I guess I just wanted to put this out there. I have a lot of people on my FB, some I know better than I know myself, others I barely know and I guess sometimes, because of the latter, I feel the need to explain myself.
Let me start with this...I was 'married' to the Army for almost four years. Literally married for a little over two. I went through 2 deployments (for arguments sake) with my soon to be ex husband. I have lived in this town for most of the time we were together and have seen things that most people wouldn't believe while I've been here. Maybe, that is why I have no tolerance left for any of it.
I have seen almost EVERY guy I know cheated on, I have seen many women cheated on, I have seen tag chasers and barracks hoes...LOL You get my point. This place has a way of changing people, and it does it to everyone, no one is special or exempt. Of the years I was with my husband, because of his job in the Army, I saw him for approximately 10 months....yes, 10 months in almost 4 years. Wrap your mind around that. People wonder how you grow apart....that's a good place to start as far as a reason. Furthermore, add the problems that someone comes home with from a deployment. TBI, PTSD, etc etc etc....the list goes on and for those of you who haven't been there, you don't get it. Everyone is different so unless you've been in that particular persons shoe's you can't know what it is like. You do not understand what it's like to watch the person you knew and loved slip away piece by piece except no one is realizing it but you because on the outside, they look and seem normal. The tiny changes escape people apparently. And btw, there's not a damn thing you can do because you're 6,000 miles away....
The other thing that pisses me off about people, mainly here, is that there seems to be this misconception that no Soldier should deal with any issues back home while they're deployed. It should be solely the wife's responsibility and that's it. SHE should be the one to suck it up and deal with it alone. Well let me tell you what, if I had done a lot less of that, my marriage might not have had so many issues. But I was brainwashed to think that was the way to go. Trust me, it's not. Being in Afghanistan does not exempt you from real life, it does not exempt you from your problems nor does it give you a license to treat people back home like crap because they don't do what you do. I'm sorry, I'm not the one who signed the contract KNOWING I would go to war (because after 2001 it wasn't an if it was a when). Don't get over there and think that you can do or say whatever you want and pawn everything off on the people at home because you're special. No. Life or death happens everywhere, every day, to every body. Unless you are going out getting shot at and blown up every day (like my ex whose plt, btw, I watched GETTING SHOT AT ON THE NEWS! (few people get that awesome reality check), and others like him and in worse MOS's and units) do not cry to me about your hard deployment. Unless you were living at a shit hole middle of nowhere little patrol base eating MRE's for 15 months in Iraq or Afghanistan, getting shot at, doing patrols, etc etc etc....there are a LOT of Soldiers who have it MUCH MUCH MUCH worse. THEY are entitled to complain.
Unless you are the one getting a call to tell you that your husband's vehicle got hit with an 800 lb bomb, that you are the one getting a worse call than that....You should thank your lucky stars every day for what you do have because I can tell you, THOSE are the things you dread the most. If you go your entire 'Army life' without them, you are blessed and shouldn't whine about how he hasn't called you in two days. Fuck, I remember when my husband was gone for 15 months to Iraq. Internet was shitty, phones were shitty and we were lucky if we heard from them every 4 days, THAT was a good week. I can certainly tell you they did not have hours to sit on a fucking computer every day so if you have that now....you're lucky. I have had friends die, I have had friends whose significant other died, I have seen people who come home dead inside. I have seen the effects of war when people come home, from a hard deployment, and I can tell you that unless you have lived through that, you don't get it. I have watched grown men cry, I have seen them unable to sleep for days on end, I have been on the receiving end of touching someone who is so amped up that they even swing in their sleep (or worse). There is not one person I know it has not touched.
So try me. Tell me I don't know what this life is like, that I don't understand, that I should be nicer because I can't. I have dealt with the real shit as have most of the people I know and love. THIS is the real Army life. It's not the shit you see on television. Just like they fight every day there, you fight every day here. The difference is, you do it alone, they have an entire unit of people fighting along side of them. In our life, you're lucky if you have one or two real friends.
I might never have been deployed but I have lived through hell here. Not only is there everything listed above but you watch everyone you know slowly move away, ETS, PCS, divorce, die, lose their spouse, grow apart...How about that? Is that enough of a reality check? So for everyone who wants to judge who I am and how I feel...now you know why. Because THAT has been my life for four years. I don't regret it, I wouldn't take it back. It made me a much stronger person and I've lived through things I wouldn't have thought I could.
However, now I'm on the brink of turning in my ID card. And with that, I am turning in a part of myself, giving away a part of my life, losing a part of who I was for so long. I have to figure out how to live in the real world again, how to function without the Army in my life, and realize that there are a whole different set of skills I have to remember now. I have not held a real job in 4 years. I owned my own business, but even that, isn't like having a career. I'm now out in the world without the backing of the Army, a bi-weekly pay check and someone who because of their job can provide whatever I may need. That is scary at 26 when you realize you have done nothing but be an Army wife for four years. No job cares that you can read an LES, set up allotments and manage the bank account....that's not accounting. No one cares you understand 98% of acronyms without a second thought, it's not a foreign language. There isn't a job that gives a crap that you have problem solving skills beyond most peoples because you've had to learn how to do it all on your own or nothing would get done...they don't care that you can fill out endless amounts of paperwork without getting writers cramp because you've done it so many times, nor do they care that you have become the most patient person on the face of the Earth because you've had to be. In the real world, none of that matters anymore. That, in and of itself, is scary and disheartening.
I don't know if there is really any point to this, other than to say, this life is hard. On both ends. If you can't respect both sides it's most likely because you haven't lived it or you're selfish, either way. The war doesn't stop at the Afghan border, it's a war fighting to make life go on every day here at home. So, when I lose patience, when I'm tired of excuses, when I get angry with what Afghanistan and the Army took away from me (because once upon a time I had a family that I loved with someone I loved very much) and I get resentful of the things I have had to endure....now, you know why.
Let me start with this...I was 'married' to the Army for almost four years. Literally married for a little over two. I went through 2 deployments (for arguments sake) with my soon to be ex husband. I have lived in this town for most of the time we were together and have seen things that most people wouldn't believe while I've been here. Maybe, that is why I have no tolerance left for any of it.
I have seen almost EVERY guy I know cheated on, I have seen many women cheated on, I have seen tag chasers and barracks hoes...LOL You get my point. This place has a way of changing people, and it does it to everyone, no one is special or exempt. Of the years I was with my husband, because of his job in the Army, I saw him for approximately 10 months....yes, 10 months in almost 4 years. Wrap your mind around that. People wonder how you grow apart....that's a good place to start as far as a reason. Furthermore, add the problems that someone comes home with from a deployment. TBI, PTSD, etc etc etc....the list goes on and for those of you who haven't been there, you don't get it. Everyone is different so unless you've been in that particular persons shoe's you can't know what it is like. You do not understand what it's like to watch the person you knew and loved slip away piece by piece except no one is realizing it but you because on the outside, they look and seem normal. The tiny changes escape people apparently. And btw, there's not a damn thing you can do because you're 6,000 miles away....
The other thing that pisses me off about people, mainly here, is that there seems to be this misconception that no Soldier should deal with any issues back home while they're deployed. It should be solely the wife's responsibility and that's it. SHE should be the one to suck it up and deal with it alone. Well let me tell you what, if I had done a lot less of that, my marriage might not have had so many issues. But I was brainwashed to think that was the way to go. Trust me, it's not. Being in Afghanistan does not exempt you from real life, it does not exempt you from your problems nor does it give you a license to treat people back home like crap because they don't do what you do. I'm sorry, I'm not the one who signed the contract KNOWING I would go to war (because after 2001 it wasn't an if it was a when). Don't get over there and think that you can do or say whatever you want and pawn everything off on the people at home because you're special. No. Life or death happens everywhere, every day, to every body. Unless you are going out getting shot at and blown up every day (like my ex whose plt, btw, I watched GETTING SHOT AT ON THE NEWS! (few people get that awesome reality check), and others like him and in worse MOS's and units) do not cry to me about your hard deployment. Unless you were living at a shit hole middle of nowhere little patrol base eating MRE's for 15 months in Iraq or Afghanistan, getting shot at, doing patrols, etc etc etc....there are a LOT of Soldiers who have it MUCH MUCH MUCH worse. THEY are entitled to complain.
Unless you are the one getting a call to tell you that your husband's vehicle got hit with an 800 lb bomb, that you are the one getting a worse call than that....You should thank your lucky stars every day for what you do have because I can tell you, THOSE are the things you dread the most. If you go your entire 'Army life' without them, you are blessed and shouldn't whine about how he hasn't called you in two days. Fuck, I remember when my husband was gone for 15 months to Iraq. Internet was shitty, phones were shitty and we were lucky if we heard from them every 4 days, THAT was a good week. I can certainly tell you they did not have hours to sit on a fucking computer every day so if you have that now....you're lucky. I have had friends die, I have had friends whose significant other died, I have seen people who come home dead inside. I have seen the effects of war when people come home, from a hard deployment, and I can tell you that unless you have lived through that, you don't get it. I have watched grown men cry, I have seen them unable to sleep for days on end, I have been on the receiving end of touching someone who is so amped up that they even swing in their sleep (or worse). There is not one person I know it has not touched.
So try me. Tell me I don't know what this life is like, that I don't understand, that I should be nicer because I can't. I have dealt with the real shit as have most of the people I know and love. THIS is the real Army life. It's not the shit you see on television. Just like they fight every day there, you fight every day here. The difference is, you do it alone, they have an entire unit of people fighting along side of them. In our life, you're lucky if you have one or two real friends.
I might never have been deployed but I have lived through hell here. Not only is there everything listed above but you watch everyone you know slowly move away, ETS, PCS, divorce, die, lose their spouse, grow apart...How about that? Is that enough of a reality check? So for everyone who wants to judge who I am and how I feel...now you know why. Because THAT has been my life for four years. I don't regret it, I wouldn't take it back. It made me a much stronger person and I've lived through things I wouldn't have thought I could.
However, now I'm on the brink of turning in my ID card. And with that, I am turning in a part of myself, giving away a part of my life, losing a part of who I was for so long. I have to figure out how to live in the real world again, how to function without the Army in my life, and realize that there are a whole different set of skills I have to remember now. I have not held a real job in 4 years. I owned my own business, but even that, isn't like having a career. I'm now out in the world without the backing of the Army, a bi-weekly pay check and someone who because of their job can provide whatever I may need. That is scary at 26 when you realize you have done nothing but be an Army wife for four years. No job cares that you can read an LES, set up allotments and manage the bank account....that's not accounting. No one cares you understand 98% of acronyms without a second thought, it's not a foreign language. There isn't a job that gives a crap that you have problem solving skills beyond most peoples because you've had to learn how to do it all on your own or nothing would get done...they don't care that you can fill out endless amounts of paperwork without getting writers cramp because you've done it so many times, nor do they care that you have become the most patient person on the face of the Earth because you've had to be. In the real world, none of that matters anymore. That, in and of itself, is scary and disheartening.
I don't know if there is really any point to this, other than to say, this life is hard. On both ends. If you can't respect both sides it's most likely because you haven't lived it or you're selfish, either way. The war doesn't stop at the Afghan border, it's a war fighting to make life go on every day here at home. So, when I lose patience, when I'm tired of excuses, when I get angry with what Afghanistan and the Army took away from me (because once upon a time I had a family that I loved with someone I loved very much) and I get resentful of the things I have had to endure....now, you know why.
