Chicken Soup for the Military Wife's Soul

by Jack Canfield

  George left for boot camp and schooling in March 1972 and returned in July. I was busy with student teaching and trying to finish my degree. We continued on with our lives, and George was never called in to serve in the war. He remained in the guards, and I supported him because the money was good and I could tell that he really enjoyed it.

  In 1991, when the Gulf War broke out, I was really nervous, but luckily it ended in pretty short order. He said that, had it gone on a few more days, he was certain that he would have been activated. Before we knew it, he had been in for thirty-two years and was the first sergeant for his artillery unit, a job he really enjoyed.

  Several legislators proposed that the retirement age for the military be dropped to fifty-five. We loved the idea, and it would only be another three years before George turned fifty-five. I figured that I could stand the wait— after all, I had managed to survive this long.

  In November 2003, rumors flew that his unit was to be deployed. It was true, but he was not included. I breathed a sigh of relief. I was happy because he wasn’t going and because he had just retired from his full-time job. We would finally be able to spend more time together. Four days later, he came home from a meeting and told me that they had added another E8 position. I knew what that meant: My husband was being deployed. I’m too old for this, I thought. And so is he.

  I had a broken finger, a cast on my hand, and my fifty-two-year-old husband was leaving me by myself. The good-byes were extremely difficult.

  I went to work after he left, but I wasn’t sure what to share with my high-school students. I was reluctant at first to tell them what was happening. I wanted my professional life at the school to remain separate from my personal life. That didn’t last long. I felt a need to talk about what was happening, and, to my delight, the students were extremely supportive and fully understanding.

  A few students had relatives or friends who were now over in the Middle East, or who had been there, and there were some who had family members who would be leaving soon. I found out that sharing was very therapeutic. They talked about their feelings about the war, and I shared stories about George, who I now called the “old man in the desert.” Whenever I found a student who had a relative being deployed, I gave them a “service flag” and a pin to wear. It made me feel good, and, hopefully, helped them to know that I understood what they were going through.

  My colleagues were also very supportive. I had a habit of sending Tootsie Roll Pops to my husband, and his unit gave them out to Iraqi children. The librarian thought this would be a great project for the student assistants. I asked my classes to donate pops and to drop their loose change in my Tootsie Roll bank. The librarians decorated a box in the library, and I would check to see the progress each day. It was so overwhelming. Before we knew it, we had more than four thousand Tootsie Roll Pops, as well as other types of lollipops and Tootsie Roll Midgies. I mailed out eight large boxes full of candy, and the following Monday, we received another donation of a thousand more!

  The students were wonderful—they rose to the occasion. They made the time that George has been away a heck of a lot more bearable. Next school year, we are planning on collecting school supplies and soccer balls, and my students have promised to stop by and ask about my “old man in the desert.” I love working with high-school students—they amaze me, they keep me young and help me forget that I am “too old for this.”

  Diane Proulx

  Military Family

  You don’t live in a world all alone. Your brothers (sisters) are here, too.

  Albert Schweitzer

  The military is now your family.

  Ten years ago, a military spouse spoke those words to me on the day I married my soldier husband. I really did not understand this comment or how true it would become in the future.

  My husband kissed me good-bye on our fourth anniversary and left for a ten-month deployment to Operation Joint Guard in Bosnia. That day was one of the hardest of my life. We had spent four years trying to get pregnant, and now he was gone for almost a year.

  Three weeks later, I made a miraculous discovery: We were going to have a baby. My husband called from Bosnia at three in the morning, and telling him the good news was both painful and jubilant. We had done it— and now he wouldn’t be here to touch my stomach, to watch the baby grow inside me. The baby was due two months before he was to return to Fort Polk. I was going to have to do it alone. Or so I thought.

  It was then that I learned what people meant when they said “military family.” My friend Wanda offered to stand in as “Dad,” going with me to all my appointments and recording the baby’s heartbeat to send overseas. The support I got was incredible. People called me, brought me food and stopped by. My husband’s Rear Detachment checked on me regularly.

  One night, after returning home from working a bingo game for the Enlisted Spouses Club, I settled into bed only to have my water break. It was two weeks early, and I was terrified. I was not ready yet. Wanda came over, helped me to pack my bag and took me to the hospital.

  She stayed right by my side until nine that morning when they handed my little miracle to me.

  I looked over and said, “Wanda, I’m a mommy.” By the time I was in the recovery room, Rear Detachment had gotten a hold of my husband, and he was on the phone talking to me about our new baby boy. It was the most exciting and wonderful day of my life.

  That night, Baby Jacob had some trouble with his lungs.

  An hour later, I was told that he had to go to Shreveport to a neonatal ICU for a problem with his colon. I was terrified. This amazing experience was becoming a terrifying nightmare.

  Wanda came to the hospital, and I went with Jacob in the ambulance. In Shreveport, I called Wanda, and found out that my military family had kicked into high gear. Rear Detachment was working on reaching my husband. Some of the ladies had called my mom, gotten her a plane reservation and were making arrangements to bring her to the hospital. Someone else was taking care of the dog and the house. Another spouse had gone to the store and bought anything she could think of to help me get through my stay: bottled water, snacks (I was going to try to breast- feed), phone cards, paper, nursing pads, Tylenol, etc. One had even gotten a rosary and brought it to my chaplain to have it blessed for my son’s bed in the ICU.

  I was amazed at their efforts, and I no longer felt so alone. I could not believe how quickly everything had been taken care of. The only thing I had to worry about was my son. Jacob and I spent a week in neonatal ICU, then he was able to come home. The ladies continued to take care of everything for me while I was gone. The Enlisted Spouses Club I belonged to even helped out with the cost of the hotel room my mom was staying in near the hospital.

  It took a week for them to get my husband all the way back to Louisiana, and, luckily, my son was released the day he got home, so Pat never had to see him in ICU. When my mom and I arrived home that Friday morning, my house had been cleaned, the nursery finished and the baby’s bed made. There were even some meals in my freezer. To this day, I am still truly amazed at my military family and how well they took care of my family and me.

  I have been a proud military wife for ten years now and would not change it for the world. Times have been good and times have been tough, but I have never felt alone or without support from my military family. They are wonderful. I never would have made it through this situation as well as I did without their support, love and prayers. I have strived since that day to be a military family to other spouses when they have needed me. This life we chose is not always an easy one, but we can always get through the tough times as long as we stay a military family.

  It took some time, but I finally understood what that woman said to me on my wedding day: I married a military man, and his family is my family.

  Shawni Sticca

  © 2004. Reprinted by permission of Jonny Hawkins.

  Mail Call— God’s Provision for Intimacy

  Loneliness is the poverty of self; solitude is t
he richness of self.

  May Sarton

  My husband and I started writing letters to each other early in our friendship. We had no choice. Before the advent of e-mail, it was write or not communicate. Fred and I met in Washington, D.C., two weeks before he left the Naval Academy for his sophomore summer midshipman training. He was onboard ship for most of that summer, so letter writing was integral in how we got to know each other. We’d send silly cards, cut out cartoons from the paper—whatever we could think of to make our next connection meaningful and fun.

  Three years of dating and writing culminated in our wedding at the Naval Academy chapel on a glorious June morning, but nothing could have prepared me for the next ten years of continuous sea duty. Fred was away for days and weeks, with three-month and the killer six-month deployments.

  While the ship transited the Pacific, there were no mail drops for almost four weeks, sometimes five—an eternity for a mom with two young daughters. Oh, the burst of joy at finding a much-awaited letter in the box after weeks of no communication! That single envelope with my sweetheart’s handwriting on it was all it took to get me singing exultant hallelujahs you could hear clear down the block. I’d clutch the letter to my heart, running inside to savor and devour his words like a dieter gorging on a big chocolate bar. I’d read them over and over and over.

  On the far side of the ocean, mail call was the highlight of every “underway replenishment,” when the ship would gas up from a fuel tanker at sea. Soon, the mailbags came across the lines strung between the two ships, the sailors and officers anxiously awaiting their letters from home. Fred told me that he reacted much like I did, hoarding his precious envelopes, finding a comfortable spot at day’s end to read and reread the news from home.

  With two pregnancies, sick babies, a burglary, bursting pipes and being on mom duty 24/7, believe me, there were days when I wanted to scream, “Enough!” How would our marriage survive, I wondered many times, with an ocean between us? Through all the shipboard separations, our letters were the glue that connected us and held us together.

  I remember (it still brings a smile) the letter from Guam that explained the ship was met by numerous brown boobies. Instantly indignant, I read on, only to learn that brown boobies were local birds!

  Then there were those times I shared portions of Fred’s letters with our young daughters. I read a funny story about Daddy’s liberty in Hong Kong, and how he described eating “escargot,” better known as snails, in a local restaurant. He’d liked them! Can you imagine that?

  A few days later, when I was out working in the yard, I caught three-and-a-half-year-old Megan about to chomp down on a garden-variety snail. She burst into tears when I screamed, “Stop!” I ran over to her, grabbed the snail and flung it over the back fence into the canyon.

  “But Mommy! Daddy likes snails, remember?”

  I had to do some fast talking, and needless to say, I was more careful about the sections of Daddy’s letters that I read in the future.

  It wasn’t until my husband left the navy after twenty-six years to begin a civilian career that I made an important discovery about those letters. Who would have thought that, in spite of our countless military separations over twenty-six years in the navy, the letters we exchanged would do more to foster intimacy than if my husband had been at home? I certainly wouldn’t have. I’d always been afraid we would grow apart because of Fred’s long absences from home. I realized that just the opposite had happened.

  One day, when I was “cleaning out,” I came upon one of many shoe boxes filled with his letters. Mind you, I’m a firm believer in getting rid of extra “stuff.” All those years of moving and “cleaning out” have kept our home organized.

  With my hand on the trash can, I asked myself, Should I toss them out? Instant heart-pounding panic stopped me. How could I even think such a thing? Fred’s letters are valuable pieces of family history. They represented a huge chunk of our lives.

  But even more important than that is a profound “aha” that washed over me. My husband and I had felt called to a life of military service, and we had been obedient to that difficult calling through all its joys and hardships. God showed me that our letters were his provision for an intimate relationship, in spite of our many separations.

  How could that be, you might ask? As I reflected on how God had provided intimacy, I saw that my husband had shared deep parts of himself on those precious pieces of paper. Often, he would write to me after a “mid watch,” in the early morning hours. All would be quiet on board ship, and he would describe the sea at night, the serenity of it, the glassy water with a golden moon watching over it. Or he would write about the turbulence of a typhoon and its twelve-foot seas, about a new understanding of God’s majesty. How tiny he felt in their mighty, little navy warship. How much he loved me, Kim and Megan.

  Those letters are tender, warm and cherished. They are a vital link to the man I love. Even now, it is sometimes difficult to get Fred to expose the vulnerabilities he shared in his mid-watch letters. I doubt we would be as close today if it hadn’t been for years of writing to each other, but there’s no way of proving that. What makes me feel grateful and amazed is that, in spite of the hardships of military life, God blessed me with one of my deepest desires—a desire I thought impossible because we were apart.

  Only God could lay the groundwork for tenderness and intimacy between my husband and me when we were physically separated. And he did that through letters.

  Martha Pope Gorris

  Grandma’s Wisdom

  The only thing you can change in the world is yourself, and that makes all the difference in the world.

  Cher

  I was dreading the six-month deployment. I was going to have to take care of our three-and-a-half-month-old son by myself, was going to be without my best friend for six whole months, and, because we were fairly new in the squadron, I hadn’t been able to make friends yet. I could not fathom it.

  People gave me a lot of advice, and all of it turned out to be true. One girl said that the anticipation of the separation is much worse than it actually is. Another girl told me that it was the best thing—but she’s glad she’ll never have to do it again. But all the advice is in one ear and out the other the night before your spouse really leaves.

  It was the day of my birthday, and my stomach was in knots. I just wanted him to leave so that we could work on his coming home. I wondered how I was going to get through this.

  A few days after he left, I got a piece of advice that really stayed with me. I was on the phone with my eighty-year-old grandmother. She has always given me the best advice, and, especially now, I valued her wisdom.

  Grandma Louise said, “You just can’t feel sorry for yourself!”

  During World War II, Grandpa was gone; he even missed the birth of my mother. So, I knew Grandma knew what she was talking about. As soon as she said those words to me, I could feel my attitude changing. She had handed me her secret.

  From that moment on, I never considered it a dreadful thing that my husband was gone. I never considered the separation as a loss. Sure, I missed him, and, yes, I ran to the phone every time it rang. But my pity-party had been officially canceled.

  I used my six-month separation wisely. I cherished the ’round-the-clock fun I got to spend with my son. I went on daily walks with him and the dog, and I got to know more of the neighbors. I painted every room in the house. I sewed curtains and pillows. I landscaped the backyard. I grilled burgers and shish kebobs on the barbecue. I mowed the yard and took the trash out every week. I managed the bills and the checkbook. I did things that I had never done before because I couldn’t, didn’t want to or didn’t know how.

  Grandma was right, and, by not feeling sorry for myself, I had a lot of time on my hands. Her words of wisdom had changed my entire outlook. It was a gift from one navy wife to another, from a grandma to her granddaughter. She gave me words that I will hear forever, whenever they’re needed to be heard.

>   Rachel E. Twenter

  A Trip to Washington, D.C.

  You must learn to be still in the midst of activity and to be vibrantly alive in repose.

  Indira Gandhi

  I wanted to write something special for the June FRG newsletter since the army was celebrating 225 years of service, but I couldn’t find the words. I tried writing about Sergeant York and General Bradley, but it all just felt cold. Nothing I wrote conveyed what I had in my mind.

  Ultimately, I found my muse in Washington, D.C., while we were sitting in ringside seats, watching the Spirit of America. I was armed with three different cameras that day, and, between the three of them, I must have taken more than a hundred photographs.

  I am what my husband calls “a shutterbug.” Unless I’m only planning on going to the grocery store, when I leave the house, I bring a camera. Since I started taking pictures, I have longed to catch the perfect moment on film, and, until now, my favorite subjects were my family.

  We were sitting so close that I could see the froth on the horses as they fought the bits in their mouths during the cavalry unit show. I thrilled at the pageantry of the army while we watched the drill team and musical corps. And there it was: my dream picture, the photograph of a lifetime, appeared before me.

  A retired general from the airborne division—a man in his seventies who had fought in World War II, Korea and Vietnam—sat beside us with his wife. When the 82nd Airborne chorus sang their song, the general stood at attention.

  The composition was perfect. I was looking at the back of a soldier who had served his time. He stood as straight as his body would allow. I took in the gray hair, the liver spots on his shaky hands and the stoop in his shoulders.

  To his right, I saw the chorus, young soldiers with muscular arms and slim waists. The ramrod-straight spines of youth. To his left, I saw his wife’s profile. She had been by his side throughout his military career, and was with him today. The love and pride on her face shone clearly in her expression.