I am writing this because a friend has told me that it helps. Since I have begun to write anything at all about what it is like to be a U. S. military spouse right now, everyday is like one big roller coaster. People do care, and it heals some of the superficial wounds so that now I can feel a bit better in that area. Now though I can feel how bad the really bad wounds are. I cried this morning and told my husband that I hated him and one more time my husband had to go over it all again. He doesn’t believe in this war, never did after the first 30 days over there. He was only there for the other guys. He will go back for his guys because air support usually stops all ground attacks. He did not open fire on the bank that day that they said that the guys on the roof were there to rob it. He said they weren’t acting right and even though the guys on the ground were scared and just wanted him to do it he didn’t, and told them they had better double check. They did and it was Iraqi police on the roof responding to the same intel and trying to protect the bank. The robbers showed up the next day. He didn’t kill anybody who was looting, he just got them so dirty blowing shit all over them with the helicopter that they gave up, he said he never knew if they were bad guys or just trying to feed their families. Still though, sometimes it is 3:00 a.m. and I’m still not asleep.
Once you have been in the military for awhile you come to accept that they are about half full of shit. Trying to make the military responsible for what they do is like trying to get a corporation to be responsible for something that they have done. There are so many places to pass the buck, people usually get tired of watching the buck make the rounds and they finally decide to go home and figure it out another day. There were still plenty of places for the common simple man though to find a strong sense of community service and contributing to the betterment of his world in the United States military. Decent people could make it through 20 years of military service. And because your family goes through everything with you whether they like it or not, military families could garner the same sense of contribution for the sacrifices that they made. We have watched our sons and daughters make the same service to country choices because it made sense to them. They had experienced how it worked and everybody needs something worthwhile to put themselves into. It wasn’t ever easy to give 20 years of dedicating your life service, but it was possible! Now I struggle every morning to grab one cheek in one hand and one in other and make sure I can even find it. The kind of sanity I described above is in short supply at my house these days.
I have never been one to hide from the truth. I even believe that several truths can be taking place at the same time. I have been one to swear when I stub my toe. It was one luxury I always allowed myself when it came to cursing and I have really luxuriated in it while clumsily feeling for the light switch in the dark trying not wet myself as I step on a Power Ranger barefoot. My daughter sadly says that when she was little I never used to swear in daily conversations as I do now, she grieves this. I can’t apologize to her either. It is how I survive day to day. I pray daily for new truths to be known to me that bring me a sense of peacefulness. I am a military wife in the middle of a war based on lies. People die and I look at the balance in the checking account and I wonder if I’ll ever be sane again or if it will all ever make sense to me ever ever again.
When my husband was in Iraq I struggled to find a way to stay busy. I have always worked but we have a disabled son now who is five. He will go to school next year; he needs me close though right now. He has a lot of facial differences and his hands and feet are “different” and he battles a life threatening scoliosis. He is so sharp, if I can get him through the tough stuff he is going to bless this world with his intellect and his energy. I have his early childhood to plant extra flowering seeds to fight the weeds of uncertainty that will come his way soon. So to keep myself fully occupied I applied myself to using my husband’s extra pay in the most resourceful ways that I could. I hired myself for the job!
He has come home for now, and we bought a great house thanks to the “job” I chose for myself while he was in Iraq. It is 3000 sq feet and is on an acre of land and our backyard is a lake. It is all one level, my husband’s dream that his son be able to roam his whole home without needing assistance. He changed all of the door knobs to levers the first day we moved in so his son could open any door he wanted to, go outside and play when he wanted to, and never have to ask someone to help him out there either. It was an established home, so of course being a woman I began planning to paint this room this color and change that flooring…..things that would make it more ours.
I can’t sleep though many nights again. When he was in Iraq it was understandable, why now? I can’t seem to paint much either and I don’t want to look at flooring, suddenly I just want to say FUCK IT ALL! When my husband and I have a tiff I scream at him that I hate this house, but why? What the hell does this house have to do with me being angry? The answer only comes at 3:00 a.m. when I am all alone, and usually the light of day chases it way back into some deep recess in my consciousness. I’m tired of not being able to sleep though in this house. Maybe if I share my insanity it will stop being able to take me over.
I have always made an honest living that I was proud of my whole life. I have always been able to lay my head on the pillow at night with a smile on my face satisfied that I did my best that day. Things weren’t perfect but at least I had treated all with respect and in my own way I had made the world just a bit better. This house though, how this house came to be mine……..it is evil. At 3:00 a.m. this house sits in my mind and it is blood soaked, full of lies and unspeakable crimes against humanity, scumbags and neo cons and war profiteers sit at the dining room table. I can’t get my soul to accept all the hows and whys this house has come into my possession. I’m not sure that I ever will.
I have a fantasy about burning it down and watching it burn and feeling cleansed of the filth. In my fantasy the fire department shows up and I tell them not to try to save it, just sit here and have a beer with me and watch it burn while I tell you all about it. Maybe I wouldn’t swear so much after that, maybe I would feel at peace again. I pray for peace again! I pray that my country will wake up and remember that you have to make peace to have peace, and that is how we can feel at peace! There isn’t any peace being made over there…..just fucking zero no matter how much they spin this shit! Nobody seems to hear though and 140,000 boots on the ground isn’t much when compared to the number of the general population running around tending to THEIR daily lives……maybe that is why in my fantasy I want the firemen to sit down and have a beer and listen to what I have to say about this house in flames.