5 Years Later...

When The Husband returned home from his Iraq deployment, I didn't cry. When 3rd Platoon, Delta Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division came home, I sobbed.

PTSD: One Size Does Not Fit All

So when someone says "PTSD", what's your first vision? The news headlines: "Soldier kills family, stranger, co-worker, etc--suffered from PTSD; family says he/she was never the same after war; Suicide rates are higher in soldiers suspected of having PTSD; Domestic violence levels dramatically increase in service members--PTSD culprit" etc.

But the fly off the handle, unable to cope, hiding at home, constantly anxious, dramatically different personality, alcohol dependent, violent tendencies, road raging, constantly irritated symptoms aren't the only defining symptoms of PTSD. In fact, a service member can have PTSD without obviously suffering from most of the symptoms listed above.

For example, The Husband.

Yah, About that Thriving in Chaos bit...

I've always been relatively proud of my ability to handle pretty much anything Army threw our way. I researched all options available, prepped for the worst, hoped for the best, prayed and moved on. And Army has thrown us some humdingers over the years, so I came to realization that I thrive in chaos. When everything else seemed to be falling apart and things were super crazy, I could always find a sense of calm. I attributed it to faith that God would provide and that you know, I thrive in chaos. What other people viewed as insanity: moving from overseas in less than 10 days notice, living in a house that had to be hazmat-tented when it was demo'd a week after moving out, keeping the house going smoothly and thriving during a horrendous 15 month deployment, having to move out of another house for a week while housing dealt with a massive rodent infestation, dealing with a challenging FRG/Command Climate, surviving another horrendous (albeit in a much different way) deployment, road tripping with 3 kids for 3 summers in a row while the husband was stuck someplace else, dealing with homeownership from half way across the country, and living in an area so far from civilization that it used to qualify for Remote Duty Assignment incentive pay was my normal and the chaos of all it was no big deal.

Turns out though, I only thrive in controlled chaos. Turns out, in non-Army regulated chaos, I turn into a crazy manic who goes from being a Bejeweled-playing ostrich to a hysterically sobbing, simultaneously screaming hot mess. I thrive in environments where there a just a few options and, in the end, most decisions are completely out of my/our control. Environments where there are hundreds of options and they're all based up mine/our decisions, I fail. Complete and utter epic fail. It's not pretty. Additionally, I fail in a cyclic manner. Not in a "that time of the month" manner, but in a "Okay, I've given this to God and I'm just waiting on guidance" one minute to a gasping for air, wanting to puke, hysterical hot mess the next minute. I am a roller coaster. Not the fun kind either. The kind where you're fairly certain it's never passed a safety test and the guy who just locked you in said "Good luck, last guy who sat here fell out on that third curve and we're still picking pieces of him out of the track below..." Hmm, that might have been a bit too graphic. Oh well, you get the picture. It's not pretty.

When we first arrived in the desert, a woman at PWOC gave a speech about how in the Old Testament, God would take people out to the desert when he wanted to work on them. Well, so her speech was a lot more eloquent, but that's the gist. Anywho, I took that as a warning that those major changes that we thought might be in our future, were definitely in our future. And I thought I was prepared for those changes. I thought I was ready for whatever God threw my way. I mean after all my strongest Spiritual Gift is Faith. So I had this.

Bwhahahahaha. God's so funny.

Turns out that while I've got Faith out the yin-yang, being faithful is a completely different boat. And I'm not sure how much of it was that I had faith and how much of it was that I'd Googled all options and came to terms with all options and then gave it God, therefore not really giving it to God, but more like telling Him "okay I'm good, thanks!". But when you have a plethora of options and they all depend on decisions that you get to make, there's no amount of Googling that got me to that "okay I'm good, thanks!" point. It was just a never ending sea of options and overwhelmedness.

So yah, decisions have been made and The Husband has a job out there in the real world and I have no idea  how this is all going to work out and there are so many options that I've scored well over 150,000 points on Bejeweled today alone. But I now know that there's a significant difference between having faith and trusting God. And I'm working on it, one minor meltdown at a time.

She Won't Remember...

This week I was watching Sam-I-Am excitedly yell "helicopper! hellicopper!" as a helicopter landed pretty much in our backyard and the moment made me overwhelmingly sad. Right now, when her dad goes to "work" he drives a HMMWV (humvee), his office is in the middle of the desert (The Box), and he's training/testing fellow Soldiers to make sure they're ready for whatever Army may throw at them. He sleeps in the back of a vehicle without doors or windows, under the stars. He's found 800 different ways to eat grilled meat. He speaks several new "languages": Scorpion Team verbage, OPS Group verbage, and just general desert-isms. He wears a uniform that has been out in the sun so much it's almost white. He wears boots that are so caked in dirt that the one time it rains every time he's out in the box, the rain just beads off his boots. He comes home dirtier than I ever thought possible, until the next Rotation. He never ceases to be amazed at what the Rotational Unit (RTU) did this rotation. And she won't remember any of this.

She won't remember a time when her dad was gone fighting a war for her freedom. She won't remember a time when he wore his Dress Blues for formal events--fussing the whole time about being in a monkey suit. She won't remember the tanks and bradleys that were more normal to see than not. She won't remember being able to tell when the Rotational Unit had arrived due to the lines at Subway. She won't remember the sand storm that always rolled in as the RTU rolled out to The Box. She won't remember the piles of painted rocks left for us by those who came before. She won't remember the crappy housing that we all had, but made the best out of. She won't remember the sadness and worry that went along with Deployment Ceremonies and she won't remember the joy that oozed from everywhere at Homecoming Ceremonies. She won't remember how peaceful, sad, rejoice-full, excruciatingly painful, and hopeful Taps sounds at 11pm from the post loudspeaker. She won't remember being the only one who didn't freak out every time there was a sonic boom. She won't remember playing "beat the Flag!" our desperate attempt to get to the Commissary before they started the Flag lowering ceremony and clogged the intersection for 10 minutes.

Soon her dad will get up, put on a different outfit every day and go to work for not days at a time. Soon, her dad will start doing bedtime routine because he's able to. Soon, she won't be moving from house to house. Soon, not every dad will look just like her dad. Soon, she'll have grocery stores, Wal-Marts, Targets, and gas stations instead of Commissaries, PXs, and Shopettes. Soon, her dad won't be bringing all of his friends home via Radio. Soon, seeing a Soldier will be an out of the ordinary thing (except for family reunions...). Soon, she'll never really understand why The Star Spangled Banner and Amazing Grace by bagpipe makes her mommy sniffle sob.

But she'll always know about how lucky she was that her dad was a Soldier. She'll always be proud of him for protecting her and her country. She'll always pray for those who continue to serve their country and fight for our freedoms at whatever the costs.

We won't let her forget.

You Set the Tone

In July 2001, The Husband and I arrived at our first duty station. In Germany. He was 22, I was 20 and 7 months pregnant. We had no idea what to expect. He had attended the Overseas Brief, so we had a vague idea, but in hindsight, we had NO idea what to expect. We arrived and were met by our Sponsor, who immediately took us by the Company to do a quick meet and greet before dropping us off at hotel. It just so happened that the Commander's wife was at the office. She immediately introduced herself to me and invited me to the Wives Dinner that night in town. She picked me up, we went to dinner with 5 or 6 other wives, and it was the best welcome I never expected. There was no "oh what do your husband do?", no discussion of rank, just a bunch of women chatting and having an awesome time. It was my induction into Army Life. It set the tone of what I hoped to be for the duration of our Army Life.