There's No Way You're Not Coming Back

In the early days of the Iraq war I was living in Marine Corps base housing in North Carolina. Just about every Marine in the neighborhood was deployed to Iraq. My husband was no exception. Like any other spouse, I had my friends, my peeps, my home girls. We were there for each other come hell or high water. We cared for each other and each other's children as if they were our own. We lived with the quiet denial that one or more of our Marines might not come home safe and sound. We held each other and consoled our children when news starting coming 'round; the guy down the street wasn't coming home, the gal across the street would be at Bethesda for months to come, and the news just wouldn't stop coming. Every few days it was someone from our base, someone from our neighborhood. We stalled fate by pouring ourselves into our work and our children. On the weekends we traded off who would be "the responsible one" while the rest partied away all manner of anxiety.

During this time I'd also been attending one of several support groups offered through the Family Service Center. One particular new Marine wife and young mother was from the Bronx (she was young to me at 21 years of age to my 41) and was still having trouble getting used to people in the South meeting her gaze as she made her way through the town stores. She hadn't made any friends even after moving into Junior Enlisted housing, saying there was too much backbiting, gossip, and infidelity. When she found out her husband was to deploy, she immediately made plans to return to New York with her infant son and did so within days of his departure.

She showed up for our regular Tuesday evening meeting not sixty days after having left. Many spouses find out the hard way that family and hometown friends simply don't understand military life, the demands, the camaraderie, and the discipline that filters down from the Command through the service member and to the family. It wasn't the bugle at sunrise she had missed; it was the knowledge that she wasn't the only one missing her man and scared to death that he wouldn't come home to his wife and child. Like so many of us, she needed the company of those experiencing and those who had experienced the same thing, even if most of those were strangers. She learned quickly that military spouses aren't strangers even if we don't know everyone's names. Still she was hesitant to do more than meet up once a week.

Article Author: Diana Hartman

Diana (nee Gulick) Hartman is the Culture and Tastes Editor for Blogcritics.org. She is a freelance writer, mother of three, and a (Ret.) US Marine spouse. She is a Wichita, Kansas native, having also lived in the California desert, Southern California, and eastern North Carolina. …

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