Knee Deep in the Hooah!

So many military parents that I have talked with about deployment stress, either online or in person, say the same thing “It feels like a part of me went over with him…” I have heard military spouses speak similar sentiments as well, but I am better equipped to talk about this from a parent’s perspective. I know that feeling. It really does feel like a huge part of you leaves for a while. You become disconnected from the world around you for a period of time. You want nothing more than to talk about it, but you don’t want to talk about it. You want to cry about it, and you usually do not have a choice in the matter. The suppressed tears demand a trail from your eye, down your cheek and into the pool you have created. The grief strikes us. The fears strike us, and the more I think of all of this I begin to realize that we truly do live parallel to our soldiers when they are deployed.

I am not talking about some weird parallel universe with different realities, or a Twilight Zone episode. This is a matter of parallel emotions and experiences. Both sides feel the emotions and experiences on a continuum. The soldier’s experiences are, undoubtedly, removed from what we know. We can imagine them, read about them, hear about them and empathize with our soldiers about them, but we can never fully experience them unless we tread that sand ourselves. This is the chasm that separates the two universes that are perpetually parallel.

Parents are the first encounter we have with empathy. They have walked the path we are currently walking, to one degree or the other. It is much easier to take civilian experiences and translate them into metaphors or other linguistic helpers that illuminate a message and allow for it to be easily discovered and accessed by those needing our empathy and understanding. When it comes to our soldiers, though, we come up feeling inadequate to address the need for the highest level of empathy that we could possibly give. We feel this inadequacy because our experiences in life provide us with the necessary information in order to solicit an empathetic response. We must understand both the content and the affect of what someone else is saying in order to demonstrate that beautiful tool of mercy. Should we feel inadequate? Maybe we should, but I think that we have more experience to draw from than we realize.

When I talk with my son, read his writing or hear his stories, I feel a deep sense of connection. I would argue that a lot of that is a parental bond, but some of it comes from the fact that I do have situations that are a dim mirror to his, but that are just bright enough for me to draw from nonetheless. I am saying that we have tools that make us better listeners, but I do not commiserate with my son because I have never fully felt the difficulties he has had to live through at various times during his deployment.

Here are some of the tools I have to draw from when I am thinking of him and wanting to understand where he is coming from in a clearer light:

Fatigue is a biggie. There have been days and nights through this deployment when I have been unable to sleep. My fatigue will never reach the same level his is on any objective scale, but it most certainly has given me a very tangible reminder of how hard and painful it is to function at my best while I am extremely wore out. I also remember how vivid and scary dreams can be. Sleep perchance to sleep without dreams is more my motto these days.

I can also draw from my own longing for “home” to understand his feelings of missing us here at home. I am not home sick in the physical sense. I am surrounded by things that richly impregnated with sights, sounds and smells from times past. They are slowly awakened by these objects and then fondly replayed in my mind’s camera lens. I am more “home sick” for my family to be together again. My family is what makes my home to begin with, and when one of them is deployed then our “home” is uprooted with him to a degree — to a lesser degree that he is uprooted, but in a similar feeling of upheaval and longing.

I am paranoid and hyper-vigilant at times. There are times when I cringe if I hear the phone ring — especially when it is a late night call. It’s unexpected. It’s intrusive, and it’s loud to me at that time of night. I startle. I am sure there are sounds that my soldier hears that elicit the same feelings, but to a hugely magnified degree He struggles with the reality of living in an area where people are actively trying to kill him. Every unexpected noise that is intrusive and loud reminds him of why he is paranoid and hyper-vigilant, just as it does me. Every suspicious looking vehicle using my driveway as a turn around point, causes me to break out into a sweat until I know the threat of bad news has passed for the moment. Every strange person who walks toward my son is approached with trepidation until he knows that the threat of a suicide vest has been forgone. There is no doubt that our universes intersect at the most dangerous and vulnerable of locations these days.

The fear, angst, paranoia, anger, sadness, joy and celebrations of victories are all intertwined in what we experience while they are gone. While they are in the sandbox we too are feeling some heat. While they are fighting the war over there we are fighting our own small wars here on the home front.

We all wait here for them, and when they come home then we will begin the journey toward re-entry and re-unification. We will also hold the experiences for that phase because we will have been forced to face the world again while the war is waged and our soldiers are in the thick of it. We will have had to have already reconnected to some degree, move forward and deal with the stress that war has had on us. It will not be sufficient enough to full understand our soldiers and what they have been through, but it is necessary to experience it if you want to relate to it on a deeper level.