When All Goes Awry

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During peacetime, overseas deployments happened once every three years or so. My aviator knew he’d be going to Japan for a year. I planned to learn Japanese and accompany him. Then he informed me what “unaccompanied tour” meant. He’d be deployed to Okinawa, Japan and I wasn’t allowed to come. A year! A year apart! We’d only been married three years. I had an 18 month old.

He left right after New Year’s Day. Three weeks later, I discovered I was pregnant with our second child. I called the overseas operator to tell him.

Operator: “Sergeant Major who? There is no rank Major Sergeant.”

“His last name is Sargent.”

“Sergeant Major who?”

Once the operator and I got the rank/name thing cleared up and he got on the phone, I told him the news.

“Whose is it?” he asked.

Really? Three weeks gone and he thought I’d found a sperm donor? I’m not that kind of girl.

The year went slowly. I tried distractions. I crewed for friends of ours on their Prindle racing catamaran until I couldn’t fit in my wetsuit anymore. I modified our house with plants and makeovers as much as our budget allowed, which wasn’t much since we had costs in the US and Japan.

And I was still pregnant running around after a very active firstborn.

It made me mad. Mad at Andy.

I knew he did not choose to go overseas, it was part of his job. I knew it wasn’t much fun for him since it was a non-flying billet with the “Running 9^th” Marines.

Then the doctor put me on bed rest.

My active two-year-old, strong-willed child made that difficult.

So my mother came to stay with me. Bless her for that.  It couldn’t have been easy to leave your own home and life and take care of a lonely, grumpy preggo and her challenging toddler. We didn’t agree on much about child rearing. We didn’t agree about much of anything. Yet she came to help me and I tried to be appreciative.  
Which led to an escalation in my anger at Andy. Maybe I should have been angry at the Marine Corps or my mother for being an additional stress instead of the supportive help I wished her to be. Nope. I blamed it all on Andy.

An emotional, non-logical reaction.

So many of us have partners far away through no choice of their own. For some it’s orders from the military. Others travel for their work or work so hard they might as well be in Japan. Anger creates larger distances than deployments. My mother and my husband treated me with understanding and love until my love remembered to be appreciative.

Help wanted!

Before Andy and I had kids, I learned to tolerate it, appreciating the time to get projects done: a special Christmas present, putting mirror and redwood panels in our bath (It was 1976!), or just to have a day to read a book or visit friends without needing to cook dinner or hurry home.

Having my spouse gone after we had kids was a different story. It meant no relief at the end of the long day, no adult ear to listen to my joys, woes, and ain’t-our-kid-cute? stories.

But all those short cross-countries had a different quality than the TADs. Most of those lasted two or three weeks somewhere else: Tindall AFB, or Nellis AFB, or Fallon NAS.  When my husband left on a TAD, something always happened to remind me why he was indispensable around the house. TAD might as well stand for “Things Always Deteriorated.”

One time my guy was TAD to Fallon. Of course, the car quit working. Then I opened the door to the tow-truck operator, and my dog leaped in the air to bite him. I put my hand out to stop her and she bit me. The red feather pulsing out of my arm told me the bite had punctured an artery. Thank goodness for my civilian neighbors who drove me to the hospital and watched my three young girls.

Later, when I shared my tale of woe with Andy, he felt bad but couldn’t do anything about it. I remember he was angry and worried and helpless all at the same time. He flew fast jets, practiced Air Combat Maneuvers–ACMs, control and situational analysis were his mantras. When “Things Always Deteriorated” and he was gone, he had no control.

So many of our military today are serving back to back-to-back deployments, mostly in a war zone. For those who stay at home, who take care of the kids and the house and the car and their hearts so there is something to come home to, I understand how you feel.

Make friends with your neighbors, even if they don’t understand what your spouse does. Who knows, your car might break down.

And to the neighbors of our military families, reach out.

Marcia J Sargent blogs at wingwife.blogspot.com. She authored the book, “Wing Wife: How To Be Married to a Marine Fighter Pilot”

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