ballerina recitals, and preschool graduations can be emailed to Iraq nearly instantly.
Five powers of attorney and the intimate details of his will are needed to navigate a deployment.
White out blizzards can actually bury a truck in five minutes.
Rosie the Riveter was right: We can do it.
Children cling to hope and the promise of tomorrow.
Living in each moment together is possible when facing the fear that it could be your last.
Welcome home kisses are sweeter than the finest chocolate.
Anger will grip me and depression can hold me, but another military spouse will steady me.
A six-year-old child can feel the absence of her father so deeply that she can suffer from clinical depression.
A military spouse will often hold her/his tongue, silencing a story, for fear of sounding “unpatriotic.”
The sound of a bugle can make my heart swell with pride or collapse in sorrow.
Duct tape and a monkey wrench can fix nearly anything.
Despite the protestors and those who tell me I “knew” what I was getting into, I know there are countless American citizens who will go above and beyond to show they support us.
There are many things I know.

I know how to change the brakes on my truck, rappel from the side of a cliff, shoot a double-barreled shotgun, balance a checkbook, earn my keep, and kiss a child enough to feel like two.

But there are still so many things I don’t know.

I don’t know how to start my heart again when I see a death notification car on my street.
When that knock echoes on the door of my neighbor, I don’t know how to forgive myself when I am relieved.
I don’t know how to hug him enough to last a lifetime, or kiss him just so in order to feel satisfied—should our reunion be at the foot of a pine box.
I’m not willing to learn how to pretend he doesn’t exist, to keep him out of our life while it goes on without him, or to build a wall so high he has no way to scale it.
I don’t know how to stop his panic attacks, and I have no idea how to make my nightmares of rampant bombs and lifeless limbs disappear.
I don’t know how to adjust to his presence in my house when our floor rarely feels the weight of his boots.
I don’t know how to tell his small children that, yes, he leaves them all the time. But because he loves them so deeply, he is willing to die to keep them free.
I can’t understand those who would question my desire to stay with him, or how I can peacefully sleep beside a “killer.”
I am amazed and confounded that despite all he has seen, he still has the courage to laugh.
I don’t’ know how to give up on my family.
But, most importantly:

I have no clue how to still my pounding heart when he finally walks through our door again, I don’t know how to pull my hands from his sand-stained neck and say goodbye, and I don’t know how to ever walk away from a man who stands while many choose to sit.

I was active duty, and a veteran of the Gulf War and so is h.

Recently His Resereve unit got orders to deploy to the Middle East this summer for an undetermined amount of time. (What happened to the "draw down"? Don't get me started...) I surrender to what I cannot control.

But I found this piece particularly touching.

When I was active duty (JAG Corps officer) I did some casualty notifications...

I hope they're the only ones I ever experience.

The spouses who endure this are the unsung heroes we forget about.

It's the one thing I hate about living off post. NO one around me knows what is going on or that he'll be gone or where. It is not the same as having others in the same boat--I miss that camraderie. A lot.

Thanks for this piece. It helps, although it made me cry too.

[kolja]

If it's any consolation, 25, there IS a chance they won't have to go for very long, or maybe even at all. Our command has a Sailor on an individual augmentee assignment and just arrived in-country. She said many of the folks she had trained up with got sent home before even heading overseas, and when she arrived a lot of folks were headed home early. So apparently the draw-down has started but it wouldn't surprise me in the least if the mobilization process hasn't been reconciled with the 'reduced demand signal.' (Speaking of drawdown, I'm really intrigued about the possibility of 15 year retirement, but that's a whole different story).

I've been pretty fortunate in my run, deployed to both carriers and relatively safe air bases (though we did get mortared once in Bagram), everyone in my squadrons came home safe. Sadly on my last boat cruise, one of our sister squadrons did loose a plane. Their squadron was based on the opposite side of the country from ours, but I know it was stressful for the spouses in our squadron (and my then-fiancee) especially when email was shut down. Hours later, they let the other squadron COs tell their wives that we were all safe, but it was HOURS after all the news networks had been running "US Navy plane lost in North Arabian Sea" on their bottom-of-the-screen tickers for HOURS.

This DOES remind me I should probably update my emergency data form with my wife's new address...

[25yearsmlc]

that does help. Things can change. For now it seems H might be going to Kuwait b/c it has a hospital there that they are "Building up" which is odd to me. Hoping Iran doesn't go nuts or that we are not planning or expecting more casualties. H is an MD and the hospital there was bombed or attacked more than once, but I'd assume security is better now. And I still think it's better than Afghanistan is atm.

I lost a brother over there in the middle east, long ago, and my now oldest brother is in Afghanistan. We have a lot of veterans in my family. My mom is always riveted to CNN at war time.

My oldest bro got a little tiny wound that got VERY infected there, and his leg won't ever be the same now. Good thing he's not a female who likes skirts b/c his leg looks weird and always will.

But he went back there! He's There now. He's addicted to it I think, and he is civilian, so he loves the adrenaline imo. A bit weird given his age and weight, but unlike my h, my brother makes MORE money there then here. Go figure.

One Hero story for you...

Right before 9/11, my neighbors on post got news that their d, age 6, had a neurological disease that would ultimately prove fatal but would take up to a decade...very very sad. No cure. They had 2 older boys. Then 9/11 happened and her h got a battalion command, his dream job, in combat...

That was October, then in November before deploying, her sister's back hurt and that turned out to be a recurrence of breast cancer and SHE DIED...like on Thanksgiving. Talk about "when it rains it pours."

The h offered to refuse the command and get a hardship reassignment or resign.

She said 'No, this is your job you trained for and though I wish God would not give me all this at once, I do want you to go. We're Americans and they can't do this to us. Go kick some a$$".

Off he went, and returned with 4 pieces of shrapnel in his back near the spine. He can't coach wrestling again and still walks in pain. She NEVER complained about the unfairness of it all. She helped me in so many ways.

When I start to worry or feel sorry for myself- I remind myself of her and what an unsung hero she is. God bless them all.

Another brother (i have many) said the love of his life turned down his M proposal b/c she said she was "not cut out to be a military wife" and she meant it. No more moving every few years to start over in HER career...no more missing her mate/companion/lover/co-parent...

it's not an easy life. Yet I sure miss living on post right now.

(( ))

[2thepoint]

Nice story, 25!! ^^^

[kolja]

Unrelated to anything marriage or divorce-busting, today I ran 5 miles about as fast as I ever have (or maybe at least since college). Of course this was with just a touch of a chest cold, so now the rest of my body is joining my short legs in registering extreme displeasure with me...

[kolja]

Hey everyone! As some of you might remember, one of getting-a-life events was a 24-hour ski/snowboard event for ACS. Well, that happened this weekend (and I just got up from a nap which was my SECOND order of business - after a glorious feeling shower - upon returning home!).

The weather wasn't super great - what TV weather people would euphemistically call a 'wintry mix' (with plenty of wind to drive it and keep you pretty cold once all your ski clothes were wet) but, as you might have noticed, I can be pretty persistent and stuck with it. At least the snow, of which there was a HUGE base from the previous weeks and months of snowstorms, was pretty decent to ski on. I took about a 45 minute break for lunch (it would have been shorter but was with a couple coworkers, and one coworker's family) and another 45 minutes or so for a light dinner. Then at 10pm they take all of us off the mountain for a pasta feed while the resort staff does some grooming. But after that, I only took three bathroom/water/clif bar breaks and otherwise powered through. I realize I may be a little crazy, but I think it's kind of a blast to go bombing down a freshly groomed and sparsely populated run at 2:30 in the morning when most (but not all!) of the other participants were sleeping on, under, and next to tables in a very interesting smelling lodge.

Of course the most important part - I managed to raise $500 myself, which I was pretty proud of until I head the two top fundraisers managed to raise over $5,000 EACH Overall, the event raised over $177,000. There's a few other of these events for ACS around the country, but they say that this is the biggest, so yay us!

Since I'm here, not too much to say on the marriage front. Hadn't heard anything since last monday, when after telling my wife I knew what we needed to do to renew her vehicle's DoD base access stickers she said "I'll see what I can do." But when I woke up from my post ski-travaganza nap, one of her cats was just chilling out in a bathroom sink as if it were a barco-lounger. My DB coach Chuck suggested that the more endearing antics of her little fuzzy pals who she's had to leave behind here would make a good, benign and generally positive way to maintain casual contact with her despite our distance. So I sent her a picture of him, only mentioned it was how I found him after the post-ski-event nap, and resisted the temptation to ask more about how things were on her end (the thought crossed my mind for a minute, but I immediately recognized it would be pursuing so dropped it). If she wants more of a conversation, she'll let me know....

[labug]

Wow, that sounds...a little sick actually. 24 hours of skiing and snowboarding a great way to GAL.


Glad you had fun.