TADs and Deployments #4

It used to be, during peacetime, overseas deployments happened once every three years or so. My aviator knew he’d be going to Japan for a year. I planned to learn Japanese and accompany him--to live out in town with my little one. Then he informed me what “unaccompanied tour” really meant. He’d be deployed to Okinawa, Japan and I wasn’t allowed to come. A year! A year apart! We’d only been married three years. I had an 18 month old.

He left right after New Years’. Three weeks later I discovered I was pregnant with our second child. I called the overseas operator to tell him.

Operator: “Sergeant Major who? There is no rank Major Sergeant.”

“His last name is Sargent.”

“Sergeant Major who?”

Once the operator and I got the rank/name thing cleared up and he got on the phone, I told him the news.

“Whose is it?” he asked.

Really--three weeks gone and he thought I’d found a sperm donor? I’m not that kind of girl.

The year went slowly. I tried distracting myself. I crewed for friends of ours on their Prindle racing catamaran until I couldn't fit in my wetsuit anymore. I modified our house with plants and makeovers as much as our budget allowed--which wasn't much since we had costs in the US and Japan.

And I was still pregnant running around after a very active firstborn.

It made me mad. Mad at Andy.

Logically I knew he did not choose to go overseas, it was part of his job. I knew it wasn't much fun for him since it was a non-flying billet with the "Running 9th" Marines.

Then the doctor put me on bed rest.

My now two-year-old, strong-willed child made that difficult.

So my mother came to stay with me. Bless her for that.  It couldn’t have been easy to leave her own home and life and take care of a lonely, grumpy preggo and her challenging toddler. We didn't agree on much about child rearing. We didn't agree about much of anything. Yet she came to help me and I tried to be appreciative.

Which led to an escalation in my anger at Andy. Maybe I should have been angry at the Marine Corps or my mother for being an additional stress instead of the supportive help I wished her to be. Nope. I blamed it all on Andy.

An emotional, non-logical reaction.

So many of us have partners far away through no choice of their own. For some it’s orders from the military. Others travel for their work or work so hard they might as well be in Japan. Anger creates larger distances than deployments. My mother and my husband treated me with understanding and love until my own love remembered to be appreciative.

TADs and Deployments #3

Deployments.

Never liked them.

When I was first married, even a night away from my guy brought lonely to live at my house until he returned. Later, before kids, I learned to tolerate it--appreciating the time to get projects done: a special Christmas present, putting mirror and redwood panels in our bath (It was 1976!), or just to have a day or two to read a book or visit friends without needing to cook dinner or hurry home. After kids, having him gone at all meant no relief at the end of the long day, no adult ear to listen to my joys and woes and ain’t-our-kid-cute? stories.

But all those short cross-countries had a different quality than the TADs. Most of those lasted two or three weeks somewhere else: Tyndall AFB, or Nellis AFB, or Fallon NAS. When my husband left on a TAD, something always happened to remind me why he was indispensible around the house. TAD might as well stand for Things Always Deteriorated.

One time my guy was TAD to Fallon. First, the car quit working. Of course. Then I opened the door to the tow-truck operator and my dog leaped in the air with shark eyes to bite him. I put my hand out to stop her and she bit me. The red feather pulsing out of my arm told me the bite had punctured an artery.

Thank goodness for my civilian neighbors who drove me to the hospital, cleaned up the blood and watched my three young girls. We no longer see each other across the street, but I remember and am grateful. Pennies for Heaven.

Later, when I shared my tale of woe with Andy, he felt bad but he couldn’t do anything about it. I remember he was angry and worried and helpless all at the same time. He flew fast jets, practiced Air Combat Maneuvers--ACMs; control and situational analysis were his mantras. When Things Always Deteriorated when he wasn't around us, he had no control and he couldn't watch out for the bogeys. He’d rather be with us at night then go back to a BOQ room. I’d rather have had him with me at night, too.

But he did love the flying.

So many of our military today are serving back-to-back-to-back deployments, mostly in a war zone. This blog post is for those who stay at home, who take care of the kids and the house and the car and their hearts so there is something to come home to. Make friends with your neighbors--even if they don’t understand what your spouse does. Who knows, your car might break down.

And to the neighbors of our military families--reach out.

Thinking of all of you today.

Liar

Military Writer’s Society of America has an award each month called The William E. Mayer Prize for Literary and Artistic Excellence. I thought I’d give it a shot back in December. The word prompt was “Deceit”. Sometimes I struggle with my writing. This wrote itself from my heart.
    

I wanted to marry my love. I had no intention of marrying the Marine Corps--so love mixes with anger and anguish.
        

I’m still glad I married my guy--now 36 years! I’m so proud of him and so proud to be a Marine’s wife. That doesn’t mean I don’t remember being mad about it all.

LIAR

You lied. 

Even the uniform all starched,

And pressed with red stripe

For the blood of others,

While you promised forever,

In sickness and in health. 

True blue. 

Honor. 

Leadership.

You led me down the path

Of believing while I

Scattered rosebuds where I may. 

No more.

Only Decembers and Januaries

Gripped by cold.

Gripped in cold empty arms.

My white knuckles tighten. 

You take up arms,

You swore,

To hold me in your arms.

Gunmetal arms, mortars, bullets,

Rotors and turbine jet engines,

Take you from me.

I swear. 

I have issues with

Not being issued,

Being left behind

With our children

Who cry

Their worry. 

I worry. 

We miss you.

I miss you. 

Come home.

Aviator Brief V: Cross-countries, TADs & Deployments #1

The number one job of an aviator was to get as many hours as possible flying in the airplane. A cross-country was generally a weekend spent in the plane going somewhere and then coming back. If the pilot could get out Friday, he could land somewhere and spend the night; then fly somewhere else on Saturday and spend the night; then return on Sunday--three legs, more flying.

A TAD (Temporary Attached Duty) involved a longer period of time, sometimes with one aircrew--pilot and RIO, sometimes with more. Getting selected for the Navy’s Top Gun school was TAD, so was Nellis Air Force Base called Red Flag where pilots flew against ‘enemy’ combatants to practice ACMs (Air Combat Maneuvers) There was another black (super-secret etc.) program near Nellis where American fighters flew against so-secret-I’m-gonna-have-to-kill-you-if you-find-out-about-it something or somethings. Rumors were they had Soviet MIG fighters. How did wives know about any of this? They listened when the guys stopped talking, and usually they were listening before--when the guys had forgotten wives were present.

I couldn’t have written about the uber-verboten program ten years ago without getting Andy into trouble--or myself. I checked on the web--bless the web--while I was in the process of writing WING WIFE and found out it had all been declassified.

For awhile, after my brother’s death, some strange guy in Yuma went around whispering that Bullet had been killed in Russia after flying one of the super-secret-missions in a super-secret plane to destroy a missile-targeting laser facility. The guy telling the story was of course the only one to survive going in to destroy all trace of the mission and the bodies. Come on. Dale Brown wrote that book about a year before the guy starts murmuring to my brother’s widow.

Who keeps secrets best? Men or women? I keep secrets I need to keep. There aren’t many of those because I believe the truth will set you free. I have kept the secrets of the crazy things my college roommate did--but then again, she’s kept mine as well. No purpose to serve in doing anything but teasing her about the fact that I KNOW.

Andy and I have argued about gossip for years. He was dead set against talking about anyone we knew out of their hearing. I believe women help the world run smoothly by trying to understand their friends, family, and neighbors through discussion. It’s more like group therapy--without a moderator. I concede some people and some groups need moderators. Gossip that spreads information for sensationalism is wrong. Talking about the foibles of others, to try to reach their truth, is different. I choose friends who talk about others with a kind heart.

Guys don’t gossip much. They just have an opinion about another person and hell will grow daisies before they will change their minds. So I think women keep secrets best, because they know so many more.