The Military Saga Continues

Oh, how things can change in a blink of an eye. Sometimes I hate change. Would prefer things to stay status quo. Not sure why I ever decided to become a military wife or a mother then, but alas I did. Thank goodness I love my husband and my children.

As of last week, hubby was waiting for his short term orders to come through. One last memo needed to be added to the packet to make it complete ... oh, and then another.... oh, and one more just for good measure. Instead of doing drill last weekend and hopefully finding out if his packet was complete and if he was ordered to start 15 July, he decided to help out Wally's World because he was gone for 2 weeks straight and he's too nice of a guy. He opted to do it on Tuesday and Wednesday instead.

Monday morning he received a call from a captain at his unit asking him if he would like to volunteer for a deployment. This captain has had hubby's name for awhile and looking out for possible deployments/mobilizations - any where. It's been five years since hubby was deployed overseas and being a new lieutenant he's at the top of the list to be deployed again. I would just prefer it to not be Iraq or Afghanistan (which happened to pop up and I promptly told him NO!).

So when this opportunity came around, needless to say he was actually excited.

The position? At Cuba. Guantanamo Bay. For 330 days.

How am I? I've already started to go through a couple phases of acceptance. First, Denial. "I'll wait until I actually see the orders," I thought. Next day, orders came. Well, at least it's not Iraq or Afghanistan, I thought. I mean he could be selected/told he was going somewhere rather than given the opportunity to choose, I rationed. Then I thought, it's only 10 months (or so he kept telling me. Come to find out it's closer to 11 months. He'll be back July 25th).

Then, I started thinking about how frustrated I get during the day and relieved I am to see him walk through the door at the end of the day. For 11 months, he won't do that. That's about when it hit me.

How am I going to keep sane?
How am I going to keep the house clean, feed the kids, laundry, take care of garbage, and everyday maintenance?
How will LMA deal with not having Daddy around?
He's going to miss BBZ first birthday. Will this child really know who Daddy is when he comes home?
How in the world am I going to dig myself out of the snow if we have another winter like last year???

Of course I want him to take the position. Not only is it a great opportunity for him, it's some place relatively safe, and when he comes home he'll be a 1LT (he'll be up for promotion while he's away). At the same time, I just wish things had never changed.

We both said when he accepted his promotion last October that the next year and a half until he would make 1LT would be tough. I just didn't think it would be this tough. Or maybe I just thought I was tougher and able to handle anything.

I've thought about moving to California with my parents, or moving to Texas with a good friend, or moving back to our old neighborhood here in Virginia. I think the best thing, especially for the boys, is to not change too many things. Even they like status quo too sometimes.

So September 7th, we'll miss him, but I think we'll be okay. I hope.