Military wives - People of the Decade

As 2012 ended and 2013 commenced, much as said and published about people of the year; incredibly, unfathomably including Obama being named Person of the Year and Bill Clinton being named Father of the Year.  Regardless of being astounded by these selections, I put forth that the People of the Decade are military wives.

Ten years of war, not police actions or low-intensity conflict, but gut wrenching, body decimating, limb taking, multiple combat tours, large numbers of women in ground combat, unspeakable horrors war have been supported by military wives.  While much was written and publicized about them, not near enough has been done to formally recognize them as a group.

Sure, Oprah and others have provided many a few minutes of fame.  Numerous non-profits were started up by and for them.  Elected officials have sought them out for political advantage.  Through it all, the current generation of military wives have shouldered enormous burdens, both before, during, and after any individual deployment.

The pressures on a military wife prior to a combat deployment of her husband are basically unknown by the majority of American citizens.  Periods of intense training precede the actual date of departure.  Often, this training takes the soldier, sailor, airman, or Marine away from home for days and weeks on end.  In the Corps, we call this the work-up phase.  For the young wife, normally located hundreds or thousands of miles away from home and family, the period is also filled with countless briefs and presentations, papers to complete, wills to be made out, and critical decisions to be made.  Does she remain at the duty station/post during the deployment?  Does the young family have the financial resources for her to return home to be with family and friends during the deployment?  How about their finances?  (In high cost areas, such as southern California, young enlisted families meet the HUD definition of low income.)  How is the car; is it in good running order?  Can the wife drive it?  Are there children or is she pregnant?  Can she get to medical and the commissary (military grocery store)?  Is she employed?  All too often, that special situation of being in love and newly married runs headlong into the reality of military life.  Think about it for a moment.  How would you react, as a young wife, if your husband was going to be gone for six months to a year?  Let along if he is going in harm's way.  While the military is much better at providing support during these situations than when I was a new Marine, it is still a exceptionally challenging time for these young wives.  By the way, the "old," experienced wives have to go through all of the above, and more, plus taking on the responsibility of mentoring and assisting the new wives.  And it hasn't really begun as yet.

Finally, the departure date arrives and the emotional upheaval of the husband's actual departure hits like a ton of bricks.  Many times, because of the vast distances to be traveled, the departures are at unusual times, like 1 AM.  The men have their weapons, board the bus, plane, or ship; kisses and hugs, a little longer and tighter for the wives who are pregnant; then the men are gone.  Tears flow, reality begins to set in.  The deployment has begun.

Now, maybe for the first time ever, the wife is responsible for managing the household: balancing the checkbook; ensuring the routine maintenance is done on the car(s); keeping the bills paid; arranging for home maintenance; getting the things that break fixed (one soldier's wife wrote in her blog, "Murphy’s Law is a constant companion. The moment he walks out the door, anything that can break, collapse, bleed, or explode–will"); being mother and father to the children in the home; and trying to maintain a normal life, in the face of the decidedly abnormal, at least by conventional standards.  For all the wives, the fear for the safety of their husbands is very real.  For some wives, however, the fear is exponentially higher.  Like or not, some of our men in uniform serve in more hazardous and dangerous roles than others.  While everyone is in danger, I offer those in certain specialties and/or units are in much greater danger.  For example, the infantry, special operations, explosive ordnance disposal, etc.  Don't think for a moment the wives of such  servicemen are acutely aware of this distinction.  Try to imagine living day-to-day with this phenomenal amount of fear.  Ironically, the vastly superior and more reliable communications capabilities actually contribute to the level of fear.

By way of explanation, in my day it was rare to talk by telephone to our wives when we were overseas.  The overwhelming majority of communication was by letter, snail mail if you will.  Texting, Skype, e-mail, VOIP, SatCom, and the like didn't exist.  That slowed up the comms, frustratingly, but also provided for a time buffer.  Now there is almost regular communications depending on where the serviceman is located.  (To be sure, some go weeks without any form of electronic communications, while at Forward Operating Posts, out on missions, etc.)  But for many, there was regular communications.  This provides a unique challenge, particularly when a casualty (wounded or killed in action; or injured or killed by non-hostile event) occurs.  The military locks down the electronic communications, so the wife of the injured or killed is notified in a timely and proper manner, preferably in person.  Consequently, the wives know that, barring other exceptions, there are two primary reasons regular email, Skype, etc. communications are interrupted.  First, their husband has become a casualty.  Second, a technical glitch in the comms system.  When that break in electronic communications occurs, they fear the first and hope for the second.  During the height of the war, when local Marine units were taking heavy casualties, I was working for a non-profit that supports junior military families.  One morning, a young wife and her two children came into the office seeking some assistance.  Since it was rare that we had walk in clients (most of the requests were handled by phone and email), I was chatting with her as the team processed the request for assistance.  It came out that she was visiting for more than one reason.  I clearly recall that morning, because we awoke to read in the newspaper and hear on the TV, "five Marines were killed in Afghanistan yesterday...names are being withheld until the notification of the next of kin."  This young wife of a deployed Marine candidly told me that upon hearing that in the morning, she grabbed her kids and got out of the house, because if she wasn't there, no one could come to her house and make a casualty call (formal notification to the next of kin of a servicemember being wounded or killed in action).  As it turned out, her husband was OK and it was a technical glitch in the communication system.  But try to imagine the roller coaster ride of emotions throughout her Marine's deployment, exacerbated her knowing the wives of some of the Marines in her husband's unit who had been killed in action.  Day after day, week after week, month after month.

Finally, her husband returns.

After the tears of joy, thrill of being together again, and coming together as a family again (perhaps the returning Marine holds his eight month old son for the first time), life should return to normal, right?  Maybe not.

A lot has been said and written about PTSD.  I'll not add to volumes of information already available.  Let me just observe that the military wife's role may become even harder when her husband returns.  Depending on what he saw or experienced, the memories may never leave.  Maybe he was also wounded (another topic for another time).  If he was the infantryman, the proverbial grunt, maybe some of his friends were killed.  Whatever the experience, it may not be one the wife is able to understand and share, perhaps because her husband doesn't know how to or chooses not to.  So once more, the military wife shoulders the responsibility.  And, unlike his deployment, which had an end date, this does not.  Side bar comment: sometimes, when the soldier, sailor, airman, or Marine returns, he may already know when he's deploying again.  Multiple combat tours were the norm, not the exception, over these past ten years.

I've spoken with military wives who have endured multiple combat tours;  experienced their husbands changing vastly because of them; held their husbands as they cried for their fallen friends; called for help when their husbands threatened/attempted suicide; and began the preparations for the next deployment.

Every generation of warrior and warrior family lives through a unique situation.  However, as the longest war in American history concludes, the exceptional, the extraordinary, the profoundly challenging role of the military wife over these past ten years deserves special recognition.  That's why they should be the People of the Decade.