What's next...

Our move from Alaska to Kansas last June was for the sole purpose of my husband attending a year long school. We knew going into it that we would be moving this following June to our next duty station which for the Army is typically for a period of two to four years. The school itself is a lot different from most Army trainings in that it's essentially a year of college. In fact most service members take additional classes in conjunction with this school to earn a master's degree. The leadership repeats that "this is the best year of your life." This makes most of the spouses smirk as in reality they don't see the service member much. I've lucked out in that my hubby a) is a good student b) is a non-procrastinator and c) already has a masters, so I get lots of family time. Not everybody gets to attend the school, so it's a prestigious training to have within the Army.

A big high point for the year is receiving the potential list of duty stations for our follow on assignments. Because let's face it, finding out you could traipse around Europe, lounge around in Hawaii, or live in Okinawa for a few years is just cool. So everybody gets excited and talks about how they ranked their list (specific to each job).  Then we wait between two weeks and six months to find out.

When we received our list, the branch manager specifically included that soldiers with dwell times (time at home between deployments) over certain amounts would or be likely to deploy.  My hubby fit  into the would be deploying category. So while there were some fun sounding locations, we chose to prioritize the direct deployments rather than to roll the dice and land in a new location where hubby would deploy soon after. Well, we got our wish. Hubby leaves this summer for the middle east for twelve months.

Of course, I'm not very excited about this.

The reason that hubby has a higher dwell time than others is because in a six year time period, he did three twelve month deployments. He deployed, came home for four months, deployed, came home for two years, and deployed again. In comparison, I had neighbors who deployed one time during the same period. When it came to our next assignment, they sent us to Alaska because he had deployed so much compared to his peers. While we watched soldiers duck and dodge to get out of deployments, he never flinched from his responsibility. I sucked it up and made it through those years pretty much without complaint.

This time I feel differently.

There are a couple of reasons I feel this way:
1) Several of the people who I know fit into the same dwell time category as us are not deploying.
2) Many of the financial advantages of deployments are going away, in fact now his area will be an unaccompanied tour versus a deployment.
3) I'm going to have newborn twins.
4) I have a three year old.

I had a family member who told me congratulations on getting our first choice. Honestly, I was shocked that they would say this. This is not good news, this was us trying to have a little control over our lives.

Now that everything has shaken out, I feel like we got jacked. It makes me a little bitter. It makes me sad that hubby is going to miss the first year of the twins lives. I know it's going to break my heart to see E deal with this.

I've always been supportive of my husband's career, and I will continue to be. However, it's taken me this long to even write about it without feeling emotionally compromised by putting the words down here. It will take me a little while longer until I'm not mad at the situation.

Honestly, most of me feels like I shouldn't feel this way. I even feel a little disloyal for putting this out there because I should be more accepting of our reality. I shouldn't compare our situation. I should suck it up like a good Army spouse.  My hubby certainly isn't complaining about it. I'm just not quite there yet.

xxx