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.
tracy it is obvious you are in a world of worry & frustration which i can’t fix. but if you want to talk flooring, specifically hardwood flooring, let me know. here or dkos. good luck getting through this rough patch.
Thank you friend. Maybe someday I can start looking at flooring again. Not today though….but I’m working it out all that I can.
listen to your conscience, thank God that you have one, and take care of your little boy.
How can you put that house to use to help people who need it? Are their other kids in your community with the same challenges your son has who could benefit from a play group, or enrichment night, or whatever the correct term is?
With 3000 feet, do you have enough room to offer some to a single mom in your town who has been priced out of housing?
If you can, that, too, is Resistance.
Tracy, I’m so glad to see your diary. And I’m glad you made it to BooTrib.
This war, and this administration, has a way of making people feel — worse than the frustration and anger and rage — almost helpless. Your words are very powerful, and you’re making a great start.
I listened to Giuliana Sgrena’s interview this morning. Just weeks ago, she was shot as her rescuers drove her to the Baghdad airport. She is clearly having a hard time coping. And she can’t work because she’s still in so much pain from her wounds, and she’s very tired. So, even an “old pro” like Sgrena has all these human responses to a horrific situation… just a little way of saying you are not the only one. By a long shot. All we can do, I believe, is try to build something better, and be great examples to your son and to my daughter and all the millions of young people.
Hey Susan,
Thought about what you said the other day and things ARE shaking looser for me. It is hard because military spouses really try to tamp it all down. Everybody is so busy pounding us on the back about what a bunch of heros we all are nobody wants to burst the bubble with the whole truth. I’m not the only one who is awake at 3:00 a.m. Lot’s of marriages aren’t making it through this, the stress is extreme. Few outlets to talk to people who really want to hear about the fear of your spouse being killed, and how angry you are at certain entities, and how insane one can become when all the screws get turned on the rough days. Most of us try not to speak ill of our Commander in Chief or his “friends” because our spouses are sworn to obey his/hers orders even if it means death. We are all so fragile too at times I think we fear not towing the line, and having just one person speak ill of us might shatter our fragile world like glass.
Those bastards didn’t give you that house. You bought it, & Liberals made it possible. So throw those asshole neocons out, & call in FDR, HST & WJC, & all the other Dems who fought for benes for soldiers & their families. If it was up to the neocons, military families wouldn’t get jackshit.
Your essay is powerful & heartwrenching. I think you should e-mail it to Mike Malloy at Air America. He rips those freaks a new one nightly.
You are strong and beautiful. I hope your husband will come thru this ordeal whole & strong. He’s lucky to have you, & it sounds like he is a good man.
I will keep you & your family in my thoughts & in my heart.
Be well.
Thanks! I had a good nights sleep last night and this is some really good whoop ass to throw at those “bastard!” And you bring up FDR and I think about Social Security and I just get fried. Now that I have uncovered a lot of the guilt, I asked myself this morning why I am owning any of this. The answer is because I believed that fucker Powell. When this all started up I started keeping tabs. I had read every single thing before we went in and I had HUGE doubts and I expressed those doubts to everybody freely and at length. I always trusted Powell though, and why, he isn’t my next door neighbor or a friend or family so what the hell do I know about that bastard?! His tone of voice though and he had the kind of eyes I thought one could always trust. He got up there and said his shit at the U.N. and I went home and helped my husband pack and I was just alright with it. Thirty days later, no WMD and all lies but my husband was already over there and it was all TOO FUCKING LATE! I believed though, for a short time I believed and I added my own energy to this total fucking lie, and when they had what was mine and they ran with it it was too late then! So I sat at home and saved the LIE money, that is where my guilt comes from. If I could go kick some ass I sure would but I can’t get through Secret Service. I guess I’ll just have to have a sex change and advertise myself out as “Military Tracy” top only, then I could get passed Secret Service like butter.
Rock on!
I know what you mean about Powell. I still think he was shafted too. There were hints that he knew it was all BS, but he was outflanked. I think he would’ve been a great SOS, but he wasn’t allowed. & to add insult to injury, they tossed out the Powell Doctrine & went into the whole morass ass backwards.
you might like log onto the DNC or DFA sites & figure out something to get involved in. Operation Truth is awesome, too. Even if it’s just shooting out some e-mails to pols & media. It lets off some steam & it’s effective, & it empowers you even if you don’t have time for the volunteering & footwork stuff.
I appreciate everybody pointing me in directions that are positive. The one thing I know today that I will not and can not do is shut up. When they (soldiers) get all heated about it when my husband goes to work (and believe me everybody, they do……idiot loyalty only goes so far when you wake up and realize that you could really die for this mystery called Iraqi Freedom) some of the die hards say that we can’t just call it quits and leave because it is like saying that the soldiers who gave their lives did so for nothing. I won’t ever say that! Someone on here pointed out though how I was carrying some guilt for my husband and I took a look at that. Amazing how soldiers though are willing to carry Bush’s guilt! Will that smidget ever even get close to ever having a face to face with his conscience about how many people died for his “intel” failure? I don’t want to waste my time waiting to know and I really don’t give a shit. I have no respect for the man period. Not ever! He may be in the oval office but so long he is there it is the offal office and I wouldn’t scrape him off my shoe without gloves on!
does terrible things to those that feel it up too close. I can’t imagine what it feels like to worry about my spouse half a world away.
I hope that talking about it, venting, cursing, will help you get through this difficult time.
And I hope you can learn to love your house, which sounds quite beautiful and well-suited to your family.
Thanks for posting this here. It humanizes, for all of us, what many of us only know in the abstract.
Thanks for making this space for all!
Dear, dear Tracy, please don’t feel that your home is tainted because it is paid for by your husband’s military pay. Please, don’t do that to yourself. Your work — taking care of your son — is honorable. Your husband’s work — keeping himself and his buddies alive — is honorable. Your husband signed on to defend our country and it’s not his fault or yours that Bushco launched this wicked war. You and your husband are good people being used by bad people. You are NOT responsible for their lies and atrocities!
Think for a moment about those looters and the Iraqi policemen: if your husband hadn’t been there they might have been killed!
Love your son. Love your husband. And, LOVE YOUR HOUSE! You deserve to have a nice home because of the separations your family is enduring and the trauma your husband is suffering. Take your mind off of horrors and focus on painting colorful walls and laying hardwood floors. Find joy in the good parts of your life and don’t make me cry so hard again.
I’m working on it. I think this is a start for me in being able to get it all straightened out inside and feel good again. It is so hard, all the ups and downs one goes through having a loved one in a war. I think we all hold our breath the whole time they are gone and it leaves a lot to be processed when they get home…….alive or not.
I just read your diary and it brought tears to my eyes as well. I wish I could say something to comfort you, but I don’t know where to start.
This may sound wacky, but it’s an idea for your house. Find a spiritual person to come to your house and cleanse it of negativity. You can probably find such a person at a metaphysical store if you have them in your area. I don’t know if it works or not, but I have had person voluntarily do something like that for one house I lived in. She burned candles and walked around shussing out negatives and blessed the house.
If that isn’t your cup of tea, perhaps a member of the ministry could do it, bless your house.
Well I shall send blessing vibrations myself with this comment, and hope it helps.
Another suggestion, maybe you should start your own blog, free and easy from eblogger. I know my blog has helped me deal with my frustrations reg. the situation in this country, etc.
If I can help in some way, or if you need an email pal, just shoot me an email.
BTW I wrote about my own personal family problems on this site a few weeks ago and it really helped me to bolster up.
Hugs to you. What part of the country do you live in?
Thank you Diane, I was actually thinking the same thing a few days back and I think that I will do that. Writing has helped for the “truth” about the house to come to the surface. Putting the words down and rereading them to myself clarifies things so much for me. It was something that happened over a year and half and I was also fighting with Tricare for a surgery for my son……and I won. So much happening though, and being afraid that I wouldn’t be able to get the surgery approved and wondering if my husband was going to make it home. I was simply doing the best I could with what I had and I didn’t have many extra moments to make peace with much then. Kind of silly but kind of not, I thought about going with a little Kali theme in my bedroom. It is a personal space so it need not offend any of the Christians running around here. And Kali is all about Birth and Death……and I know that from all this death other things will be born. Don’t much care for the death though. It would have been better to not have ever had to go here at all though.
Wow! That would be a very intense icon.
Not for nothing, but I’ve always identified more with Durga. She is a warrior, but with a more peaceful side.
My favorite Hindu God is Ganesha, especially when he’s dancing, but you might not want an elephant around right now.
I’m a marginal Buddhist, & Avalokiteshvara/Quan Yin is a very comforting presence, the Bodhisattva of Compassion.
Tibetan pronounciation – Om Mani Pémé Hung
I invoke the transformation and purification of the six negative emotions of pride, jealousy, desire, ignorance, greed and anger into their true nature, enlightened mind.
mantra of compassion – avalokiteshvara
http://www.circle-of-light.com/Mantras/om-mantra.html
http://Circle-of-Light.com/Mantras/KuanYin.html
P.S. We just moved to Alabama. Now I’m really afraid to write that because one friend on here is already afraid for my sanity. I promise I won’t blow any of them away. I may just express brief moments of desire on here occassionally.
My daughter moved to Alabama in 2000 and then moved back to Socal in 2001. She had a very hard time adjusting to life there and never really did. We warned her before she went, but she thought it would be a great place to go and live in the country and have horses. It wasn’t and she didn’t.
What part of Alabama are you in…. she lived near Birmingham, can’t remember the exact town, but it was in the mountains.
Diane,
I am from Colorado…..do they have Mountains around here…..I’m getting excited? We live in Enterprise near Ft Rucker. It is near the Florida Hickhandle…er…Panhandle. My husband is teaching right now. He used the latest insurgent video as “training” today. He says most of these youngsters coming out of flight school here don’t want to watch the part where they shoot the pilot, and he doesn’t advise that one watches it a lot…..but he told them they all they need to get a bit familiar with the reality before they get over there. They really are going to try their darnedest to kill you. I can’t predict how well we will fit in here. I think it has been harder for our teenage daughter. I’m pretty fiesty and I have always kind of picked my own friends instead of waiting to be chosen. We’ll see, sometimes one finds treasure in the strangest places.
Tracy – in this diary you are exhibiting signs of Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome. I strongly urge you to seek counseling.
Don’t worry friend. I am passionate. If me being unable to sleep is PTSD then just about every spouse I know has it. Maybe we do, don’t know for sure. I know that it is hard to be exposed to such raw emotions but see, I spent a year with a husband dodging bullets and it will all most likely start up again soon. I don’t think it’s post traumatic, I think it is current TRAUMA. A person who is all connected heart, body, and soul isn’t going to get through this with their ducks in a row without real honesty and honestly, our spouses are dying and Iraqi people are dying…..current TRAUMA to a connected soul. A soldier at Kos was talking about cognitive dissonance the other day. I don’t have much cognitive dissonance.
I am so very sorry for you and your husband.
I think often of my Uncle. He did two tours in Vietnam doing recon for the Marines. When he left he wasn’t married to my Aunt yet. She said they were still fighting the day he left. He joined up right after graduating and he told her that he was doing it because JFK said, “Ask not what blah blah blah. She told him to do something different for his country! He still went. They married in between the two tours. He was wounded dury his second tour. He came home they went to college, had a family, somewhere in there in underwent EMDR therapy but he is never specific about when or how though. I long for his arms around me somedays. They already walked a similiar fire together and a different war based on lies. Some days I feel like everything is going to be alright, some days I’m not sure. Some of the guys over there for a second go around are experiencing their families just melting right now according to my husband. At work today they were talking about some of the VA organizations trying to get some of the acceptable rulings for divorces and servicemen to be reexamined. Divorce is just insane right now for the guys over there for round #2. The first go around I witnessed spouses sleeping with every drummer of every band breezing through town as a way of escaping the terrors, one “friend” ran up an additional $16,000 in credit card debt trying to deal with the terrors….so much insanity……I could write volumes. Me though….I saved money, grew tomatoes, and slept with CNN on. You don’t marry people because you don’t mind if someone blows them to smithereens. You marry them because you cherish them above all others. It isn’t sane to send your loved ones some place far far away and have people take pot shots at them over what they think is a great idea, and great chance for someone, and going to be a successful experiment. All those streamers and marching bands do jack shit for us spouses at 3:00 a.m.
I have no ties to the military, but for what it’s worth I feel the dirt on my hands too. We are all part of this society and responsible for its actions but the only thing we can do is to fight it.
For what it’s worth you can read my fathers take on how he felt about this here.
To value people above all else. So simple! I don’t know if I could have been able to so keenly know what my heart has always spoken so softly to me until lately. When I read your dad’s words my eyes instantly teared. If I leave this planet with nothing else please let me leave with that, tucked into my shirt next to my heart! And for me that is what being a Liberal is all about too!
There is peace over there. It grows in small, almost invisible patches every time your husband or any other GI doesn’t shoot; somehow manages to get water or food or medicine to the locals; or just treats them with respect as human beings.
No one will report those incidents, the “news” will focus on death and destruction, but you’ll know, he’ll know, his people will know, and the locals will know. And when it ends, you will remember those small patches of peace, as will the Iraqi people who are helped every day, one at a time, by people wearing our colors.
The next time you wake up at three in the morning, think about those people. Peace.
I really love you guys. Thanks, I will remember that and dwell on that……I know it’s true…….and I will make that my focus the next time 3:00 am arrives.
how close couples are able to so selflessly and seamlessly take on a psychic burden for the other partner… it just seems very clear to me that you have assumed all of the anger and frustration over the war and its inherent danger and insanity for your husband which has allowed him much freedom to cope and be safer in battle. Ultimately, this is not at all fair, and its no wonder that you’re so angry with him… especially if he seems so ready and willing to go right back into the breech for his brothers in arms.
Far, far be it from me to presume to offer advice, but maybe it might be beneficial for you and your husband to sit down and flesh out this unwritten contract, and renegotiate. It would be a lot better than trying to burn down your new house, or, more to the point, your husband, which is what you may really want to do…
Fire can be a pretty cleansing ritual, though… Maybe you guys could write up the old relationship contract and burn it with the help of the kids in your new fireplace… unless of course you went with the gas logs… Good luck… and may you both find peace again.
It is so hard as a military spouse to keep their job separate from ours. I think it would be much easier if their job didn’t infringe on the family so much. I wish it was eight hours and then he came home. Not to be horribly partisan, but the Clinton Administration did try to normalize their jobs a bit. They get pulled out of the family though and the affect is so huge it gets hard to maintain such a clear separation as what could exist if he had a different job. Our teenagers just went crazy when their dads left, and after a time I couldn’t understand what the heck was going on with every single military family I knew with teens……so I decided to research it and it is a common phenomenon. Not one that anybody shares with you when they send the soldiers off to fight though. They move the whole family every four years at least so spouses get pulled up and transplanted and some careers flourish due to it and some die on the vine. One way or the other spouses eventually feel somewhat in the military even though it isn’t our job, the military does function off of the joint efforts of spouses though to be able to do deployments and have families in coexistence. The whole ‘going for the other guys thing’……..that is something that is programmed in during basic training and I was pleasantly surprised to see it addressed in the Harpers AWOL story. I don’t get it though, and it is socks on the damn floor! I only have four more years left having a marriage with a soldier – then I get to be married to a civilian ……..and God I hope sanity gets some votes in 2006 and a Democrat for president in 2008. I think if I was able to work also that my bank account would be a little more appealing to me too…..in time. It wouldn’t be all full of THAT money. One last thing too comes to mind….Bosnia didn’t feel anything like this to me. It was genocide and genocide for me had a totally different everything. If things didn’t go well I didn’t feel “affected”…..I guess it was the intent and I was very clear why our nation was sending our soldiers. I didn’t lose sleep. I was at peace that. I wouldn’t have been destroyed burying him over Bosnia either. It would have been one of the worst things I would have ever gone through but I felt a deep well of certainty that in time I would be alright. The thought of burying him over this just makes me totally nuts though!
You and your husband are not responsible for the Bush administration and the Pentagon’s policies. I don’t think anyone knew just how bad Bush would be and no one knew how bad it would get in Iraq. I hope you can ride this out, get some sleep and enjoy your home. You deserve it.
Going to put this under my pillow tonight to replace some of the things I lost that I used to put under there.
First of all, let me encourage you to keep writing, to keep expressing whatever is in your heart and in your mind. It’s good for all of us to hear the truth and it’s good for you to release what you’ve been repressing for so long..
Secondly, as to the money your husband makes, remember that all of us pay for it. The president doesn’t sign his checks, all of us do. And while we are in agreement that this is a terrible, horrible war, we’re also glad our money is going to a decent and good family to provide a home for beautiful children and tomatoes.
Your story and your experience is reason 9,348 why I loathe and hate war. It’s never about the bullets traded, its about the lives disrupted, torn apart and strained to the breaking point. And how even people 3,000 miles from the actual fighting are affected…
Listen to the comments of the other people around here. Find someone to talk to, even if its not a “professional” someone. Women often repress how they feel especially when they feel they have to sacrifice for the greater good of their families. Then the resentment builds up and it comes out as anger against the ones they love the most.
As Jerome in Paris says, in the long run we all die. Make every day a celebration of peace the best you know how to. Then write a letter to your Congress man/woman and demand she/he bring your husband home immediately.
Pax
.
in sharing part of your life with the BooTrib community.
Admire your sanity for telling the truth as you see it, very few persons manage in similar circumstances. I thank the creator for patriots like you and your husband, who try to handle an impossible mission and do good.
[…]
I was also fighting with Tricare for a surgery for my son……and I won. So much happening though, and being afraid that I wouldn’t be able to get the surgery approved and wondering if my husband was going to make it home. I was simply doing the best I could with what I had and I didn’t have many extra moments to make peace with much then.
Show us, and share with us your anger, we can manage and hope to offer some comfort by listening. Keep the love in you for your kids and your husband, they deserve to share in your love. Their future lies in the bond between you. The family ties are stronger than politics or outside influences.
Now that you focus on your home, not having an outside job, look for the moments to enjoy the surroundings, nature and the beauty of blossoms in the spring when life renews. Your anger should be vented, and we’ll support you in the blog community as so many BooTribs have already stated.
Don’t try to be Atlas and take on the burden for all American society, by carrying that weight on your shoulders. We share your worries about the deceit and lies for going into Iraq, when the focus should have remained on Afghanistan. The responsibility lies on the Hill in Washington DC.
But you are right, no satisfaction will be gained for this adventure in Iraq in comparison with Bosnia. Please keep those two worlds separated, voice your anger here at BooMan Tribune, but share and build your love with the ones closest to your heart. And when you stub your toe once again on a Power Ranger, say thank you as a reminder for having your kids close by and sharing your love with such a fine man.
From your description, you have embarked on quite a PROJECT – GOOD LUCK!
… 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 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.
As you stated: “Still though, sometimes it is 3:00 a.m. and I’m still not asleep.”
BooMan International is a fine place 24-7 to share and converse your thoughts, please do.
Pax.
Oui – Liberté – Egalité – Fraternité
Thank you Qui,
There is so much positive in your post I’m going to have to chew it for awhile. I have been digesting nails for so long it is going to take me awhile to come back to a more positive position. Sometimes when I even think about that though I think that from where I stand right now it is impossible because every time I turn on the TV or listen to most of the radio stations out there I become insane. Our society is completely disconnected from the reality of WAR and the reality that the people who fight their country’s wars have to live with every single day. My husband signed on the line to protect America and Americans…..he didn’t sign up to be the geopolitical whore that he is now according to him. I have never been a prostitute but I have played one in real life! I kept a stiff upper lip for the whole year my husband was over there and I lied about how I really felt inside because if I stop smiling and waving at the cameras then everybody was going to have to deal with the sad/mad Army wife. They may have called me unpatriotic or unamerican and I was too busy being terrified about my husband to have to deal with that backlash! My husband has vowed to keep this nation safe, in turn most days in this country are fairly sane and people establish the framework that they live their lives in secure in the knowledge that if someone shows up and tries to destroy that, that my husband will put on his best whoop ass and go to town! Every single day that the general population allows this insanity to continue is another day that they shit on the best friend that they ever had…….my husband! The people who have vowed to take on the job of keeping the nation safe have been whored out and it is time to bring them home! Have someone pull a gun on you and toy with pulling the trigger and find out how fast the real REALITY about your whole life punches you in the stomach. All this mental masturbation about how, who, why, when…….look……Americans have always shown up in droves to protect America. People aren’t stupid and they know when the chips are down. Nobody is showing up for service though now because nobody is willing to die for someone else’s denial and self absorbed dreams. Have someone attack my neighborhood in force and find out how fast little civilians can become warriors. A lot of people are going to Iraq right now because if they don’t they will go to jail or be on the run, not good choices when your 30 years old and have a family who relies on you……so they get on the plane and hope they don’t draw the short straw. I don’t think I will find a peaceful soul within until our soldiers have all come home from Iraq, or George and Rummy get dressed up and drive around Ramadi in an unarmored humvee for six months, whichever comes first.
oops! I mean Oui! I really need to start proofreading.
The anger and fear from 9-11 has been exploited by the NeoCon asses and the Bush | Cheney | Rumsfeld | Rove et al.
What the American people expressed as patriotism – I am careful in using the term – led to many honest young men to sign up for the call to duty. Having lived through the lies and deceit of the Vietnam generation, some of us have been fortunate to see through the lies. Warnings of too few Americans, couldn’t change the decisions made on the Hill in DC though.
Like BooMan said these past few days, we need to come together and make a fist, we’ll not accept this BS anymore. It’s horrible when you think you are a lonely person calling in the desert. But soon, the calls will join forces, gain volume and will be heard.
We need some warmth from each other to sustain and support this movement toward the natural American spirit, based on our culture that produced the Great Generation during WWII. The American people haven’t changed, they have been lied to and abused by our “leaders”. How Bush | Cheney survived their call to duty during the Vietnam War is sufficient for me to determine their character and backbone. It’s very yellowish.
PS Qui or Oui – What’s in a Name [Shakespeare]
The choice was made under time pressure, chose a combination as short as possible. Later found out – Oui in French is Yes! and my youth was spend in St. Louis. No harm done. I hate to say No! and it’s easy for me to remember. Just like a pet, if the sound is right, you will find me.
Oui – Liberté – Egalité – Fraternité
Tracy, I’m sending you whatever little bit of strength and love I can send you from my desk here in Scotland to help you make it through this.
I’m someone who deals with violent, strong emotions regularly in his life. I’m bipolar, which basically means I’m sensitive and feel good and bad emotions more strongly than some people, and I put myself in hard situations on top of it. I have some serious advice for you, please consider it. See if it makes sense to you. If it doesn’t, that’s fine. I don’t want to be patronizing. Here it is:
You are a strong woman facing a difficult and soul-crushing situation. But you can make it through this. You have taken one important step, and for this you should be very proud of yourself. You have uncorked your feelings. The military is very good at setting up all sorts of guilt mechanisms to keep you from questioning their bullshit. You’ve broken through their evil, abusive, paternalistic power game. You have regained your humanity from them.
Your emotions are super-strong right now. And you have every right to feel the way you do. But try to stop fighting so hard. Take care of yourself. You are under trauma, serious trauma. Don’t add guilt on top of it.
Don’t feed the fire. But don’t fight the feelings, either. Allow them to be there, they are a form of intelligence. Allow yourself to hurt. Give yourself time and space to do that.
Accept the fact that you have power, but that your power is limited. You can’t change the army. You can’t make the war go away. The situation between you and your husband cannot be fixed immediately. But you can do things to make your situation better. Focus on small, concrete things.
Please, accept these as words of love which I hope may help. If they don’t feel right, then feel free to ignore them. I don’t pretend to be able to fully understand what you are going through exactly, but I have faced similar situations.
Your words have moved me, and I wish you the best.
–Cloudy Scotland
Media Revolution
How easy is it to migrate to Scotland?
Tracy..you have opened the door when so many around you say keep it shut tight. This takes great courage and will soon begin to heal you. I had a great therapist at a time in my life when I really didn’t think my soul could stand the pain anymore. I asked her “when I am going to get over it?’ Her reply was ” You may NEVER get over it, but you will get through it.” By talking about your feelings and walking through the pain, I promise, slowly but surely it will become more bearable. It is when we stuff those feelings such as anger and rage that we do so much harm to our phyches. I wrote when going through my “trauma” and honestly. If you cannot voices those bitter, rageful, vengeful feelings it may do irreversable damage. Keep writing and then write some more even if it is here or in a journal for yourself. After over five years of writing I threw away over 20 journals and started a new life here in California. Cleanse yourself…not just for you but for those that you love. I honor the light within you and may it start shining brighter for you today. If you need to vent more privately at times I will be glad to exchange email addy with you.
.
moving away, and you manage to pick up the pieces, may you be stronger and just as courageous as you are today!
Beautifully written alohaleezy!
Oui – Liberté – Egalité – Fraternité
Thank you both for words that carry me forward!
Tracy:
Life is hard enough (and yours certainly sounds like it.) without the added burden of your husband’s continuing involvement in this war. But your family comes first and it sounds like you’ve done well to get this far under trying circumstances. The house is your home, you have made it happen, it is not a by-product of the war. It is likely that you would have obtained it, war or not. Your family deserves the best that you can provide and there is no shame in this. Take heart, I can’t imagine what you’ve gone through but I wish all the best to you and your family. Thanks for this diary.
Thank you for reading my diary and hearing me! This for me is priceless! I hear Fox right now (sometimes my husband turns it on because he says it is important to keep your enemy closer) and I just want to VOMIT! Do people really believe that shit? Do they really believe that my family is just happy as hell that daddy is going away to kill all the bad guys and keep us all safe? The one fucking bad guy that I know about for sure, what’s his name again? Osa something. He’s flying free. We did make a fabulous opportunity for Zarqawi to make a name for himself though didn’t we. I imagine that really pisses Osama off. Probably not, he meditates all the time and he has probably already found the silver lining of Allah in sharing the spotlight. I think I’m insane anymore when I read the things I write. It doesn’t match anything else around me anymore. I turn on the TV and everybody on CNN thinks this is just another chapter in the The Days of Lives. Instead of reporting on the drama they have become part of it.
As a former inter-mountain states girl – remember the mountains of Colorado. They have brought me peace many times and may help you also. Find a large poster of your favorite mountain range…and hang it where you will see it every day.
Remember the mountains are immovable:
-there may be rock slides and avalanches but those mountains are always there.
-there are storms that rage like nothing else – but the mountain will still be there when the sun shines tomorrow.
-there will be forest fires – but new and strong trees will grow from the heat of the flames.
You are as strong as the mountains of home…currently going through some rock slides around the edges. Don’t see them as something to climb – unless you like that…remember them as solid and stable.
Your family and faith in humanity are also embodied in those mountains.
Peace and blessings be sent your way.
Sally,
Living in the Colorado High Country, in a small mountain village, I have to agree: “They have brought me peace,” The beauty can not be described, the energy immeasurable.
Sadly I am haunted by what is happening to our country. Haunted by the damage to the good Mother Earth. Haunted beyond belief for the future our children and grandchildren.
Mother nature, our children, our country deserves sooooo much more. There is some words of wisdom in Tracy’s comment: Burn the Motherfucker Down! With fire comes cleansing, with fire comes new life.
Let us return our country to the Land of the Free. Let us give Mother Nature, our children, our country the future that they deserve.
Keep up the fight ladies, with out the women, this World would be doomed. EtJ
I so agree EtJ –
The military wives are the mountains for our soldiers – despite the storms and ravages – the wives are immovable! We will be here to help support them when they need us….and for the soldiers that they love.
The mountains will stand – a little battered and worn – when we are done with this administration and the evils they bring. Mother Nature has amazing healing and cleansing powers…
We have to believe for our children and grandchildren – otherwise the evil will have won.
“I am a military wife in the middle of a war based on lies.”
One of the things that seemed to be seared into our military minds is that the Republican Party is the party that looks out for us and our families and that being a Republican means Pro-miliary and that all the rest are anti-military. Biggest damn lie ever spread. Nothing could be further from the truth.
One of the things you get hit with is “never question authority”. “Don’ make waves”. That somehow blind servitude is patriotic.
We lived in housing that was deemed unfit to shelter livestock. Ignacio housing in Marin, Co. Asbestos tiling, lead paint you could DRAW lines in with your fingertips. We were told not only not to drink the water, but not to wash our cars with it. The whole time we had children living in these… rat holes. We’d alert them that something wasn’t working in the house… they’d send out a two man team dressed in full hazmat gear who wouldn’t take off their masks indoors to speak to you. All communications had to be done outside… while my babies are crawling on the floor. Is this looking out for the families? Is this SUPPORT?
Society, most wearing the yellow magnets, don’t give a shit about our husbands, our sons, and their families and what happened to them during, before and they sure don’t give a shit about what happened to you after. It’s now part of the Patriot Act that my son’s medical concerns can not be investigated. AKA kiss the vaccination’s companies asses, America and shit on the kids.
Since Papa Bush’s first Gulf War, they’ve done nothing but deny illness, disabled children of those who served.
I, too, am angry. I fucking KNOW that Uncle Sam shat on my babies.
While doing laundry, I met a man who was all happy that Uncle Sam took care of the military. If he was young enough he’d sign on so he could have “the jackpot”. … Society thinks that once you’re in the military “all your bills are paid for” you “always and forever have healthcare, dental, vision and commissary rights”. What a load. But this is what civvies believe. Military gets less than a welfare family.
ONE of the reasons WE got out – and I say WE because as you know being a wife in the military is a job and we make sacrifices, too. One of the reasons is we got sick and tired of civvies treating us like third class citizens. Less than.
This war brings up the same hate for civilians I had while we were in. Their ignorance. Their “well that’s just their job to die in a war”… ITS NOT THEIR JOB TO DIE. It’s their job to defend AND it’s civilians duty to ensure the military isn’t being abused.
Please, your house isn’t a spoil of war. I know that me and my brother have a hard time with “home and hearth”. I’ve moved so much in my life, that I have a hard time feeling “worthy” of a home. This place is the longest I’ve lived in one spot ever almost 9 years. But you know what, tracy, I still haven’t unpacked some things. The “be ready to pick up and go” and the constant idea that “it can all be taken away” Relocation syndrome, perhaps?
Home means stability.
Military familes do NOT have stability in any part of their lives.
Stability is not normal for us. Therefore some part of us wants to rage against it, fight it, like our bodies would fight a virus.
You and your son, each day, are creating and working towards stability, homelife, progression. It’s beautiful, but not regular day life in the military or our lives. I’m still struggling with it myself and we’ve been out for 9 years.
My son, too, has a disability. And that in and of itself is a job and a constant source of anger and frustration. Autism is not a source of this, it’s the fighting the schools, the agencies… narrow minds.
You have a lot of luggage. And nothing I can say or share will help you sleep at 3 am, but maybe knowing that there are others awake at 3 am, too, might help(?)
Bless your home. The physical ritual might help as stated above. I’m going to do that for our next house… home.
They say we are just “wives”… “dependents” – they train the men, soldiers.. but damnit, we have the strength of a thousand men. We are soldiers. Soldiers, mothers, (and father figure while the men away for our children) we are the advocates when they come home sick. We don’t carry guns. We can only pack our hearts, our soul and our strength. It’s a heavy burden.
Imagine the burden if you weren’t as aware as you are. You are strong. Please know that your anger and frustrations can’t hurt you or those you love. Only your reaction to those feelings can.
Wrapping you up in my thoughts. Take care, Janet
You are one brave, bodacious warrior!
I’m glad you see thru the phony yellow magnets.
I hope you post some rants on Open Secrets.
Jeez, I never knew the gummint made military families live in lead & asbestos fouled housing. That’s a Huge story. Then the rethuglies fight tooth & nail to prevent vets & their families from getting any medical treatment, & they deny that they had anything to do with the sicknesses!
“War is a racket”
The Bushco crowd are criminals.
Keep your spirit up, & keep up the fight.
I didn’t realize that moving so much and having to be ready to “go at a moments notice” was such a factor in not enjoying the house, but your words really struck me and when that happens for me the words are things I needed to hear. I’m so sorry about your sons medical problems. I know people still in the military who were in Dessert Storm who have “headaches” and many other things after that happening and they will tell you that they were exposed to something over there but they just suck it up and do their best. My husband still receives Anthrax vaccinations, even though Anthrax is pretty easy to treat if you know people have been exposed…simple anitbiotics. Our son has a gene mutation, and they say that some studies show that Anthrax vaccinations affect DNA. I think the military are being used as Anthrax vaccination guinea pigs. Who will ever know? There is one father who had a son with the same disorder as ours and his DNA had mutated due to a virus, he didn’t have any of the symptoms but if his children were born with the mutated gene they did. We have never checked my husband, it is very expensive. Can’t wait to see how we have FUCKED everybody up by using DEPLETED URANIUM. Didn’t need to use that shit either, but hey, let’s see what it does. Now we have hot spots over there, hot soldiers, when are we going to have to begin to deal with the hot Iraqis and what it is going to do to them and their children. This whole mess just pisses me off so much! Crazy Republicans and the crazy military that worships them! Hang in there Janet, give your son many hugs from me. I send you my love!