The Deployment Orders

I’ve been quiet on the blog, quiet on my Facebook, quiet on the Internet. I’ve been taking in our new reality and trying to cope. My husband got his deployment orders and everything is real now.

Let me start off by giving you a little background. My husband is a soldier in the United States Army Reserve. I don’t even know if many people know that the Reserves even exist. I do know it seems a lot of people get confused about the differences between the Reserve and Active Duty.  Most of the time, we live like regular civilians. He has a civilian job. We do not live anywhere near a base. One weekend a month he puts on his uniform and goes to his unit for drill. He usually has training for two weeks in the summer. Sometimes he is needed a little more. He may go to schools that help him get promoted in the Army.

We live just like everyone else except we have military IDs and get some of the benefits as active duty military. Our world only becomes all Army when a deployment is on the horizon.

I’ve known about this possible deployment for over a year, but I guess I just didn’t want to believe it would happen. We have had two deployment scares during our marriage. The first was awful. I was seven months pregnant with our first child and he was called out of the blue. They were trying to pull him to fill a spot in a different unit. He would be gone in a week. Thankfully, that didn’t go through. The second time we thought he was going to be deployed, the deployment was quickly called off.

Maybe that’s why I didn’t believe this for the last year. I kept hoping something would change like it has before, but my husband has been gone for more training this year than ever. Preparation for deployment.

This year has been crazy. My husband started working nights about a year ago, we moved, I got pregnant with our third child, and then we got the deployment orders. The orders that will take him away before the due date of our baby. The orders that will change our lives in ways I do not even know yet.

When he told me the dates, I didn’t immediately freak out. I don’t know why. I felt numb. I felt like for sure he would be able to be here for the baby. Maybe he won’t have to go. I don’t know. I tried not to let it bother me.

Then we went to a Yellow Ribbon Event. Suddenly, this deployment became real. As a reservist family we do not have easy access to a lot of military resources. The people in my husband’s unit are spread out all over the state. Several people he’s deploying with are from different states. At this event, I got to see the people he will deploy with. I got to interact with their families. I learned that what I’m going through in my mind right now is normal.

I have had random crying spells ever since. Just thinking about saying goodbye brings tears to my eyes. I tried talking to my kids about the deployment, and they both got immediately upset. They are young and do not understand what I am saying. It’s hard. I question my own strength. I question how in the world I can manage both of our “jobs” in the household. I wake up in the middle of the night with a horrible sick feeling in my stomach as I think about what he will be doing over there. I’m worried about his safety and he hasn’t even left yet.

I feel like we are sands in an hourglass and the last last fee grains are about to fall. Bug senses that Daddy will be leaving soon. He asked me just last night, “Where is Daddy going?” I told him Daddy has important thi he to do in the Army, but he will be back. He then replied, “I don’t like worries.” He senses so much more than I realized.

For a while we were told that my husband could stay behind a few days for our third baby’s birth because my due date is so close to when he leaves. As I am learning more and more, you can’t really believe things until they happen. We were told just weeks ago while Mr. Simple was training that his command will not allow it. I sat at the kitchen table sobbing and my poor four -year-old son asked if I was crying because Daddy wasn’t home. I just told him that I was. I will never forget how he came and hugged me. I didn’t have to ask. I hate what predeployment is doing to him and I wish it was easier to control my emotions. I try to hold it together in front of the kids. I don’t want to scare them. Predeployment is hard. We will talk about that next.