Knee Deep in the Hooah!

I may not wear combat boots, but I am a combat boot loving woman. My husband and son wear them, and so you can keep the designer boots, the cowboy boots, and other such boots. I love combat boots. I think the happiest moment this year, for me, is yet to come. That is when I will see all four of those combat boots on the floor in my home.

I can just see the boots empty and waiting for tired soldiers’ feet to fill them again, but at a later time. One set of boots will have been through the challenges of OCS, while the other pair may still have sand in them from a very dangerous, distant and ancient place.

When the boots are off and in the home then the feet get to tend to family time. I am slowly, but surely, understanding the permanent structure changes that are happening to our family. My mother called me today and the first thing she said was “Happy Father’s Day!” I thought she was calling me with a gentle reminder that I hadn’t called my dad yet — my mom is creative and gentle when it comes to reminders like that. Anyway, I called her back when I was in a position to talk for a moment, and she was really wishing me a Happy Father’s Day. Since I am right now wearing my solo-parenting hat she wanted to wish me a happy day for filling in on all of the things my husband would normally be doing for us if he were here. It was very sweet and thoughtful. It is always nice when people openly acknowledge and appreciate how much you have on your shoulders.

I am finding the wife role to be overwhelming at times due to the massive amount of new information that I am learning. I know that it will all sink into this titanium skull of mine, and we will settle into our new structure, norms, expectations and mores as a military family. I am still trying to figure out, however, my role as a military mother. This role is much harder to grapple with and the more I talk with other mothers of deployed soldiers I am hearing the same thing from them. How do moms deal with the fear, anxiety, and stress of a deployed son or daughter? We are normally not nested within the supportive environment of a military base where we are met with empathetic glances while we wait to send those care packages over to the one destination where no mother wants her loved one to be. Instead we are often left to come to terms with a grief that is like no other grief we have ever encountered, and we carry this grief in a civilian world that oftentimes (although not always) does not understand it.

Grief is a very primitive, but complex, reaction to change — and the more difficult and/or tragic that change is the more intense and complicated the grief becomes. Most mothers of grown children can relate to the difficulty of having an “empty nest. ” Even if your children are healthy, well adjusted and successful adults we still grieve when the change in our family occurs. Our roles change, our identity becomes cloudy, and suddenly women who were once confident in their abilities are doubting everything they do and say. When your son is deployed to a combat zone like Baghdad for the first time you are dealt a grief that you have never known before.

As a mother I have never had to take on the task of facing a daily reality that my son’s life is on the line. I mean I have always tried to not take my family for granted, and I know that none of us have any guarantees. It is still different when you know that the child you carried, birthed, nurtured and raised into a young man, could be just an inch away from an IED. On one hand I am dealing with a fear that I have never known before, and on the other hand I am more proud of my son now than I have ever been. Fear and pride combined like that add a strange twist to the mix of emotions that I have gone through over the past year.

Mothers hold a very important role to the deployed soldier. If that soldier is unmarried then oftentimes his/her mother becomes the primary source for morale and support. I know if my son were engaged or married I would see my role in his morale differently. I would focus on keeping the moral of his fiance or wife up so that she could in turn give him the support he needs. As it stands now, for us at least, I am the one who takes the calls, writes the letters, sends the care packages and communicates with family and friends. I would never complain about holding such a privileged position, but I don’t know if people in general realize how much many of our soldiers’ moms do to support their solider, the troops and the mission in which they are trying to accomplish.

A mother will happily pack a care package, attend to business, and support her soldier as much as she possibly can. It is a joy and an honor to serve my son this way while he is away serving our Country. That part is not a burden. The burden in this lies within the bonds between mother and son. The pain comes from the deeply ingrained images of that soldier when he was a child. When he was sick and helpless and you were the one to carry him, hold him and tend to him. The pain and fear comes from the deep and intense love that you have for him — the love that only grows with time.

So, what’s a mother to do? Below are a few things that I have discovered along the way; it’s not necessarily advice, but rather some humble observations:

• Brace yourself for pre-deployment stress. You will start grieving before your soldier leaves.
• Stay away from the news when you are in a heightened emotional state.
• Keep yourself busy, but plan ahead so that you make yourself busy with healthy things instead of succumbing to impulsiveness when you need to distract yourself.
• Before deployment you need to work up the courage to talk to your soldier about anything that is troubling you in your relationship with him. You need to have a clear conscience. Do this in a way that is not burdensome to your soldier. He needs to stay focused on the challenge ahead of him.
• Seek out and find people who can support you. Be sure you tell them that you are not looking for a good debate on the war.
• Acknowledge that you are only a mortal and that you have limitations too.
• If you feel that your health is being affected by the stress (high blood pressure, insomnia, etc) then you need to see a doctor. Do not, I repeat do NOT allow your health to suffer. Your family needs you and your soldier will need you to be healthy and ready for him when he comes home. Plus hearing from you that you are taking care of yourself and doing well is very important to his morale.
• You are a mother and guilt is your second nature. Stop it. Stop it now! It is time to sort out the real responsibilities from the imaginary guilt we often carry around. You don’t need burdens that serve no purpose. So you didn’t tuck him in to bed one night when he was 5; let it go!
• Do not allow your imagination to take over when you have times of not hearing from your soldier. When I don’t hear from Mike for a period of time I always remind myself that no news truly is good news. He will contact you as soon as he can. There are many things that may be keeping him from contacting you.
• Journal or blog if you like to write. If you are not a writer then find another way to keep notes about what you are going through during tough times. Also make a note of what you found to be the most or the least helpful.
• When you hug your soldier good-bye, be sure you hold him tight. Then whisper in his ear the following “I will pray for you with every breath. I will think of you with every thought. When you come home safe to me we will then celebrate like there is no tomorrow!”

Tags: Morale, deployment, family life, mental health, military //