Support the Troops?

Zack left on Saturday morning with duty the day before...so that will be four days tomorrow morning.  Only four days...and those four days seem like it's been a month!  We've been so busy that the time has flown by and it all seems a lifetime ago.  Zack is almost always sitting next to a computer and we are able to email back and forth all day.  It's so nice to be able to communicate the day's happenings to him and get feedback sometimes immediately.  The last email I've gotten from him was Saturday late morning...so almost four days ago.  No email for one day means he's been super busy and most likely read my emails but didn't have time to sit down and respond.  No email for two days means either the email has been shut down or it's down (as in broken).  The ship will turn off email if they don't want their location to be known, if the ship is doing something they don't want leaked out before the mission is over, or just for various other OPSEC reasons.  The Truman email would always get shut down when they would rescue Iranian fisherman.  There would be a blip about it on the news and then within a day or two the email would be back up again.  About into the second day the wives start to get a little anxious...what exactly is going on...is everything okay?  Late into the second day out I got an email stating the ship's email was down and had been for x amount of hours already.  They were working on fixing it and no one should worry.  Well, that was almost two days ago...and still nothing. 

I appreciate the email being sent out..the ship is fine...Zack is fine.  Do I buy that the email is broken and they are trying to fix it...maybe, sorta!  It just seems a little too convenient that the day they leave it suddenly goes down.  But I suppose it could be the truth.  But I will say that I am sure that it has forced the sailors to focus at the job at hand...no distractions from home.  And it has forced all of us to put on our big girl panties...no support coming from the ship now...we are doing it all alone.  Thankfully our lives have been pretty uneventful and I haven't needed to run something important by him.  And if I had then I would have just had to make the decision myself and Zack would have lived with and supported it.  I still find myself checking my email a zillion times a day.  I keep sending him emails just like normal.  Sometimes they are able to read what comes in but just not able to send them out...and then sometimes they can't get anything.  Hopefully it all comes back up soon.

This weekend a post has circulated on my news feed about the top ten things people don't know about military marriages.  Here is the link if you haven't read it: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/26/military-marriage-10-thin_n_1537543.html?ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false
I found it to be pretty accurate but honestly it just doesn't give the full view of what it means to be a military spouse.  I have often thought that a reality show following a selected few military wives of deployed husbands would be interesting to civilians.  After all those homecoming shows are very popular.  The joy of the Homecoming is a welcomed reality but the struggles during the deployment are better left under the rug.  However, I honestly don't know anyone that would actually be willing to participate in reality show filming their lives while their husbands are gone.  It goes against the culture (for the most part!).  We are here to support our husbands and it is a challenging life.  But those challenges are shared amongst ourselves.  Maybe that's why the lifestyle is so misunderstood.  We just get up in the morning and do it.  That's our lives...and it's what I signed up for.  Recently we in the mil world celebrated military spouse appreciate day...it's the Friday before Mother's Day.  And with most things lately...we celebrated it with an email!  I've spoken with a few ex-mil members turned mil spouses and the conses is that it's more difficult to say behind and take care of everything than to be deployed.  There are more things on the plate while staying behind...or so they said.  I haven't served so I can't state my opinion on the matter.  My dad served actively before going reserves in the late 70's and early 80's.  And he has said that during the period it was unpopular to be in the military.  Since 9/11 the civilian world has been on a campaign to let the mil world know they appreciate the service.  Zack for the most part will agree that he has felt the "love".  And maybe has never been met with hostility...at least while in the U.S.  Have I ever felt hostility...yes.  It doesn't make sense to me that the U.S. can be so supportive of the "troops" but yet I'm met with dirty looks, false generalizations, and stereotypes.  The "troops" are supported but their home lives are not.  Somehow it's my fault that people believe that mil marriages are a testament to the rising divorce rates, the rising debt, and whatever else they can pin on us.  I've read somewhere that the mil marriages have a lower divorce rate than the civilian world.  I'm supposed to an uneducated woman that married my husband at 18 and immediately started having babies, which drain the government.  I've also read somewhere that mil spouses are generally more educated.  Yes, I married young but often it's the position that we're put in.  It's beyond complicated to have a "normal" wedding.  I know quite a few people that got married through the mail or even over the Internet...not to mention many courthouse weddings.  We are looked down upon for that...but yet it's the mil members service that often causes us to through such extremes to get married.  With marriage in a committed relationship comes children.  No one bawks when a civilian marriage results in children...but yet my own children drain the government?  Yes, our paycheck comes from the government but you get the same amount of money if you are married with no children versus being married with five children.  Not sure how that rumor got started but it drives me crazy.  I've actually had more than one person mention this "extra" pay...you can afford that baby with that extra from the government.  Huh?!  Would you go up to anyone else and question them about affording a baby?  Just because we get our paycheck from the government (and so do P.O. workers and so many other jobs) then we can't live out our married life.  In my everyday life...whose needs are always met first...The Navy's.  That's what it means for Zack to serve...in OUR lives the Navy's needs are met first.  The whole thing is full of ironies.  So instead I take pleasure in the fact that Zack knows that he is appreciated and he appreciates me.  And really that's all the matters.  I'll take dirty looks any day all day long if that means that those same people would come up to Zack and shake his hand while saying, I appreciate your service.  Because whether they know it or not they are also recognizing the service that Noah, Caraline, and I do too!