I had this big idea to make buck-eye balls like my mom always has..but it was much more work than I expected. Katherine and Elsie helped me finish them up.

***This post belongs to a series of posts detailing life as a 22-year-old military wife, back in the beginning of the War on Terrorism. To read it from the beginning, start here. To read the  chapter before this one, click here.***

Christmas arrived.

I could ignore it in my sadness over not having Alan with me, or I could embrace it for the fact that it was still Christmas.

Truthfully, it was not a sad time anymore. I had Elsie, Kayla, Sarah, and Cloe to hang out with all the time. Life was mostly downright fun.

I hung lighted garland around my duplex front door, and my friends and I gathered for a Christmas meal together. We made buck-eye balls in the kitchen and drank raspberry wine and sparkling white grape juice. It was my first year to ever play Christmas hostess in my own home, though it was actually still weeks before Christmas. I had a ball decorating and using my fancy glasses.

Table all set for Christmas with my friends. Never pass on an opportunity to use the fancy glasses!!

Some people keep their beautiful wedding china and crystal in boxes or cabinets, but that’s never been me. I am a firm believer in pulling out your best things for company or special events. What’s the point of owning things that no one ever sees or uses? Give yourself the blessing of eating off your most beautiful plates and drinking out of the glasses with the platinum rims is what I say!

It’s true that friends are the family you make for yourself, and we had built for ourselves such a delightful family. I wouldn’t trade them for all the stability, security, and never-changing zip codes in the world!

Katherine, Sarah, and Cloe

Christmas dinner 2003 made me proud to be an Army wife.

There we were, not fretting about the safety of our husbands or letting jealousy get to us. We were not licking wounds and building up bitterness. Instead, we were laughing and cooking and encouraging one another. This was our own family away from home. You don’t hear much about military spouse “battle buddies”, but it IS very much a thing. It was THE thing that saw us through that long, potentially lonely year. Only it wasn’t so lonely because we had each other.

I don’t remember if we all exchanged gifts, but I do remember this one gift I received from Kayla that Christmas. She said she knew I liked to decorate with pretty things, so she bought me this blue and yellow sewing box that matched my guest room colors. It’s funny the things that you remember, but that’s the only gift I remember from that whole Christmas year. It made me feel special that she’d thought enough about me to buy me a gift, and also that she said she knew I liked pretty things.

Believe it or not, I actually DID sew that year too. I was the designated hemmer of our group. I can’t sew a stitch without a machine, but with the machine, I could read the directions and hem up everyone’s pants just fine. It did seem like all of my friends had short legs.

And so with this feeling of love and hopefulness and the recent victory of our husbands in catching Saddam Hussein providing the optimism, we all headed our separate ways to home for Christmas.

a photo of Alan on Christmas or sometime close to Christmas, in Iraq

Home for Christmas

I made the rounds to all of our family gatherings, both on my side of the family and on Alan’s side. It was the right thing to do. Things should proceed forth as normally as possible. Even if I was still new to Alan’s side, I would forge on and provide plenty of smiles and warmth because I was the closest thing anyone had to Alan that year.

When I was a child, Christmas was always a BIG deal. First, we’d go to Dad’s family’s gathering on Christmas Eve. All the extended family would be there at Grandaddy and Granny’s house.

Then on Christmas day, we’d either go to Maw-maw’s house, Maw-Maw was mom’s mom, or we’d go to Granny Hyde’s house. Granny Hyde was Maw-maw’s mom. Both Granny Hyde and Maw-Maw loved hosting Christmas, so it was arranged that they took turns.

Christmas with my cousin and her baby

But just a few years prior to the Christmas of 2003, both sides of my family experienced profound loss. We lost Maw-Maw in ’97 and Granddaddy (Dad’s dad) in ’98.

Maw-maw died on Christmas Eve, leaving this gaping black hole in the lives of every single one of us. I had spent one week every summer of my childhood at Maw-maw’s house. She was one of my heroes and a true kindred spirit. We all loved her. This is still the hardest loss I’ve ever experienced.

Most people know when to go, or they depart when they are old and their calling has been fulfilled. With Maw-maw it felt more sudden, and as though we were all robbed. No, it should not have been her time to go, and yet it was. She left early, and the disappointing feeling of loss from that cut so deeply that even in 2003, six years later, we still all keenly felt her absence.

Maw-maw was fine. She was with God, but we weren’t quite fine. But we are resilient people if we are nothing else, so we still made the best of it. We still came together and followed all our traditions.

It’s amazing how comforting Christmas traditions are and how much you miss them once they’ve gone. How I’d love to have just one of those Christmas gatherings back.

I enjoyed seeing my family. I always found it comforting to get to see family, and we did still have Granny, who was 90 by then, and we were thankful. Everyone missed Alan, but no one on my side of the family was accustomed to having Alan there yet. He’d only been to 1 family Christmas, so his absence wasn’t nearly as impactful as it was at Alan’s family Christmas.

Alan’s Family Christmas

As comforting as participating in my own family’s Christmas traditions was, going to Alan’s family Christmas was….emotional. It’s like walking out of a movie theatre of childhood memories and back into the reality of your life, with people who are aching.

Me, with Alan’s cousins and his sister

Probably most people didn’t realize how sad they were that Alan wasn’t there, and everyone put on a happy face and enjoyed Christmas. Alan’s family is also a clan of successful, resilient people. I’m telling you, we come from excellent stock.

But sometimes our pain leaks through when we don’t mean for it to. It’s there in their eyes or their quiet or the way their smile doesn’t quite meet their eye crinkles.

Alan’s family doesn’t begin Christmas celebrations until Christmas day. For Christmas lunch, all of Alan’s mother’s family gathers, even to this day, at Alan’s grandfather and grandmother’s house, and eats and opens presents. These grandparents had four children, and each of their children had at least two children, so it is a ginormous family gathering.

Everyone seemed jovial enough, considering, and asked how Alan was doing in Iraq. Aunt Ellen had even sent Alan his own little Christmas tree.

But around lunch, I started to notice their grief. Alan is a happy, hearty, talkative, laughing fellow, and his absence was extremely noticeable.

Alan’s grandfather said the prayer as usual before the meal, and his voice cracked. It wasn’t just a little crack. It was a heavy one, from a man who’d already lost a brother and who knows how many friends to the ravages of war.

By the end of Grandaddy Cunningham’s Christmas day blessing, there could not have been any dry eyes in the room.

The t.v. was going most of the day in the kitchen of Grandmother’s house because President George W. Bush showed up on a surprise visit to Baghdad and had lunch with the troops. Alan wasn’t actually in Baghdad, but it still made us feel more connected to him to see the President and the men and women in uniform eating with him. We knew they were all there in Iraq. They were having Christmas too, and it looked like everything was okay.

In the afternoon, once everyone had opened presents, I headed back to Alan’s parents’ house with his sister and his parents. We opened presents there that night, and in the morning we all took a 5 hour drive to a small town near Augusta, Georgia to be with Alan’s dad’s side of the family. They had a large extended family gathering too.

Pants! Thank you!

The biggest thing I remember about Christmas night was that we all wore our “ho ho hooah” 4th Infantry Division Christmas t-shirts while we opened presents. I also remember that Alan’s dad kept things light with some funny jokes. My favorite was when he opened a brand new pair of trousers and said, “Oh! Pants! Thank you!” and then proceeded to put the pants on his head and stick his arms in the pant legs.

We needed that laugh! I can still see it in my head!

Alan did get to call and talk to us all and wish us a merry Christmas. He did an amazing job of keeping upbeat.

Holding one another together

We all managed to have a pretty good time. Everyone was putting on a brave face for everyone else, and maybe it sounds stuffy, but the truth was it was helpful. We were all holding each other up from falling apart in this way. It worked. I can’t explain it to you, but it just works when humans get together and walk through life and hardship together.

Maybe it doesn’t even sound like hardship in the telling of it, and yet it was. I know that it was because I remember the point that I reached when I was done holding it together, and I just let myself fall all apart into a salty heap of tears. Sure, I’d shed a few tears over Christmas already, but then there comes that breaking point.

The airport.

That’s where I was when I let it all go. Christmas was finished. Visiting was done. I had been there for everyone. All that was required had been fulfilled. Now I had only to ride this airplane home, and Christmas would be over, and the new year would begin.

And this was one of my best new year’s yet because 2004 would bring Alan back home to us, and we could get started with regular life. We could finally be that newlywed couple that we’d been waiting to be.

I watched them all walking by, the soldiers in the airport, in uniform, going and coming on mid-tour leave, and there was news coverage of the sad military families apart for Christmas, and then there was this People magazine. I think it was People. It could have been anything, but that was the moment where the world started to spin.

Suddenly, I was acutely aware of sitting there all alone, and all of these articles and news stories might as well have been about me, and then I started to bawl. That’s always how it is with me. I can go on for ages and not think about any of my problems in a personal way. I can wear the stone face and be tough, until suddenly I’m not.

Unplugging the emotional stopper

I cried a river, quietly and trying not to make eye contact with anyone. Did anyone notice? Surely. No one bothered me, because that wasn’t what I needed anyway. What I needed was to get those tears out. It was time to unplug the emotional stopper.

Tears are just a part of the process. There’s a healing function in allowing yourself to feel, not wallow, but just be honest about your feelings, fill it up with tears, but then drain it before it soaks too much. Soaking is good for dirty dishes, but it’s not so good for self-pitying thoughts. Have your cry, then clean yourself up, and do something else.

When you know in your heart that you’ve done all the right things, there is a significant peace that comes with that. I had that peace. Sure, I’d made mistakes over the course of 2003, but at Christmas I had done what was right and good, and I felt as though I’d been an encouragement to both of our families.

Besides, this was 2004 just beginning, the year that would bring Alan home.

“Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.”  Proverbs 13:12

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The post The Real Army Wives Series: Merry Christmas To Iraq, 2003 appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Alan, at the Balad Airfield, with other soldiers, waiting to board a C-5 to Qatar.

****This post is part of a series titled The Real Army Wives of Fort Hood. Each Monday I post a new chapter. These are all true stories of my own experiences on the home-front as well as stories from my friends.****

Please excuse the horrendous photo quality of these pictures. They were taken in 02-04, and are not available to me digitally, so all I have is fuzzy photos of photos. My apologies!

Sometimes in life things simply don’t go your way, and there’s nothing to do but make the best of a tough situation. Sending my husband to war the very first year of our marriage felt like a series of tough breaks, let me tell ya!

Somewhere around the 6-month-mark of the deployment, word came down that SOME of the soldiers would be receiving a little thing called “mid-tour leave.”

Mid-Tour Leave is this amazing treat where a service member gets to leave their year-or-longer deployment to come home for TWO whole weeks.

When I first heard of this, I was full of hope and excitement. I had never imagined that Alan might get to come see me before the year was up. But wait. Some? How do they choose which ones get a break and which ones don’t?

Alan, proudly displaying a rat that he’d killed. Their building suffered quite the infestation of rodents.

My friends and I tried not to get our hopes up, but of course we all hoped and prayed that our husbands would indeed receive one of these mid-tour leaves. Sign us up for that right away!

Immediately, we started seeing soldiers come home on pass. We were excited to see them, and it filled us with even more anticipation of “What about me? Am I next?”

And right away, Alan began his campaign to keep me from getting my hopes up.

Alan had no intention of taking any pass. If there were a limited number of mid-tour leaves available, then Alan maintained that he would not touch one. No way was he taking a pass which may cost a younger soldier, with less rank, or a father who wanted to see their children, theirs.

“April, think about it. Some of these have children they haven’t seen in 6 months. And how would you feel if you saw my boss at home while I wasn’t getting to come home? We don’t want to make anyone feel like that.”

He was right. Eventually, I had to watch all of his bosses come home on leave while Alan stayed in the combat zone. No, it wasn’t a fantastic feeling.

That’s Alan. Always taking the high road. Yes, that’s one reason I married him, but how irritating was this now.

At first I fought it.

It was hard for me to convert to this unselfish way of thinking. Alan hardly had any rank, it seemed. He was a lieutenant. That’s as low as you can go in the officer ranks, but compared to the average, young enlisted men it was a different story.

Everyone had a hard job over there. It’s war. War is ugly, but the lower you are on the totem pole, the greater the likelihood of getting the worst job (in my opinion) of all…..burning out the outhouse waste. There’s actually a registry now of all soldiers exposed to that toxin.

I didn’t want to think about who wouldn’t get a pass if he did. I just wanted HIM to get one! He deserved it. They ALL deserved it. Oh! The insanity of it all!

But in the end, I was proud of Alan for declining to take a mid-tour leave. I accepted what he was doing as the right thing to do.

I stood by and watched as one by one, all of my friends’ husbands came home for their two-week pass. Jealousy threatened, I know it did.

Sure, I was jealous. Who wouldn’t be? But at the same time, I was happy for my friends. I was especially happy for the ones who were still having a harder time emotionally and for the fathers and children reunited.

Isn’t it funny how sometimes you have to work at being a good person? Ha! I sometimes had to work at it, but not too hard. It made me happy to see my friends happy, and yes, it made me sad too. I wasn’t sad that they got to see their husbands. I was only sad that I didn’t get to see mine. Why couldn’t we ALL get this privilege? I’m sure there was a good reason, though I don’t know what it was.

Ever the optimist, sometimes I’d allow myself to dream that one day he’d just show up at my door, on a surprise mid-tour leave. Surely he was just taking me for a ride. Really he was coming home just like everyone else.

But it never happened. 

Alan did eventually receive a pass, though it wasn’t nearly as awesome as going home for 2 weeks. Instead, they sent service members who did not receive a mid-tour leave like Alan on a 3 day pass to Qatar.

He got to relax for a few days without the stress of war, and that’s the most important thing, though 3 days doesn’t sound like much. It was definitely better than nothing.

I laughed because the kitty that I was fostering belonged to an Air Force officer who was deployed to Qatar. In this case, the Air Force’s deployment location was the Army’s vacation spot. ha!!

While Alan was in Qatar, he went shopping in a local mall there. He sent me photos from the Starbucks and such to show me how Westernized Qatar is.

That crazy man purchased a full burqa for me and Middle Eastern clothes for himself as well. He thought it would be so hilarious if we wore those to the mall in Killeen whenever he got home from the war and just watch people’s reactions. I told him no way. He was out of touch (literally) to think people in Texas in 2004 would find it funny for us to dress like that and go hang out at the mall.

Alan may be extra responsible and kind, but now you also know that he has a good sense of humor and enjoys shocking people. I, on the other hand, would rather never shock anyone.

As you can see from the women’s clothing around Alan and the other soldiers, Qatar is still a very strict Muslim society.

We weren’t the only ones to not receive mid-tour leave. We were just the only ones of my close friends, so it seemed like EVERYONE got one but us.

You can also see (in the photos above) that there were actually plenty of young soldiers who did not receive a mid-tour leave. I think there may have been some sort of lottery that Alan asked them to leave his name out of or something.

I’m thankful they gave at least some of the soldiers a mid-tour leave. Some is better than none, but it was a giant disappointment for all the ones denied that leave. I don’t know. Maybe Alan wasn’t all that disappointed, but I can guarantee you that many were.

Years later, when Alan went back to Iraq in 2008-2009, we DID receive a mid-tour leave, by then everyone did, and it was so sweet. We took the boys to Disney World, and it was such a blessing that helped Joshua (then age 3) to remember who his father was.

the Persian Gulf

Be sure to come back next week for the day Alan’s parents woke me up with BIG news from the war, involving Alan! Here’s a hint: It was December 13, 2003, and I have AMAZING photos of this event.

The post The Only One Without Mid-Tour Leave appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Cloe, Me, and Kayla in Houston

Friday, Oct. 17, 2003

Alan,
Hey! I’m in Houston, Texas! I’m sharing a room with Elsie.
We left Killeen around 3:30 this afternoon. It’s Cloe, Elsie, Kayla, and myself. We all rode down in Cloe’s little 2-door Civic! it was a tight squeeze, but we’re having a lot of fun.

We got here at night, so we haven’t gone anywhere yet. And don’t worry, we aren’t planning on spending much money at all. Tomorrow we’re going on a tour of homes, the mall, and an outdoor concert that’s free.

Cloe’s friend Rachel came over, and we all played board games, Cranium and Clue. You would enjoy Cranium, I think.
And guess who won Clue?? Me, of course! My Clue-winning streak is still alive.

Road trip!

I enjoyed talking to you SO much this morning. I did manage to go back to sleep too–and slept until 12. 🙂 I’ve been talking about cute things you said ALL day.

It meant so much to me that you support my going back to school. Thank you so much. I promise I’m not going to let you down! And we’ll still get to go on our cruise. We’ll cruise away. Just being together is going to be SO romantic!

***********

October and November were all about studying for the GRE, applying to my local university satellite campus, and making trips with family and friends. I went to Houston, Tuscaloosa, my parents’ house, and Destin.

First, there was the trip to Houston mentioned in the letter. I remember staying up past midnight just talking to Elsie after staying up to play board games, and the tour of homes the next day was amazing. It was a tour of these custom-built houses in a swanky area of Houston. Why is it so fun to look at enormous homes? I don’t know, but it is.

Can I be that skinny again, please?? Gracious.

But the thing I remember most was that we visited a church service with Cloe on Sunday morning. I think it was a little Presbyterian or Episcopal church, where Cloe’s father-in-law was the minister. During the “greeting” time, there were many congregants who hugged us and thanked us for our service to our country.

We had not realized this one major human need that we were all missing. We talked about it all the way back to Cloe’s house.

“Wasn’t it great how they hugged us?”

“Yes, but I had a really hard time not crying.”

“Oh, I totally had tears. I couldn’t help it. I didn’t realize how long it had been since someone touched me.”

“I know! Yes! Who knew touch was so important?”

“It is. I had no idea. We should all hug each other more often.”

“Yeah, it’s like you just want to go up to people and say, ‘Excuse me, will you hug me? I haven’t been touched in months, not even on the shoulder. Just touch my arm. That will do.”

There was lots of laughter and that bond of walking that same strange and lonely married-deployed-spouse-with-no-kids path together.

Elsie, Me, Kayla, and Cloe at Cloe’s parents’ house

I don’t think any of us had realized the importance of this need for physical touch in our lives until that church service, and I know for a fact none of those church members that morning had any idea how much their hugs had blessed us….a good thing to remember when you want to help a lonely person! Sometimes it’s just a simple hug that’s needed.

1Finally, brothers, rejoice! Aim for perfect harmony, encourage one another, be of one mind, live in peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you. 12Greet one another with a holy kiss. 13All the saints send you greetings.…

 

2 Corinthians 13:12

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The post When They Touched Us appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

****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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Preparing for the Worst

We all supposedly knew going into this that they wouldn’t all come home, but I never dwelt on that bit of information. Call it a defense mechanism, I don’t know. Being happy is important to me. I couldn’t let worries over things that may not even happen steal my joy.

Alan’s mother and I used to discuss what we would do if we found out before the other that Alan had died. I certainly did not cherish the thought of telling a single one of Alan’s family members that sort of news.

I knew that if Alan died, a casualty officer would be dispatched to my house to give me the bad news in person.

However, what I now know is that IF your spouse dies in war, there are usually multiple people in uniform that show up at your door. Not only that, but they have to arrive at your door at exactly the same time as they arrive at the door of the soldier’s parents.

So the good news is you should never have to tell your mother-in-law that her son has died. That’s not your job. They do that for you. That’s a relief and something I didn’t realize until I befriended a war widow many years later.

Meanwhile, there is the news.

If you watch the news regularly, they will tell you how many have died and where, and if you know where your loved one is serving (as we did), there is added anxiety until you find out for certain who it was.

Alan’s parents were more devoted to the news than I was, so they clued me in to lots of things that year, both good and bad.

Thurs., Sept. 18, 2003

Alan,

I’m SO sleepy. It’s 10:30 already. I got BAD news from your parents today. 3 men were killed and 2 more wounded in a shooting VERY close to Tikrit. We’re really worried. I just have this HAUNTING feeling.

I’m so afraid. I can’t help it. I won’t feel secure until I hear your voice, and that will be a while because I JUST talked to you like 3 nights ago.

Man, Alan, I love you so much. I don’t even want to think of “what if.” It scares me so much. I don’t ever want to lose you!

Fri., Sept. 19, 2003

Alan,

Hey! Well! Only 1 more week of teaching! I went to a 4-42 coffee tonight at the Irish Pub at the mall. It went well. It was another sad one though because there were 3 more deaths and 2 wounded yesterday. But of course, you know that.

That was really hard to talk about. Did you know any of them? Were you nearby there? All I know is that it was a team in support of 1-10 Cav, from HHB.

Other things were difficult too. Holly Marsh got switched to the 4th ID unexpectedly, and will be deploying within a month, leaving their 15-month-old to a relative for roughly six months. [editor’s note: Holly Marsh’s husband was deployed already with Alan’s unit. That left their baby without a parent at home.] Plus, her family’s house was destroyed in Hurricane Isabella that struck the east coast this week.

[Holly was devastated. Yes, her mind raced to find a way to stay home with her baby, but what could be done? This is another of the harsh realities military families face.]

I stayed up after the meeting talking to Sarah and Kayla about what I learned at the meeting. Plus, Sarah said that one of those soldier’s wives is expecting a baby soon. How awful is that? I was okay until they said that, and then I was a mess.

I was so relieved to know you’re okay.

I love you,

April

Those of 4-42 who gave all. Photo courtesy of Rachel Jack.

Meanwhile, in Iraq, the men honored the friends they lost and were all prevented from calling home until the families were properly notified. And the mission went on.

Monday, Sept. 22, 2003   9:05pm

April,

Hey! Today was the memorial service honoring the three soldiers of ours who were killed.

Then, at almost 10 this morning we had our first try at a city council meeting and, well….let’s just say we learned a lot about how we’ll do the next meeting!

They’re talking about moving us to the Brigade Support Area (BSA) which is this really big camp that’s just a bunch of tents in a bunch of fine sand we call “moon dust.” It wouldn’t be fun. Here we have hard shelter, paved areas, and a routine, you know? We’ll supposedly know if we’ll move or not by October 1st.

I hope we get to Tikrit some time soon and are able to use the phones. It feels like it’s been so long since we’ve talked on the phone, but when we went up last Friday, we were restricted from using them because of those guys getting killed and their families had to first be notified.

Those $40 Thurya phone cards are sometimes difficult to find. I’m looking though! I love you. I miss you it seems every moment.

Missing You,

Alan

Oh, and if you’re wondering, they thankfully did not move Alan to the “moon dust” area mentioned in the letter above. He continued to live in his rat-infested building with electricity, in Ad Dwar, where there were many, many adventures left to be had. We were only halfway through this deployment.

The families of those who make the ultimate sacrifice for our country are our heroes. As a part of the military community, our hearts break for them, and we always know that we could be next. Just talking about it leaves me with a heavy feeling.

Don’t live in fear that your service member could be next. It won’t help.

Just live with gratitude, being thankful for what they have done for us.  And be generous with their families, not jealous, when they may sometimes need your or your husband’s help. Hold them in honor always.

I can’t wait to tell you about the rest of our adventures. Come back next Monday for the next chapter!

The post The First 3 Casualties From Our First Deployment appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

My last post was about how miserable I was as a teacher. Alan must have called me the morning after my first or second day of teaching from Iraq.

What he wrote in response to my hardship is one of the most touching, empathetic, heartfelt letters I have ever read. No, he wasn’t physically there, and yet with this letter you can see how he was still obviously there for me when I needed him most.

Tues., 19 Aug., 2003

6:35 am

April,

I love you, April. I just got off the phone with you, and I’m bursting with feelings of grief, sorrow, sympathy….things I’ve never felt so strongly for anyone else before…only myself!!! April, I hurt so bad for you right now, but indeed, I am giving it all to God RIGHT NOW, our Rock, our Fortress, our Comforter, our Lord.

Oh, April, how I wish there were something I could do, there! Aaaugh!!!

But what this has done is it has forced me to go to my knees and begin this battle by asking for help where the most help will come from!

April, I know you can do it (teach) and do it EXTREMELY well….However, enjoying it is a completely different story! April, if it’s still this bad by the time you get this letter then I have no problem with you quitting.

When you feel bad, it really makes me feel sick at my stomach….literally. And when you said you’ve been too stressed out to eat all day long, I could have cried! Now I don’t have an appetite!

Oh, April, I just love you so, so much. I want so badly to be there with you. God knew this was coming all along just like he saw everything coming that’s happened over here. He wants us to turn to Him for strength! He loves us so much more than we can even imagine!

Oh, April, I love you so much. I feel so terrible, but I know God will get us through this and when it’s passed, the three of us will all be that much closer!

1 Peter 5:7   “Cast all your anxiety on Him because he cares for you.”

April, I love you…and I am praying for you harder than ever!

Always Yours,

Alan

*******

Y’all must think I am pathetically weak to fall apart at such a thing as having a job that I hated. Ha! That’s how it felt at the time though.

Alan took this trial on as his own, not just as mine, even though we were oceans apart. That’s how you support your spouse from overseas. He never once downplayed my unhappiness, even though he was in a WAR zone, and I was simply unhappy at work.

I forged through the first four weeks of teaching.

There was the day I even got to work so early, I set off the school alarm and caused all sorts of trouble. But gracious, why did they give me a key if I also needed an alarm code!?

There were parent/teacher conferences where I faked “happy teacher” as well as I possibly could.

I was an emotional mess. I lost 20 pounds and got down to a pitiful-looking 110 pounds, on a 5 foot 6 frame.

During this time, three soldiers from Alan’s unit, 4-42 Field Artillery, were killed in action in Iraq.

Up until this point, I’d built Alan’s Iraqi world in my mind as not a super dangerous place. This wasn’t anything like the Vietnam War, I figured. Alan was hooking up utilities and working with the Mayor’s office of Ad Dwar. He worked with the local civilians, so he must be okay, right?

Then came the three deaths, and these weren’t faceless names on the news. These were men in our very own unit. Reality once again nudged at me with a pitchfork. “Wake up, April, your husband is in combat. That’s why he gets “hazardous duty” pay. This is real, and anyone you know, including Alan, could be next.”

I didn’t say much about that to anyone, I stuffed my feelings inside…

only to let them come roaring to a head when children in my class made fun of the pledge and danced around making faces and wouldn’t stand up straight and put their hand over their heart.

That was it, the proverbial final straw. I was leading my 3rd and 4th graders in the pledge, and THAT KID kept goofing off and disrespecting the flag, the teacher, the country, in my mind everything, and of course, it had to be the very kid whose mother was constantly bothering me. (Look, I still treated him very nicely. I was professional, but this day his behavior set me over the edge that I was already falling off of.)

So what did I do?…..Well, I went on a tirade, giving the offending boy, his buddies around him, and the entire class, a very thorough lesson on the reason we say the pledge with respect. I reminded them that many of their mothers and fathers, and step-fathers, and cousins, and my husband were overseas fighting for us, and the least we could do was show proper respect. They were passionately instructed on sacrifices made during the Revolutionary War and the Civil War. I exalted the importance of respect in general.

The class was silent and wide-eyed. They were like 10. What did they know?

It wasn’t really them I was losing it with. It was me, it was the world, it was everything. That morning I had a high school student in my classroom as a teacher’s assistant. I instructed her to watch the class, and I fled to the bathroom to cry and get my act together.

I stared at my sleep-deprived, red, mascara-streaked, freckle-covered, miserable face in the bathroom mirror. “What kind of a teacher am I? I have got to get out of this!”

Soon after, the administration announced that it was time for us to sign our contracts.

My mind reeled.

Then the moment came. Mrs. W. asked me to come by her office to sign my contract, and I had to tell her.

Mrs. W. was the principal’s wife, but she was also the assistant principal. She was an adorably cute but commanding and accomplished, small African-American woman with super curly hair. If she had asked me to please stay, I might have caved, as she was such a great leader. I looked up to her. It was humiliating to have to confess this to her.

“I can’t sign the contract because…because I don’t think I can finish this job and stay here all year.”

Mrs. W. looked so surprised.

Cue the waterworks. I tried not to cry, but there was no stopping them.

“This is so hard for me to quit, admitting defeat, and leaving these children with no teacher, but this job is too much for me. I cannot do this. I can’t tell you how hard it is for me to admit this. You know Chelsea?”

“Yes, Chelsea, yes,” she listened intently. I know she was in shock. They all seemed to think I was doing just fine.

Chelsea was a student in my class, well known for being capable and working hard. Her mother also supported her well.

“I was Chelsea. I was that girl. Success mostly came easily, and now here I am, and this is it for me. This is my first time to completely fail at something.”

“Oh,” she said, and she said other things, motivating things, and she asked me to please sleep on it, but I knew there was no turning back. I put in my 2 weeks’ notice.

I wanted out of this job as much as you’d want to escape a 0 degree dungeon infested with rats and cockroaches. Teaching was so very not a match for me.

**********

The first week of my notice, I still struggled to get out of bed and go to school. One day I called in sick with a “migraine.” I didn’t have a migraine. I had a bad-life-choices-hangover, the kind you get from regret and confusion.

I felt guilty from lying about the migraine, so I went to work all the other days of my notice.  People there were kind. A replacement followed me around that last week.

She leveled with me, “Why are you leaving? You’re doing great. You should stay.”

I began to actually consider it. That last week wasn’t so bad. Some things actually started to click. It was week 6. My LD kid was learning his own spelling words and reading his own beginner books. Maybe I was making a mistake. Maybe I should stay.

I came in the Saturday after my last day to finalize the 6 weeks’ grades for the report cards. Mr. and Mrs. W. were there going through my class’ papers too.

Mrs. W. talked as she sorted, “All of the assessments are here, April. This is good. You know, we didn’t really believe that you’d quit. We thought you’d change your mind and come in Monday.”

Ever so young and dumb, and still excited about not being a teacher anymore, I didn’t get the hint. She was totally giving me another chance to stay. Perhaps I should have taken it.

I’ve always wondered if I made the right decision that year.

Did I just quit when things got hard? Yes. Yes, in the career realm that is EXACTLY what I did, which sounds weak, wrong, and disappointing.

I re-hashed that decision in my mind for years, but the thing is you can’t go back and fix the past. What would it have been like had I stuck it out, and why didn’t I??

Looking back now, I see so many different things going on. I was immature, and my deal-with-it- tank was already full from the moving away from home and sending my husband overseas in the early days of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

There was nothing more anyone could have done for me. It was simply more than I felt I could handle at the time, and I have to make my peace with that and move on. Could I handle that job now, at 36? Yes, it would still be hard, but not the horrible misery it was at 22.

But that’s the thing about the past.

Our mistakes and failures are what make us sweeter, humbler, more merciful people, and sometimes also tougher, more dependable people, so long as we learn from them. I regretted quitting mid-year so much that I have been loathe to ever quit mid-stream again in anything.

You accept the past for what it is and learn from it all that you can.

The post My First Colossal Failure & My Supportive Spouse Overseas appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Sun., Aug. 10, 2003

Alan,

Hey Babe! Tomorrow is my first day of work. In case you haven’t yet gotten my previous letter, I got hired by Graham Elementary School downtown yesterday! Yay!!

I’ll be making $32,000 this year. It’s a state charter school serving mostly low-income students, but it’s located in a church. Yeah, it’s different, but I’m excited about it. I’ll be teaching 3rd and 4th grade in one classroom, all subjects.

It’s going to be tough. School starts the 18th, but teachers start tomorrow. I have to be there at 9:15 am, and from now on, I have a full-time job! It’s exciting and yet terrifying at the same time.

Last night, I cooked dinner for 8, mostly our neighbors: Elsie, Cloe, Annie, Kayla, Katherine, Jay, Phan, and myself. After dinner, Jay left and all the girls stayed and talked while I cleaned up, joining them occasionally in the living room.

I’m glad you met Kayla’s husband. She’s a real sweet girl. She’s enrolled at Central Texas College.

I got those three cameras developed today. I cannot believe you managed to use up 3 cameras in 1 month. And almost all of them are landscapes! Take pics of you and your friends, geez. Just do the method we use to take pics of ourselves, hold the camera in your right hand and click. I do it.

Not all of Alan’s “landscape photos” were uninteresting. This one is of the Tikrit Palace Compound, which became 4th ID Headquarters during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Alan!! I’m so nervous!! How can I be a teacher??

I’m so scared! But it did hurt my feelings in one of your letters when you said you didn’t know how I’d be with kids because you’ve never seen me with children. Hello! Kid’s Klub! And did you ever notice Laura Ellen and Matthew like me? I know you didn’t mean to hurt my feelings, but I couldn’t help it.

It’s so weird that I’m starting a new job tomorrow, and you don’t even know about it. I hope you call or email soon so I can tell you. I love you so much, and I hate not being able to share stuff with you. But I’ll deal.

I keep having these dreams that we’ve lost touch, and in them I’m always sad because you never call or visit.

In the dream, I’m all confused, and I don’t understand why we aren’t together. Dream April doesn’t know that you’re in Iraq. Many times you’re just in another state, but always we’ve lost touch, and I’m so hurt.

Depressing, huh? I guess my subconscious knows you’re gone, misses you, and feels abandoned, like a cat in a box on the side of the road. Ok. Ok. Sorry. I’ll stop.

I MISS YOU! I miss you so much I just want to cry! And if I keep thinking about it, I will cry, so I better move on to another topic.

Your family has been really helpful with the teaching job. Your mom and Ellen gave me lots of good ideas, which will help. I’m glad there are lots of teachers in the family.

I love you so much, Alan. Keep praying for me. The first year of teaching is super hard, but add that to the stress of a year-long deployment, and the thought is foreboding. I’m just thankful I’m a Christian. I couldn’t do anything on my strength alone. All credit is due Him.

Thank you for marrying me, Alan. If you were here, I would climb up in your lap and hug you so close and just have a good cry, while you tucked my hair behind my ears and told me everything will be okay. How I wish you were here. I know you do too.

I love you, you big stud muffin.

Forever Yours,

April

************

Was it a bad sign that I hadn’t even started my job yet, and already I wanted to cry?

Starting a full-time job like teaching was exhausting, and I was still trying to be a good housekeeper and a faithful friend. The funny thing is that once you have a full-time job, whether you are a man or a woman, something has to give.

No one can do ALL the things. Even without kids, we have to delegate things to give ourselves space to breathe.

When I was in high school and college, I worked, but I had certainly never been a school teacher before. To this day, I will tell you that all teachers are underpaid, and I have all the respect in the world for them!

***********

Tues., Aug. 12, 2003

10:48 pm

Dear Alan,

I just have too much to do to get to bed early! And I’m sleepy! But I guess you know what that’s like.

I had in-service training from 9-3. I stayed after and talked to Mrs. W. I can’t remember her name, but it starts with a W. There were so many questions I still had unanswered. Mrs. W. was very helpful, and she will be extremely easy to work for.

After work, Annie needed me to drive her to the PX so she could buy a phone card to call her fiancée, Drew, in Germany.

Then I had to drive to Copperas Cove and fill out my “I have a job” form. By the time I got home it was 4:45. I came in and changed, vacuumed the house, tidied up, and collapsed on the sofa at 5:30 or so for a brief break in which I consumed like literally 20 ounces of blue Gatorade in 2 minutes flat.

I was exhausted!

So I made myself dinner, and I was all excited about watching the Miss Teen USA pageant, but I didn’t even really get to watch it because the phone rang. It was your mom, and the call was helpful because I got some good ideas from her. Then my mom called, which was good, but they were both very long calls.

Then I had to get online and submit my application for certifications, and I got that done, and that brings me to now.

I don’t have any idea how full-time workers keep a clean house!

There is delicate laundry hanging to dry all over the place, dirty dishes in the sink, clean, unfolded laundry and school supplies everywhere! I could get much more done if the phone didn’t ring so much, but I know that it is good for me that so many people love me and want to talk to me. Even still, I did ignore three other phone calls.

Oh, Alan! I CAN’T WAIT ’til you get back! I need you! That would help my busy-ness because you can take over the laundry. You’re better at it than me anyway.

Me, in teacher classes. Yes, I used to be tiny, but I promise I do have a right arm. That was an odd angle.

I also learned more about the school and my room today. This school is fine arts oriented. Many children miss out on opportunities for piano, dance, those types of lessons because their parents can’t afford it, like when I was little. I wanted to take dance but couldn’t because it was too expensive.

This school has several fine arts teachers to provide those services. They have chorus, piano, violin, ballet, etc. Really! Pretty cool, huh?

Yet they have no media center…not so cool…But I think it’s a good school, and I’m excited about working here.

I love you, Alan, and I miss you so much. I get letters from you constantly, almost everyday. It means so much to me! You know that though because I’m sure you feel the same way about me.

I know I’m complaining about getting too many phone calls, so allow me to clarify. I am thankful that I am loved. It is a blessing. Calls from you MAKE my day. I love it.

So you just call ANYTIME.  I love you so much, and I always will. Hang in there. It’ll be winter, or at least fall, before you know it!

I love you,

April

*************

I didn’t even get to go into my classroom until the third day of training, and there was such an overwhelming amount of cleaning, decorating, organizing, and planning to do in there.

My friend Sarah was a life-saver. She rescued me day after day, organizing my things, filing my papers, helping me move desks. I couldn’t have done it without her.

We poured ourselves into setting up that classroom, which left little time for planning the actual lessons! I was left furiously scouring the internet for good first-day-of-school ideas the very night before school was to start.

And I’ll tell you all about the first week of school, and the mother I called “the Toothless Wonder” — Don’t worry. Only in my head I called her that– next week!  😉

Want to catch up? Click here for last week’s post and here for the very first post in this series.

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The post True Stories of Real Army Wives: My First Teaching Job appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.