Defining Moments
I was recently watching The Breakfast Club, and as many of you know, something that sets it apart from most movies from the ’80s (apart from it being a John Hughes film) is the song at the end—“Don’t You (Forget About Me)” by Simple Minds. This song is really an iconic and defining piece from this time in history and is basically synonymous with this movie.
This got me to thinking. If you could pick one thing that defined a duty station or even your experience as a military spouse (or maybe a military member), what would it be?
Would it be an icon? A moment or period of time? A person or place?
I think if I had to choose one thing that has defined my experience as a spouse it would have to be my husband’s first deployment.
By the time my husband was preparing to go on his first deployment, we had been married about a year and a half. We’d probably spent about half of that time together. I had to finish my last year of college, and he was still in Hawaii for a good portion of this time until he PCS’d to Virginia.
By the time I got to Virginia, I found out quickly that he would be deploying the next year. The months leading up to his deployment were filled with anxiety about the unknown and what was ahead of me. The unfortunate part of this situation was the duty station we were at. Unlike most places, it was not a regular military installation. In fact, it was a non-deployable duty station, and the soldiers were vastly outnumbered by the DoD civilians working there. There wasn’t much family support, and no one really lived near each other because it was a regular town without an installation. All in all, not an ideal place for a first deployment.
My husband’s first deployment was an individual augmentee deployment, meaning he was the only one who left. So while he was gone, my friends’ husbands were still around, and it was difficult for me at times, especially when anything family related occurred. There were days when I cried, and others when I was okay.
But, what really makes this experience important is the fact that I became a more independent and stronger version of myself.
I had to learn how to do a lot of things on my own. I took over almost everything that my husband would do while he was home, and in some ways, it was overwhelming. In other ways, it was exactly what I needed.
My husband’s departure was difficult. I knew that my friends understood because they’d already gone through deployments, but when you are still in it and no one else is going through it with you, it can feel lonely at times. And even so, I think through adversity comes knowledge and strength. In this case, it came at the cost of spending time with my husband, but the outcome was the best it could be for the two of us. He had become a better soldier and learned so much while he was gone, and so had I.
