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Dearest National Guard spouse, I see you.
Your partner is gone and you may have wonderful friends, but none understand what you’re going through. Your kids have a slew of friends and they don’t have to PCS, but they also don’t have friends that understand why their parent is gone. Your family loves you, but they too do not comprehend the feeling of a spouse being away.
Don’t worry, I see you.
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This week’s MEM Brooklyn talks about misconceptions of the National Guard that she’s encountered. There are a lot of myths out there about our National Guard.
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There was a time in my life when I knew nothing about the National Guard. All I knew was what I learned in history class about their role with the Little Rock Nine. I also knew that I saw them after tornado outbreaks in my state.
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Living in Alaska has been an amazing experience for me, but soon it will be time to say goodbye. If I’m being honest, I am heartbroken. I never imagined that I’d love living here, but I do, because Alaska is breathtakingly beautiful, even at -20 degrees in the dead of winter.
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Resilience has been the key word for 2020. This year has brought us a pandemic, an economic crisis, an upheaval of normalcy, and so much more. Yet, through it all, we have persevered.
As James Lane Allen once said, “adversity does not build character, it reveals it.” This year, the nation—and the world—has experienced adversity.
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My life changed the moment I agreed to go on a date with a man I “met” online; our first date was 10 hours long, and it was effortless to be around him—we talked about everything and nothing all at once. After he left that first night, I knew he would change me regardless if we stayed together; I am thankful he has been an integral part of my life every day since.
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Deployments are tough—there is no way to sugar coat it. Being the spouse of a National Guard member, deployments are something that I never really thought about. I always assumed that they were something that happened to other people—people who were much better equipped to handle them.
But sure enough, I was wrong.
I feel like I blinked and found myself fist deep in a tub of cookie dough, crying, because my husband was being deployed. I read countless books and articles, and I played out thousands of scenarios in my head as to what it would be like. I thought about things, like missing out on celebrating holidays and special events, and the fact that I now would have to take out the trash and take the dog out late at night (my two least favorite chores).
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National Guard life is so different than “Big Army.” At least as many people often assume.
Well, it is not.
There is a group of elite soldiers within the National Guard who maintain a high operational tempo, and we are not just talking about once a month and two annual trainings a year. We are talking about Joint Combined Exchange Trainings, TDYs, schools, deployments, and Guard weekend obligations. A lot of National Guard soldiers within this specific community also have civilian jobs that tie into the world of serving: government contracting, S.W.A.T, law enforcement, and more. This means that Guard spouses navigate alone most of the time.
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We hear it all the time. “It’s only once a month! It’s not that big of a deal!”
Truth is, it really is a big deal. Because those weekends are the worst.
Those are the weekends that all the ballgames, family commitments, and kids getting sick will happen.
Those are the weekends when the kids will throw every ‘tude known to man both at you and at each other.
Those are the weekends that all Hades breaks loose everywhere. Oh! And something always breaks!
Those are the weekends you question yourself the most.
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