Monday, April 09, 2007

It's the Not Knowing That's Hardest

Last week's love fest post about my husband was inspired by all the incredibly thoughtful things he was doing at the time. Those things included his encouraging me and arranging for me to go to New York next week for Patrick's surgery.

Yes, Patrick is having more surgery.

Knowing how awful I felt last September when I was here while Patrick was in the hospital there, my husband said, "We'll do what we can to get you there," and then took a week of leave from work. He'll be the stay-at-home dad next week and have to deal with all the shit that's been going on around here, which I don't feel like talking about.

But that post was also inspired by the way he had been dealing with some really crappy stuff that had been going on around him. Work has been harrowing. His step-father was an ass (as usual) and my husband totally stood up to him.

He's just had a lot going on. In fact when talking about his step-father's dickish ways, he said, "He just caught me at a really bad time. With every thing at work and worrying about Patrick and everything you're stressing about..."

But as it turns out, it was way worse of a time than I had thought.

Two weeks ago, my husband got orders to Iraq.

And I'm not just talking about the squadron being tasked to send someone. I'm talking about him being called out by name.

And I'm not just talking about some Air Power fly over shift or a cushy set-up-the-general's-lunch kind of assignment. He was going out on the ground with an Army unit to do his magical, voodoo warrior shit on insurgent booby traps.

Yay.

But he didn't tell me any of this. In fact, he left on his TDY last week without telling me about his Iraqi deployment.

When he got home on Friday he found a quiet moment and said, "We need to talk."

Now, when my husband says, "We need to talk," it can only mean one of two things. Either we're moving or he's deploying.

"You're deploying, aren't you?" I knew this was coming.

"Well, not now, but it was close."

He had just found out that morning from his commander that the powers-that-be (with some help from his commander) had decided he was too mission critical to the squadron here to leave at this time.

I'm not sure how to explain this to civilians, but maybe other military wives can understand. It's not that I'm shocked or upset when he gets deployed. This is what he does. I know he'll deploy. I'm pretty much always just waiting for him to tell me when he's going.

But it is this maybe he will, maybe he won't shit that gets really fucking old.

Yes, I'm glad he's home for another summer. We have fun plans. But I can't get too comfortable in that because for all I know, they could change their minds again tomorrow and send him.

Yes, I'm glad he's not going to be doing some scary ass shit on the ground. For now. But we'll have to wait and see what kind of deployment he gets in September.

Ack. I didn't even realize this was stressing me at all. When I started writing this I had a completely different point. Right now, I'm thinking of my friend Jenn (Who I owe an e-mail) whose husband has been going through some awful stuff during his third year-long tour.

It may sound weird and ungrateful, but sometimes as a military wife you just want to scream, "Send him already! Will you! I just want to get on with it!"

I've said it a million times before. It's the uncertainty that sucks the most.

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