Basic Compassion Training 101 (revisited)
I have written in the past about some of the incredibly crazy questions people have asked me (i.e. “Has your son seen a dead body?” etc.) or comments they have made, regarding deployment and Iraq. I received the following in an email from a friend whose husband is currently in his second week of OCS at Ft. Benning.
Things NOT to say to a Military Spouse
1. “Aren’t you afraid that he’ll be killed?”
(This one ranks in at number one on the “duh” list. Of course we’re afraid. We’re terrified. The thought always lingers at the back of our minds, but thanks. Brilliant, you just brought it back to the front. Maybe next you can go ask someone with cancer if they’re afraid of of dying.
2. “I don’t know how you manage. I don’t think I could do it.”
(This is intended to be a compliment. Though, its just a little annoying. Here’s why: it’s not like all military wives have been dreaming since childhood of the day we’d get to be anxious single moms who carry cell phones with us to the bathroom and in the shower. We’re not made of some mysterious matter that makes us more capable, we just got asked to take on a challenging job. So we rose to the challenge and found the strength to make sacrifices.)
3. “At least he’s not in Iraq.”
(This is the number one most annoying comment for those whose husbands are in Afghanistan. What do they think is happening in Afghanistan? An international game of golf? Guys are fighting and dying over there.)
4. “Do you think he’ll get to come home for Christmas/anniversary/birthday/birth of a child/wedding/family reunion, etc?”
(Don’t you watch the news? No! They don’t get to come home for any of these things. Please don’t ask again.)
5. “What are you going to do to keep yourself busy while he’s gone?”
(Short answer: Try to keep my sanity. Maybe there’s a military wife out there who gets bored when her husband leaves, but I have yet to meet her. For the rest of us, those with and without children, we find ourselves having to be two people. That keeps us plenty busy. We get lonely, but we don’t get bored.
6. “How much longer does he have until he can get out?”
(This one is annoying to many of us whether our husbands are deployed or not. Many of our husbands aren’t counting down the days until they “can” get out. Many of them keep signing back up again and again because they actually love what they do or they VOLUNTEER AGAIN and AGAIN to go back to Iraq because there is work that needs to be done.)
7. “This deployment shouldn’t be so bad, now that you’re used to it.”
(Sure, we do learn coping skills and its true the more deployments you’ve gone through, the easier dealing with it becomes. And we figure out ways to make life go smoother while the guys are gone. But it never gets “easy” and the bullets and bombs don’t skip over our guys just because they’ve been there before. The worry never goes away.)
8. “My husband had to go to Europe for business once for three weeks. I totally know what you’re going through.”
(This one is similar to number two. Do not equate your husband’s three week trip to London/Omaha/Tokyo/etc. with a 12-15 month or more deployment to a war zone. Aside from the obvious
time difference, nobody shot at your husband or tried to blow him up with an I.E.D., your husband could call home pretty much any time he wanted to, he flew comfortably on a commercial plane, slept between crisp white sheets and ate well, paying for everything with an expense account. There is no comparison.)
9. “Wow you must miss him?”
(This one also gets antoher big “duh”. Of course we miss our soldiers.)
10. “Where is he exactly? Where is that?”
(I don’t expect non-military folks to be able to find Anbar Province on a map, but they should know by now that it’s in Iraq. Likewise, know that Kabul and Kandahar are in Afghanistan. Know that Muqtada al Sadr is the insurgent leader of the Mahdi Army in Iraq and that Sadr City is his home area. Know that Iran is a major threat to our country and that it is located between Afghanistan and Iraq. Our country has been at war in Afghanistan for seven years and at war in Iraq for five years. These basic facts are not secrets, they’re on the news every night and in the papers every day —and on maps everywhere.)
11. “Well, he signed up for it, so it’s his own fault whatever happens over there.
(Yes, ignorant, he did sign up. Each and every day he protects your right to make stupid comments like that. He didn’t sign up and ask to be hit by anything, he signed up to protect his country. Oh, and by the way, he asked me to tell you that “You’re welcome.” He’s still fighting for your freedom.)
12. “Don’t you miss sex! I couldn’t do it!”
(Hm, no i don’t miss sex. I’m a robot. Seriously…military spouses learn quickly that our relationships must be founded on something greater than sex. We learn to appreciate the important things, like simply hearing their voices, seeing their faces, being able to have dinner together every night. And the hard truth is, most relationships probably couldn’t withstand 12 months of sex deprivation.)
13. “Well in my opinion …”
(Stop right there. Yo, I didn’t ask for you your personal political opinions. Hey, I love a heated political debate, but not in the grocery store, not in Jamba Juice, not at Nordstrom, not in a bar when I’m out with my girls trying to forget the war, and CERTAINLY NOT AT WORK. We tell co-workers about deployments so when we have to spend lunch hours running our butts off doing errands and taking care of the house, dog, and kids, they have an understanding. We do not tell co-workers and colleagues because we are giving an invitation to ramble about politics or because we so eagerly want to hear how much they hate the President, especially while we’re trying to heat up our lean cuisines in the crappy office microwave.)
last but not least….
14. “OH, that’s horrible…I’m so sorry!”
(He’s doing his job and he’s a badass. Don’t be sorry. Be appreciative and please take a moment out of your comfortable American lives to realize that our soldiers fight the wars abroad so those wars stay abroad.)
If you want to say anything, say thank you to our soldiers.
You know, along the way, I’ve heard every single one of these things either about my son or my husband. Sad that.
I know what you mean Bon. I am usually a pretty understanding person, but questions like these have turned me into a Ms. Smarty Pants. I have been known to be just a *tad* on the sarcastic side from time to time.
I wish I had this list to refer to when we were FRG coordinators during our son;s NYARNG deployment. Dealing with non-military types (who will never have a clue of the situation, and never will), in a civil manner taxes the patience of a saint.
I would usually deflect indelicate and outright thoughtless questions with “Were you ever in the military? Ever have a relative in the military?” and usually the answer was no.
I’d then say “well, then, you really don’t have any area of expertise in which to draw your conclusions, do you? In fact, I’d say that you were particularly uniformed as to the basis of your question.”
Most of the respondents would then clam up, leave in a huff, or just agree.
As we used to say to non-military types after Vietnam — “If you weren’t there, you don’t know squat.”
Only we didn’t say squat.
Great story on the baby. Now that’s the news Katie Couric needs to report.
Al C.
When my son was home on leave back in November he was asked to speak at a JROTC program. When he was done I asked him how it went, and he said he could not believe some of the outrageous questions that the kids asked him… one being “Have you shot anyone?” The JROTC instructor warned the kids that they would get a boot to arse if they asked the question again, but Mike was taken back because he knew better at that age. He was also in JROTC and said no one in his class would have ever asked a Veteran such a stupid and insensitive question.
The JROTC instructor is great though. He handled it well. We now refer to people who ask such questions as “mouth breathers.”
Knee Deep, I generally just cut people off and tell them of the snipers, IED’s) ,many do not know what an IED is which is absolutely amazing to me. I then run thru all the humanitarian missions going on. I just don’t give them time to be stupid. This has worked for me. Once you run thru the dangers and the humantarian missions they usually will say somthing like ” Why don’t you see this in the media?”. It is at this time you have sown a seed as to the absolute slant of our media or the absolute incompetence of our media. I have gone on long enough. Bulldog Out!!
Bulldog, I love how you go about that, “Once you run thru the dangers and the humantarian missions they usually will say somthing like ” Why don’t you see this in the media?”. I will definitely have to try this when people ask about my friend over there.
I had some one last week actually say that with the soldiers being in a “unfounded and illegal war” (his words) that they deserve what ever the media hands them…I was talking about how so many times when a person in the military does something that is illegal having nothing to do with the military that the media brings the fact that they are in the military up at any chance to try and give the military a bad face, when it was just one person who did this..)
I had to remind him that the soldiers who are over there were sent there by the military…and even if they did volunteer to get sent there early they don’t deserve to be bad mouthed and disrespected. Because if we were to be attacked on United States Soil or any other place for that matter those soldiers would be back protected his bum from getting kicked by bad people….
He quieted very quickly….
It always surprises me the gumption and lack of understanding people have when discussing these kinds of matters….and sometimes the complete disrespect for soldiers and military who would protect them in any way if need be.
Glad to see you guys have found ways of handling it .
I’m a civilian and I groaned at the list..as in a ‘I can’t believe there people that ask those questions’ kind of way.
#8 made me laugh…and
It is amazing and eye opening. I try to not get too snippy with people when I can tell that they genuinely are concerned but they just don’t know what to say. Usually once they are put at ease they will redeem themselves. What I can’t stand are the people who think that we actually want to hear their opinion on the “illegal” war, blah, blah, blah. I want to tell them “Crawl away from me quickly in a serpentine fashion… very quickly…”