****This post is part of the series Real Army Wives on storiesofourboys.com. This series chronicles the story of our first deployment, back in 2003.****

Once Alan had been gone for 6 months, and we were finally able to communicate regularly, we found that we began to bicker–even from continents away. We were having newlywed problems, whether we were together or not.

Alan was anxious to move us forward towards our goals in the U.S., yet he was stuck in a combat zone, feeling powerless to affect change. He wanted me to go out and buy a $70,000 house. Plus, he thought I should move us in there by myself so we could start building equity……I was like, “Heck no, I won’t go..”

I wanted him to call more. He gave me the actual reasons he couldn’t.

I was disappointed that he hadn’t had a family member send me an anniversary gift.

Granted, my expectations were HIGH, and he was never one to sugar-coat a single thing…..so we had issues….

an Iraqi flag Alan sent me in a package

On October, 1, 2003, I wrote him out this list, half-joking, half-serious, to lay out all of my expectations and avoid further arguments…

So here’s a guide for you– to save your marriage and prevent further fights.

{Alan may not have enjoyed reading this, but at least he knew how to not upset me going forward, which made for a better marriage relationship.}

Keep this in mind if your spouse deploys! It may help you! And you may even be able to say it with less sass than I did, and it would sound downright sweet…

#1. Call me every chance you get, BUT if you decide not to because….

a.) You think it’s not a good time.

b.) You don’t want to wait in line.

c.) You’re cheap.

OR

d.) You want to let other people call their families…

Fine, but you NEVER should tell me these excuses. Keep them to yourself. Don’t tell me you purposefully didn’t call! Especially for the above excuses which DO NOT help.

#2. Mid-Tour Leave– Yes, of course you want to take it.

ALL you care about is seeing your wife ASAP. You would do anything to get to see her. It doesn’t matter that you have to go back to Iraq. Even for a day with me, you’d do anything.

#3.) Pictures: Never return pictures I send to you.

How would you feel if you mailed me a picture of yourself that you thought was good-looking, and I just mailed it right back to you? HELLLOOOO!

#4.) Please record all tapes to me when your roommate is not in the room.

….This was very much a 2003 problem. We recorded each other cassette tapes. Nowadays this advice would apply more to phone calls.

For at least half of the tape, please be alone. Otherwise, you are way too official and business like, and there’s nothing mushy on the whole tape. Yuck. I hate getting business tapes about money, etc.  I just want you to be absorbed in me the person, not me the dependent.

#5.) All holiday and special occasions should be accompanied by a gift OR flowers.

Being apart does not take away your responsibility to make me feel special. For example, everyone else’s husbands arranged for them to get flowers on their anniversaries and/or birthdays. Don’t give me that crap about you can’t because you can.

Here’s how:

1- You arrange it when you have internet access.

2- Otherwise, you write a family member (i.e. parents) and ask them to send me something specific and reimburse them with a check. You have checks.

#6.) What qualifies as a holiday?

Anniversary, Birthday, Christmas, and Valentine’s Day

~~~~~~~~~~~

That’s all I can think of right now….I know you probably feel a little offended that I made you this list, but I’m just sparing us future fights by alerting you to my expectations of you as my husband.

I hope this doesn’t sound harsh. I’m not trying to sound harsh. I just don’t want to have to cry all the way to Sea World like I did the other weekend because there are some things you simply don’t understand.

Now I do realize that I’ve been guilty of the same thing, so see, I’m working on it.

My tapes have since been VERY sweet and the last one was even rated R. {Note to self, destroy all tapes.} Plus, I have increased your packages and refrained from reacting quickly to things that you say that I hope you don’t mean.

*********

No long deployment is going to happen without some disagreements. We all just have to do our best to be understanding and give each other the benefit of the doubt. Meanwhile, I think this list was a big help, especially since it was the FIRST year of our marriage!

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left to right: Elsie, Kayla, Sarah, Me, & Cloe. Kayla’s sister was behind us.

***This post is part of the series The Real Army Wives. For last week’s post about The Coffee Group, click here.***

Okay, you may or may not get my title reference there to the children’s book, Sarah Plain and Tall, which you should totally read to your children. It’s such a great book.

I still vividly recall the day I met Sarah.

(I even have some adorable photos of Sarah…..but I left town for Hurricane Irma and didn’t pack my photo albums, so you will have to wait for those…….)

It was one of those oddly eventful days. Before Alan’s unit ever left, they hosted a Unit Sports Day, which was a fun way to break up the monotony of all the waiting for deployment.

It was February, so I wore these blue, bootcut, work-out pants I had with a white Alabama t-shirt tucked into it. My, how fashion has changed. I promise it was not weird in early 2003 to tuck in your t-shirt. It’s funny that I can often remember what I was wearing but never what anyone else was wearing…

Fort Hood had a policy of pulling people over for “random” car inspections, even if you did have your car dashboard military ID sticker in place as well as your personal military ID card. Sometimes it seemed like the inspections weren’t all that random.

That day the NCOIC, which means non-commissioned officer in charge, decided to pull me over for a random inspection. Of course, I was running late and nervous about even finding the sports day location, so I was annoyed by this. However, I complied like a good little citizen. For some reason I even had to get out of the car, though I have no idea why.

Once they were all finished inspecting my Grand Am and my paperwork, this staff sergeant handed me back my ID and said, “All done. You got a nice ass!”

Say wha??????  Well, that did rattle me a bit, but I spoke not a word, got back into my Grand Am, and drove on in a billion circles until I finally found the sports day location. I probably had to call Alan on the way there lost, knowing my typical pattern in the pre-GPS days. Oh, who am I kidding? That’s still my pattern!

The Unit Sports Day consisted of several groups of soldiers running different lengths of races. That’s all I can recall from it, and then there was a food booth, run mostly by wives. I joined the wives at the food booth, and that was where I met Sarah.

I’m sure I told Sarah my gate car inspection story, but I’m not sure if I made a lovely first impression after being flustered over the gate guard and the getting lost. Unfortunately, I also told that story to Alan in front of a few of his co-workers, who all hooted and hollered and egged Alan on to go down there and say something to this man.

Well, Alan did go down there, but we could not find the offensive staff sergeant. Instead, we found a regular sergeant who griped about how the staff sergeants were coming down there as if the regular sergeants couldn’t handle overseeing the gate, which they didn’t appreciate.

It was probably best Alan didn’t get to talk to the guy in the heat of that moment anyway. Of course, Alan’s a big dude, but he’s also very mild-mannered. I wonder if he had thought through what he was going to say.

Back at the Sports Day booth, I guess we handed out chips and hotdogs or sold them as an FRG fundraiser. Sarah and I got to talking and hit it off so nicely. Sarah was 25, and I was 22, so we had that bond of youth. Neither of us had lived in the Fort Hood area for all that long. Sarah lived in Copperas Cove with her husband and her two dogs.

Sarah is hard to describe because there are many facets to her personality. She is all at once outgoing but timid in some situations. Sarah is of Mexican heritage, but she was raised in San Antonio and had never actually been to Mexico. Her Spanish is excellent though. She is fun-loving but highly responsible. Sarah was one of those people, like my friend Jennings, who just knew how to jump in and help. That’s a gift that some people have, a highly useful one, of innately knowing the helpful thing to do and doing it without anyone asking.

Sarah is also that kind of friend who will give you the shirt off her back if you say you are cold. Also, she did an excellent job of killing ants in my kitchen that week the ants came marching in.

Sarah was a godsend.

One thing that always made me laugh about Sarah was that she never called any of her friends by their names when she would tell stories. It wasn’t, “Oh, I was at Janice’s house.” Instead it was always, “I was at my friend’s house,” which almost made it sound like she had this one friend when truly she had many.

I was amused to find that Sarah, who could not have been an inch over 5 foot 1 inches tall, was married to an enormous African-American man named Zack, who must have been about 6 foot 3. I couldn’t tell you what he was like though because that was another thing about early 2003. All of our husbands left the country before you got to know any of them.

On that Unit Sports Day, Sarah and I decided to go ahead and leave before our husbands left. Sarah’s car had a run in with one of those dirt-devil type of mini-tornado storms that had completely smashed up her passenger door window. That left her car-less that day, so I gave her a ride home.

I thought I had a cute little duplex, but Sarah’s duplex in the Cove was much smaller because it only had two bedrooms and wasn’t in as nice of a neighborhood as mine was. Sarah let me come in and introduced me to her dogs. She even gave me a potted plant that sort of became my friend during that deployment and for a couple of years afterward. I remember moving with that plant onto base housing a year later and then even to Arizona in 2005.

Sarah was a great laugher and was better at having a handle on knowing how she felt than I was. I love to laugh with friends normally, but when I have a lot on my mind, I tend to space out. Intentionally, I shut the world out while I process. Phone calls go unanswered. Text messages do not get replied to, and I will even hide in my room rather than open the door to knockers.

After Alan left, it was time to space out. Sarah called frequently. She was reaching out to me, but I wasn’t answering. Most of the time I knew she was calling, but I was not ready to talk to people, not even to friends. I just wanted to be alone with my t.v. and my board games that I played versus myself. I realize it’s almost comical, me sitting in my living room playing 4 different hands of Skipbo against each other, but I don’t know what to tell ya. That was how I coped, that and many calls to 911, but you can go back and read that story if you missed it.

After my crazy-lady wake-up call, I called up Sarah and Elsie and invited them over.

Let me clarify that I wasn’t completely isolated. I saw my church friends Ashley, Theresa, and Wanda, on Sundays, at choir practice on Wednesdays, and at events. My neighbor Elsie and I talked frequently outside. Plus, Alan’s cousin Katie helped me out, checked on me, and even sent her husband over to cut my grass.  Then there was also the coffee group once a month. I wasn’t completely alone.

But this was part of my new GOAL, to begin to focus on others instead of just myself. I reached out first to Sarah and Elsie.

Elsie and Sarah probably do not even remember it, but it was huge for me because I was intentionally focusing on facing my problems and giving back to others just like me. That was what this was about. I wanted to gather these women and make a difference. We could do this together!!!

And I knew Sarah needed me because she had called and called, and I felt bad for being such an absent friend.

Sarah looked positively giddy when she knocked on my door around dinnertime, and held up a bottle of blackberry wine. I welcomed her in, and soon Elsie arrived. That very first night it was just the three of us because we had not yet met the rest of our group of mostly neighbors.

Was it blackberry wine or was it raspberry? It was something like that. The alcohol content was so low on it that you could freeze the whole bottle in the freezer. That wine was more sugar than anything else.

The only thing was that I don’t drink. I wasn’t sure what to do with this obviously thoughtful gesture, especially after having been such a bad friend. Elsie arrived, appearing pretty happy with Sarah’s wine too, so they urged me to open it.

I didn’t even have a wine bottle opener-thing, but we quickly discovered that it was a twisty cap anyway.

Well, the Bible does say that wine is for the miserable, and I didn’t want to let them all down, so I went ahead and partook. I’m sorry to tell you that it was quite delicious, and it became the sponsored drink of choice of our Army Wives group even though none of us were drinkers. (And don’t worry. I’m still not a drinker.)

Elsie and Sarah were the perfect friends for me. They were both jolly souls who seemed to be handling this deployment thing fathoms better than I was.

That night we ate and talked and laughed uproariously, and by the time Elsie and Sarah left I felt better than I had felt in ages. It’s amazing how uplifting the countenance of good friends can be!

It wasn’t the barely-even-wine or the food that brightened our hearts. It was each other, encouraging one another, and laughing and talking about a shared trial we were going through.

No one can relate to military life like a fellow military spouse can.

We were going to survive this year just fine after all, and did you know that we had all heard from our husbands in Kuwait too? The soldiers flew to Kuwait, where they lived in tent cities and were all able to call at least once. Then there was the month of silence as the 4th Infantry Division drove into Iraq, through Baghdad and set up camp.

Alan said they arrived to cheering crowds, though it didn’t stay that way as the months wore on. Alan arrived in Tikrit, they set up their tents or trailers there, and then I finally heard from Alan again, ending the month of silence, which had coincided with my month of hiding quietly in my house.

When Alan finally called from Tikrit, he gave me the phone number of a wife who also lived on my street named Cloe. Cloe’s husband was a soldier on Alan’s Fire Support Team, and she didn’t have a crew of Army Wives to hang out with yet either. She would be my next person to call to add to this newly formed little tribe.

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The Last Visit

For a few minutes there, people began to joke that the 4th Infantry Division was never actually leaving for Iraq. By the first of March of 2003, the whole division was still waiting, and the other division in town, the 1st Cavalry Division, had orders as well. Some of the 1st Cav guys began to joke that the 1st Cav would beat the 4th ID to the punch after all.

Alan’s parents came for their visit. I baked my first cake for Alan’s mom’s birthday.

DaddyO, Nonna, and Alan, during that last visit

DaddyO and Nonna handled all this with such brave faces, I honestly had no idea the level of stress they were feeling. (You will get to hear about this deployment from Alan’s parents’ perspective on next week’s post. I can’t wait to share that!)

The only thing I noticed at the time was that they called more frequently that month before he left. Obviously, they were also sitting on the edges of their seats sweating out Alan’s departure date. They watched enough Fox News for an entire retirement village, and this was before they were retired.

Alan’s mother was a middle school science teacher, and his father was a forester. Yet somehow they managed to watch the news around the clock.

Alan’s parents’ visit came and went, but Alan remained, still at home.

My 22nd birthday came, and I received happy birthday phone calls from 12 different people, a completely unprecedented occurrence that had never happened before or since.

I think everyone among our friends and family were waiting on pins and needles with us!

Dad, me, and Alan

My parents visited us too, along with my brother and sister. My sister, Amanda, is fully incapacitated. She was born with such severe brain damage, resulting from a random neural tube defect, that she was not expected to live past the age of two. Amanda cannot see, walk, talk, or do anything for herself.

As you can imagine, road trips weren’t something my family did a lot of. The 15 hour trip from Alabama to Texas was no small undertaking for them, but they did it.

Mom and Dad gave our new digs their stamp of approval, and we enjoyed showing them around Fort Hood.

I do not remember how we fit my entire family in our new, barely furnished home, but somehow we did.

My family’s visit came and went, and yet Alan remained, still at home.

March 17,2003

President George W. Bush gave Saddam Hussein a 48-hour deadline to leave Iraq. Of course, that order was ignored.

Shock and Awe

March 22, 2003 was the day of the famous “Shock and Awe” invasion of Baghdad. We still remember sitting in our little living room, watching the bombing of Iraq on our old-school 19- inch t.v.

I can still see Alan sitting in his little green recliner, eyes glued to the set. Watching Alan watch the bombing was entertainment in itself. Alan was excited and restless, in thick anticipation of going over there.

These men were a fire support team. There’s Alan on the back row, 2nd from the right.

After March 22nd, things sped up drastically.

We knew about 24 hours in advance. That call came on March 30th, and they said, “Bring your bags at 2pm.”

Everyone went down there at 2pm, loaded up the bags. We waited a while, and then they sent us all home until midnight, or some time in the middle of the night.

The details get fuzzy here, but I recall that after they sent us back home, we tried to just stay awake and enjoy our last night together. Rather than passing out on our bed, we ended up accidentally falling asleep in the living room.

It was a restless sleep, though. Before we knew it, it was the middle of the night and time to head back down there to say good-bye for an indefinite amount of time.

I just remember standing outside, in the chilly air, in a red sweater. The unit stood together in formation.  At some point, someone took this photo for us.

Deployment in the Middle of the Night

The soldiers then headed to a trailer where they waited for even more hours before they ever finally boarded a plane.

I snuck a three-page letter into Alan’s carry-on ruck sack for him to find on his 20 hour airplane ride.

After we said good-bye, I remember watching him walk away, wondering if he’d turn and look back. I think the first time he did, and then we hugged once more, but the last time he didn’t look back.

Then I walked–or stumbled–because I was so sleep deprived, to my car. I drove home in a haze of exhausted tears. By this point, it was around 4 am. I didn’t cry that much until I was actually in my car alone, driving home. At that point I could let the sobs flow freely.

I committed Alan to God’s care. We’d been married all of 7 months, and I had no idea as to when I would ever see Alan again.

“After this, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision:

‘Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward.”                           Genesis 15:1

Next chapter in this series:

Army Mom: Alan’s Mother Tells her Story

Want to catch up on this series? Check here to find what you’ve missed.

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We left Oklahoma full of excitement over finally being together as a married couple. We were ON OUR WAY! Things were looking up for us. Alan and I were finally picking out our first house. Okay, so we were only 21 and 23. Maybe we’d settle for an apartment or a nice townhouse, but either way, it was going to be OURS, TOGETHER!

Eeeeee!!!! Happy, happy! Joy, joy!

But there was this one problem holding back our complete happiness. Dark, foreboding figures loomed in the corners of my mind. They looked like naysayers to me.

“I hear 4th Infantry Division is deploying to Turkey. Going in from the North,” Alan’s buddies at Officer Basic Course, back in Oklahoma, said.

Thankfully, everything was all “probably”, “maybe”, and “talk of the possibility.” There were no actual set-in-stone facts yet. (You see, at that point, America had not set foot in Iraq as part of the War on Terrorism yet. We were still only fighting in Afghanistan.)

“Ah, no one knows anything for sure, ” I comforted myself. “I’m not believing any of these rumors until I hear them from Alan’s soon to be unit in Texas.”

I always held out hope. This was my turn to finally begin my happily ever after, and all these gloom and doom storm clouds hovering all around me were ignored to the best of my ability.

Gray skies were everywhere, but the sun could come out at any moment. Not a drop of rain had fallen yet. Not a single lightning bolt had actually flashed. They just threatened.

With that mindset, we packed up Alan’s white Blazer and my bright royal blue Grand Am, arguing about the best way to make it all fit, and headed south.

I don’t remember where we were. It was somewhere in the middle of nowhere, Texas. But neither Alan nor I have ever forgotten that day. I’ve never forgotten that punch-in-the-gut from out of nowhere feeling.

Since we were driving two separate cars, Alan didn’t even know what happened, but when he saw me pull over, he pulled over too.

Just like on 9/11, I heard it from my radio. It was somewhere around January 15, 2003. I was all singing at the top of my lungs, until the news came on.

That’s when the news man announced that it was officially released, just that day, that 4th ID did indeed have orders to deploy their division to the northern border of Iraq in preparation for invasion.

Just like that, I was Chicken Little, and my thunder clouds had all just dropped their rain at once. The lightning was everywhere. The thunder was louder than the news on my radio. The rain was so thick I couldn’t see in front of me.

My heart was broken. I was bawling my eyes out. How could this happen? Why did this have to be? Our happily ever after just kept slipping further and further away.

I’d finally gotten to spend a week with my husband, and even that week we’d traveled to all our family’s houses and then come back for him to go out to the field, so really we’d been married 5 MONTHS and still had not spent one regular week together in a home of our own.

There was nothing to say, and not a thing in the world anyone could do to help us.

So in that moment, I did the only sensible thing.

I pulled my car over, laid my head on my steering wheel, and I cried. Alan came over to my car, and I had to explain to him what I’d heard on the radio.

Alan probably wasn’t surprised. He was more connected to the military community, so he understood better that this was coming. Of course, he was not feeling the same way I was. Alan is an Army officer. This was his dream. He was only too willing to go over there and fight some war.

If I said one prayer of lamentation, I said a 1,000. Many petitions were made for Alan’s safety, for direction with my life, for guidance with my next step.

But that first day, I just cried. Bravery was for later. Alan hugged me and apologized and held me while I blubbered.

Reality had reached out and smacked me in the face, so it was time I looked her in the eye. I buckled under the weight of it all, with hours left to drive.

Alan and I dried up my face, hugged, and we drove on.

For last week’s chapter, click here. To start at the beginning of this series, go here.

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The post Real Army Wives: When Reality Smacks You in the Face appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Our measly month together in Oklahoma was kind of a blur, but there were a few things that happened that I have not been able to live down.

Three incidents to be exact, okay maybe 4 or 5…geesh I was full of mishaps that first month, but there are three I’d like to share!

….We’ll just skip the story of our first huge fight when Alan was following me, and I missed the correct exit, my cell phone battery was dead, and Alan breezed right past on to the next exit. Let’s just say I threw the mother of all fits. Alan had quite a firecracker on his hands.

The first misadventure happened on our loooooooong car trip from Alabama to Oklahoma after Christmas.

Alan was driving his car, and I was driving mine. I left my car with my parents when I had flown out to Oklahoma to attend that military ball with Alan the day I graduated, so now we were taking it home with us.

We stayed up late each night in Alabama that Christmas, talking to family, and by the time we began our 15-or-so-hour-road trip, we were already tired.

By the time we reached Vicksburg, Mississippi, I didn’t know if I was going to make it 2 more seconds, much less 3 more states!!

Vicksburg, Mississippi, 2002

Alan was all kinds of jazzed up to see the Vicksburg battle grounds! His ancestor had fought there, probably more than one ancestor, and he’d learned about this battle in great detail. Alan couldn’t wait to see Vicksburg in person.

Well, y’all, this battle ground might have been a sight to see in 1864, or whenever, but it was nothing but a bunch of rolling green hills with historic markers in December, 2002.

“Is it okay if I just ride in the passenger seat of your car and sleep?” I asked.

Alan was probably shocked at my apathy, but I do recall parking my car, sliding in with Alan, and getting a good nap in Vicksburg.

I also remember that it wasn’t enough to recover, and we had to spend the night in Shreveport or some other Louisiana city that night because there was no way I was going to stay awake all the way across Texas.

This is humorous to me now because I would LOVE to see Vicksburg!! What has military life done to me???

Maybe it was my genealogical research that turned up my own Vicksburg veterans, or maybe it was the Lincoln book I read that taught me so much about the importance of that place, but 15 years later, I actually get why those rolling green fields were exciting!

Me in my kitchenette in our little Temporary Duty Apartment, which is like a nice extended stay hotel suite on military posts.

Unfortunate Incident #2: The Not-So-Fun Family Fun Run

So there was this “Family Fun Run” the last week of Alan’s Officer Basic Course training. It was a 1 mile formation jog. They invited the wives, not that many of the students were even married at that point. Supposedly, this was a fun, easy thing to do.

That morning I was surprised to see a Lieutenant in a Spongebob costume, and everyone seemed all giggly and happy, as they did push-ups on asphalt and all sorts of active, difficult things.

I felt like death frozen over. What was this fresh new form of torture?

I’d just finished 21 hours of senior level courses at Alabama to come here, only to be forced out of my bed in the dark, put on 2 layers of clothing, and EXERCISE in line!?

“It’s only a mile. Too easy,” were Alan’s words of wisdom. He probably said a lot more than that, but who could listen that early?

As we started to jog, and jog, and jog, I started to panic, and panic, and panic.

All I could think was, “I can’t feel my toes. My fingers are purple. I’m all out breath. This is never going to end. Ever. A mile is equivalent to 9 laps around the University of Alabama rec center gym, and I haven’t run in about 7 months.”

You might call me the little engine that couldn’t, maybe just wouldn’t, but it sure felt like couldn’t to me.

I tend to do drastic things if you push me too far. 20 degrees at 5 am, doing something I despise (running) definitely qualified.

I jumped out of formation. Alan, ever the dutiful husband, followed me with his mouth and eyes wide open.

“What are you doing!?”

“Not this!!!”

“April, are you okay? You can’t jump out of a formation run.” Alan has always excelled at PT. To bring along his brand new little wife, only to discover that she is in fact a fun run drop-out was alien to him.

I felt all sassy and rebellious. “No, *gasp for air* maybe you can’t, *more gasping for air* but I just did.”

(And this is why I will never be in the military.)

Alan sighed, “They’re going to make this loop and end up back where they started from, so let’s just stand behind this bush and then jump back in when they come back around. Maybe no one will notice,” Alan reasoned, trying to make it look like he didn’t actually have a rebellious and un-physically fit wife.

“Why!? I don’t care if they know. I don’t care. Running is stupid. Especially at 5 am in the freezing butt cold.”

Somehow he convinced me to jump back in at the end, but from that point on, I didn’t have to worry about ever being encouraged to participate in any unit sports days again. Thank goodness!!!

Alan at work

Story #3 The Red Leg War

The last week before graduation, which was the beginning of January, they took the Lieutenants out to “the field.” In the military “the field” just means they are going out to train and make pre-tend war in the wilderness.

Alan was an artillery officer, so that meant it was a week of constant BOOMS.

Meanwhile, I had nothing to do whatsoever. I went into it thinking I would do a ton of Bible study.  Yeah. I was 21, and I had never had a week with no chores, no job, and no responsibilities before.

What did I actually do? I stayed up late playing video games on the computer, and I tried to sleep late.

I TRIED to sleep late, but there was this maid. Every morning without fail, this woman would arrive at 9AM!! 9 am!! All I wanted to do was sleep until 12 pm, but this tiny Korean lady, who spoke little English, was relentless. She’d knock and knock, and then she’d let herself in. Remember, we were living in a hotel.

I tried being nice.

“No, no. No cleaning today. It’s not dirty.”

That’s my nice way of saying go away, but she wouldn’t hear of it.

So everyday she’d come. Everyday I’d try to think of a way to make her stop coming so early, and everyday I’d fail.

Thankfully, it was only a week.

Then Alan returned, smelling like I’d never smelled a person smell before. Apparently, Army guys don’t shower in the field.

We attended his big graduation ceremony, and I felt a tiny twinge of sadness that I’d missed my own college graduation, but I brushed that aside. It was a tiny sacrifice in the big scheme of things. We were off on a great adventure, and we were packing up and heading to Texas.

In only a matter of DAYS, we’d FINALLY have our first true home together.

Click here to read last week’s chapter in this series of the Real Army Wives.

For the NEXT chapter in this series, check back next Monday, or sign up below to receive each new chapter in your inbox!

Want to start at the beginning of this series? Click here for my September 11, 2001 story.

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The post Rookie Army Wife: 3 Misadventures in Oklahoma appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

It’s been a couple of weeks since my last Real Army Wives series post, so where were we?

Oh, yes, Alan and I were engaged. The Army was starting to encroach on my plans and change my life. Hahahahahaha Oh boy, did I have no idea what was ahead or what!

Behind? You can catch up here with part 1, part 2,and the others weren’t exactly part of the story, per se, so we are really only on part 3 here.

Probably 99% of military couples plan their wedding date around a deployment, a move, a temporary duty assignment, or training.

For us, it was Officer Basic Course and my own college graduation. We could plan it for December or January, which was unstable because we were brand new to the military and didn’t know if that would work out…

Or we could plan the big day for August, exactly when Alan had about 10 days of leave between assignments.

So we went with the August plan.

Picture of a picture….Yes, we got married before digital photography was big…Funny story….A guest that we didn’t know caught the bouquet. She said, “Wow! I don’t even know her!” So Alyson, Alan’s cousin, snatched it up. That makes me smile.

The first good-bye

I said good-bye to Alan around May 30 that year. He was off to Ft. Lewis, Washington, and I was headed down to my parents’ house to spend the summer working, planning the wedding, and taking Genetics via distance learning.

This was our first ever attempt at a long distance relationship. Two whole months–which sounds laughable NOW.

But, oh! The drama!

You would have thought it was World War II, rather than…..Tacoma. We hugged and kissed, and made speeches, and it actually makes me roll my eyes and shake my head now to even think about it. Gracious.

Two months of separation between Alan’s commissioning and the wedding.

But that was nothing.

Once we got married, in August, we celebrated with a honeymoon to Jamaica, and then we drove from Alabama to Oklahoma to settle him into his BOQ. (Batchelor Officer’s Quarters)

I rode out there with him, spent a day there, and then I flew back to Alabama to finish my own degree, at the University of Alabama.

Yep. That was another 4 months of separation.

I don’t even think it’s that uncommon for military couples to spend the first months of their marriage apart. This has been a common theme throughout millenia of military couples.

As a newlywed 21-year-old young woman, it was agonizing.

How many times did I contemplate throwing it all out the window and moving to Oklahoma with my lieutenant? So many times! I could finish my degree anywhere, any time, why bother with all this? Ugh.

But my husband truly loved me, and was always looking out not only for his best interest, but for mine as well. Alan would not hear of me throwing away my degree only 4 months from completion.

Transferring to another college would have put all those credits at risk. I’d worked hard on this degree, and we both decided it would be best for me to stick it out and finish that last semester at UA.

…Even if I felt like I was the only married lady on campus. Actually, I wasn’t the only one, but I WAS the only married gal still working as a Resident Assistant, living alone, in the freshman girls’ residence hall, Tutwiler.

My 3 closest friends junior and senior year: That’s me, Jennings, Leigh, and Chrisynda

But I was with my friends, and that made it doable. How many times have my friends kept me sane over all these years? Two things, y’all, there were two things that always got me through these obstacles.

1. My faith in my heavenly Father. He’s seen me through too much for me to ever doubt Him.
2. The support of my friends and family.

Around that time, speculation began to circulate about the possibility of war with Iraq.

It was the fall of 2002. We had troops in Afghanistan, not in Iraq, but the news kept building. I remember the day Chrisynda came to my room to tell me to turn on my t.v.

Chrisynda and me, 2002

Chrisynda was one of my best friends, a tallish, slender brunette with straight shoulder-length hair, and a positive attitude. She was the Alan of my friends: super responsible, practical, level-headed, beautiful, kind, caring, and fun, but always well-balanced.

She’s just one of those people who seems to know things. She was the friend who would keep my favorite snack in her room. She’d come to my room with a Walmart bag containing batteries because she knew that if she wanted to watch t.v. in my room, someone would need to put batteries in my remote control. April did not have money to spare for batteries. For Guthrie’s fried chicken tenders? Yes, I had money for that. For batteries? Never.

I remember Chrisynda came into my room, and she probably brought food with her too, and she turned on the news. It is permanently lodged in my brain how she asked me about the Iraq news.

“Did you see this Iraq stuff?”

I muttered something about avoiding all that news and hoping it wouldn’t happen. I like to live happily in denial.

“Ehh…I’m pretty sure we’re going, April. It’s happening. Do you think Alan will go?” She was so polite, but she leveled the facts with me that I don’t think anyone else wanted to talk about.

Time stood still. Wait. What? I gotta start watching the news? The news….the news…

The news was suddenly intruding into my life. It was more than a channel to flip past. What we were seeing on t.v. was affecting me directly. It had always affected me, whether I realized it or not, but now I was in the front of the line of dominoes!!

Ever since, I’ve never been able to form a non-partial opinion on anything politically related. I always think, “Wait. How will this affect me? Or this friend, or my parents, or my children?”

Some people remain objective much better than I do, but I cannot do it.

So there we were…..young newlyweds…we’d been apart for 6 months, with short breaks in between, and now there was talk of war with Iraq.

The questions swirled around me, but what could I do? How could I know anything?

All a person can do in any situation at all is to put one foot in front of the other. Do the next thing. What needs to be done today? Do that. How do I stay spiritually and physically fit to handle all this? Do that too.

Pray. Hope. Love. Cling to the good. Always hope for the best but prepare for the worst, and life went on.

Come back next Monday for the next installment!

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The post Army Wives Series: The First Good-bye and Watching the News appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Us on the day of Alan’s commissioning

In April of 2002, the train ride into the future became more like a hurry-it-up rocket trip to Mars.

It was time to meet the Army.

Meeting the parents had nothing on meeting the Army.

So there I was, sweet, innocent, 21-year-old April, twirling my brand new engagement ring around and around, filled with visions of happily ever after.

Did I skip the fact that I started dating Alan in December, and we were engaged by Spring Break? Well, yes, that’s true. If you’re looking for more on that story you can find it here: The Boldest Thing I Ever Did for Love.

By April, we were getting ready to jump off the proverbial cliff. Alan had his orders, and they were for Fort Hood, Texas. On April 15th, I met with my advisor and learned that I had enough credits to graduate in December 02, rather than wait until May 03, as planned.

So, of course, we moved up the wedding date.

Our date books were exploding with significant events.  Alan would be commissioned on May 16, and he would leave May 28th for his military assignment in Washington state. Then in August, we would be married.

But first! There was the annual Alabama ROTC spring ball with my fiancee!! Squeeaaaaal!!!!

I was all giddy and nervous to prepare for my very first formal military event. I did all sorts of things to prepare for it, like buying 10 visits to the tanning bed. (Never do that. I paid for that with an early stage melanoma, 6 years later).

I drove home one weekend and picked up my beautiful indigo prom dress. No one at college had seen it, so it was as good as a new dress.

I hung the dress on the closet door, safely in its plastic bag, not touching the ground. I could just gaze at it and smile and think about how much fun I was going to have, going to the ball with my own Prince Charming. It was going to be the perfect weekend.

I was not in a sorority, so in my 3 years of college, I had never gotten to go to any formal dances.

I was finally getting my chance, but it was going to be complicated to pull this off.

Alan earned the George C. Marshall Award for outstanding ROTC cadets, so he was at the Virginia Military Institute the week of the ball, where he got to see none other than President George W. Bush speak along with many top Generals.  This was months after 9/11, y’all, this was beyond exciting.

Alan took this photo of President George W. Bush addressing the George C. Marshall award winners at Virginia Military Institute, 2002.

I’ve done my share of vicarious living through Alan over the years, but that’s okay because you couldn’t pay me all the money in the world to strap on all that protective gear and guns and stand out in the 135 degree desert, away from home for a year at a time. No ma’am. No sir. April stays local. April doesn’t want a heat stroke.

Alan was flying into Birmingham, from VMI, just in time for me to pick him up at the airport and drive us to campus, do a quick wardrobe change, and charge on to the ball. The party must go on!

Around 3pm, I got a phone call from the airport pay phone. Remember those?

“Hey, honey, I’ve got bad news and good news. Um, they overbooked this flight, and anyone volunteering their seat gets a FREE ticket…which will always come in handy…we could even go somewhere fun later. What do you think?”

I tried to hide the disappointment in my voice, “Oh….”

“But honey, even if I don’t give up my seat, the flight is delayed, so I probably wouldn’t make it to the ball in time anyway. I’m sorry. I hope you didn’t have your heart too set on going to the ball.”

Disappointment. Yes, I was disappointed, but I was also relieved. No mad dash to the airport and back and quick change of clothes. No uncomfortable silences trying to make conversation with people I’d never met before.

I put the dress back in my closet. Some other day, perhaps.

I waited until 9 or so, and I drove to the Birmingham Airport to pick up Alan. I had only been in an airport once before, to pick up another friend, and I had never flown on an airplane myself, so airports were still a novelty to me.

During the day, airports are a bustling, upbeat place, but at 9 o’clock at night, it was much different. The airport was a quiet, deserted place that night. It felt like I waited forever, all alone, in an atmosphere that was foreign to me.

Waiting at an airport gives you a dangerous amount of time to think.

I remember feeling contemplative, and I couldn’t help but wonder, “Is this what my life will be like, as an Army wife? Waiting at airports alone? Always watching for his plane to land?”

I wondered….

Just how many times will I sit here, waiting for him to return?

How often will our plans be canceled because the Army had other plans?

How much should a military wife even bother to plan?

Will it always be like this? Is this just a taste of things to come?

What exciting places will I get to go to too? When will I get to go along?

I looked down at my beautiful engagement ring and wondered just what sort of adventure I was setting out on, and I hoped that I wouldn’t always be the one waiting. I wanted to join him too, for some of the fun, not the Afghanistan trips, but certainly there were many places I’d like to travel to with him.

If I had a time machine, I’d go back and give my younger self a hug that night. I’d pat 21-year-old April on the shoulder and tell her that everything will be okay.

Would I tell her that eventually she will stop going to the airport and waiting? That he can ride the shuttle? That one day she will be so buried in babies, that she will actually let him come home from a SIX-MONTH Afghanistan deployment via taxi, because who takes 3 babies to the airport at 5am after so many years of this routine?

I can’t help but chuckle at that idea. No, obviously, I couldn’t tell her that. That would not help her at all.

It wasn’t a sad evening. I had that young, filled-with-hope, love, and joy feeling, but at the same time there was a hint of reality beginning to dawn on my heart.

I was realizing and accepting that when I got married, the adventures would not always be my own. There will be disappointments, and waiting, and tears. There will be a massive amount of uncertainty, but it will be worth it. It’s just what we do for those that we love.

And I couldn’t wait to begin the journey.

The cover of my journal that year was perfect. Seize the day. That is exactly what we were doing.

Don’t miss the next installment of this series!

The post It was time to meet the Army. appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.