One More Goodbye to the Army

On July 21, 2001 I became an Army wife. I had no idea what I was getting myself into, but the Officer...well he was worth whatever it meant to be an Army wife.

It was a challenging, exciting, unpredictable, lonely, confidence building and unforgettable experience. The Army taught both of us what we were made of, how tough you can be, how far you can push yourself and how far you will go to be with the people you love. I am the woman that I am, the wife that I am and the mother that I am, because of the Army. I am tougher than I ever thought. I'm more self-sufficient than I ever thought and it makes me proud. Much of my identity, if not all of it, was being an Army wife.

We separated from the Army on October 8, 2008, a date I will never forget. On that day we became civilians. I had no idea what a departure that would be from who I had become. I felt, and still feel sometimes, that people don't understand me because civilian people can't understand where I've been. No civilian woman has put her husband on a blue school bus, kissed him through the open window and wonder if she would ever kiss his lips again. How does any woman find the strength to let that man go? We should all be hanging on their legs like two year olds, begging them not to leave. The memory makes me cry, right now, because that is such an impossible and powerful moment in my life.

Deployment, probably more than anything, changed me. We didn't have children at the time, so my mentality was different. I would always think, "I guess if he doesn't come home, at least he's not leaving children behind that won't know their Dad. I could make it through, I would just keep living, somehow." I had to mentally drive on, and make my day count and pretend like I didn't have my hand gripped around my phone every minute of the day, waiting for a phone call to say he'd lived through another 24 hours in theater.

Throughout the past 2 years, I have slowly been letting go of being an Army wife. Trying to decide who I am and how I need to adjust from Army wife to normal civilian person has been a struggle. I have missed the Army and the incredible friendships I developed. On the other hand, I can't imagine dealing with another deployment. As I continue to struggle with the transition, my last physical connection of being an Army wive was taken away today. My windshield is cracked and getting replaced this afternoon. My Fort Polk, LA window stickers had to be taken off the windshield. The tags have been expired for nearly a year, but there was something in me that wouldn't take them off. As I was peeling them off the windshield, I thought about how ironic it is that I waited as long as possible to put those stickers on my car because I didn't want to deface my beautiful, new car with ARMY stickers!! Little did I know how much my life would revolve around those stickers and the community that they represent. I have always thought that once an Army wife, always an Army wife. My husband might not be an active Army Officer anymore, but I am still proud as ever of my soldier. I am equally as proud of his wife, and what the kind of person that the Army has helped me become. This is my official departure from the Army, what a weird feeling.