They always make it seem so romantic. Like Romeo and Juliet,
boy meets girl, they fall in love, boy leaves for military to prove to everyone
he is a man and he can’t think of another way to take care of his family.
Sometimes it’s parental pressure as well but not in my case. In my case it was
boy meets girl, boy knocks girl up, boy runs away to join military leaving girl
with 3 kids to take care of on her own, girl broken hearted, It took a long
time for me to move on and get over those feelings of betrayal and in some
cases I haven’t ever gotten over them. I guess that isn’t the part of all of it
people want to talk about though is it? He constantly cheated on me during both
pregnancies and ended up marrying his high school fling on his boot camp family
weekend while I was to pregnant to be there.
My heart was broken and alone. I was 19, I was supposed to
go to college, be a famous writer or theater actress. I never wanted to be a
mother, that was not the life I wanted, I wanted to be free. Everyday I looked
into those sweet faces of my 3 beautiful children I knew that they were my
legacy and nothing else and they became my whole world and they mended my heart
and filled my life with the happiness I had wanted all along.
I took on two jobs to support our kids and he transferred
somewhere on the east coast with his new family he was starting. That would
have been ok if things would have just stayed that way. Separate and minimal
contact between any of us, he knew if he came back home that he had warrants
waiting for him so I didn’t think it would be a problem. While we were together
he had gotten a drug problem and became quite violent. There were multiple
domestic violence charges, criminal property damage, and other things that I am
so disgusted by I don’t even want to discuss it. Something changed though, it
was no longer a completely ignore each other kind of life anymore. Things in
Iraq were heating up and they had a troop surge to provide security to Baghdad
and Al Anbar Province. President Bush had given a big speech about that he
needed to deploy 20,000 more soldiers to
Iraq and most would be army troops.
I didn’t know how to feel, or if it was even ok for me to
ask if he was leaving. He told me himself through a message that he would be
deploying and that he wanted me to send him pictures of the kids if I would. I
didn’t know how to respond so I didn’t. I sent pictures and letters often until
his wife never informed me of his changed address and all of them were sent
back to me. I spent every day checking the casualty list’s seeing if his name
was on there not sure how I would feel if it was. I watched the news every
night wondering if I would see him or if that latest explosion he was in. The
war on terror had only put terror into my life everyday and confusion on the
feelings I was feeling.
I no longer had feelings for this man, but he was the father
of my children. What if something did happen? How would I explain to my
children that their daddy had been killed in a war that could have been
avoided? I was so scared for him and them. 3,447 troops from his brigade alone
were deployed and I had no idea how I would know if something happened to him
or who would tell me. The more I checked online to keep an eye on how he was
the more it drove me crazy and made me worry more. I started having nightmares
and having minor panic attacks when the news would discuss the latest bombings
just because I didn’t know if he was in in.
In February there were multiple car bombings killing
thousands of people throughout the month.
In march the bombings continued and on the 6th twelve
soldiers were killed during one of the deadliest days since the start of the
war. Things don’t improve over April and May and I keep just watching and
waiting hoping to hear good news or that he is coming home soon so this torture
of worry can be over. June fortunately was a slow month with no real news
coming back from the Middle East. How long could this go on? The images coming
back from over there were disturbing to say the least but I couldn’t imagine
what he was going through. I was so scared for him and knew that despite
everything I never would have wished this on him. I wish I would have told him
that I forgave him or that I knew he did what he did because he thought it was
what was best for us both.
The kids kept growing and I showed them a picture of their
dad everyday so they wouldn’t forget him, even though my family objected due to
the way he had treated us. They couldn’t understand I didn’t want my kids to
not have to grow up without a father. I knew all the stories about how men sent
home dogtags and medals rather than living and coming home themselves and I was
not ok with him doing that to our children. They needed a father and I needed
someone to help me parent. I never wanted to be a parent let alone parent 3
children alone and was so scared for all of us and what we were in for.
In October the British began pulling out their troops and
reduce all the way down to 2,500 by the spring of 2008. November 7th
2007 becomes the deadliest year for American troops in Iraq but all of our
allies are pulling out. As thanksgiving passed and Christmas approached I began
to feel hope that he would be home soon and all this torture would be over. As
my babies now crawling and the oldest standing tried to pull ornaments off the
tree and we read “Twas the night before Christmas” there was a knock on our
door. I looked through the peep-hole but the snow was making it hard to see. I
opened the door just a crack to see who it was, and he was there. Standing in
his clean uniform, shivering from the cold, I invite him in with a wave of my
hand, shock taking my ability to speak. He hugs the kids them giggling cause of
the snow that has fallen off him and onto them. He stands and looks at me,
still unable to speak. All I can do is walk up to him and put my arms around
him for a hug and whisper, “Thank you, for coming home.” A single tear falling
down my cheek but I was able to wipe away before he saw. He handed me present
he had brought for the kids and left because his wife and their baby were in
the car. With a final salute he was gone again.
No matter how they make it seem on the movies or on
television shows, there is nothing romantic or fun about someone you love going
to war. It has become such a glamorous thing by the government that you get to
travel and get in shape and get plastic surgery for free but yet when it really
comes down to it what about the psychological affects it has not only on the
soldier but on the family as well all over the United states affecting more
people than not then imagine all over the world all the families affected by
these wars and attacks. All that pain resonating around us every day for what?
What is it really all for and is it really all worth it, is there no other way
than more pain and death to find a way to keep the world turning peacefully.
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