Bloom Where You are Planted

I think that every military family can feel the tension, the worry encompassing the military community right now. To ignore it just isn't possible (believe me, I've tried). We are all on edge. We are all wondering what the many changes being implemented will do to our family, to our soldier. Everyone is sitting tight. 

Waiting.

And in the middle of it all, our soldiers are still training. Our soldiers are still deploying. Our soldiers are still giving legs and arms and lives.

War doesn't wait.

I have had great difficulty sitting down to write. I have struggled over information about the lessening numbers - how they will affect C's particular branch, how this may affect him. I have struggled over how very real all of this is to Us and how non-existent it is to the rest of our country. 

We see it daily. We are living the worry and the hesitation daily. We understand.

All of it has been eating me up inside. While C is in the field again. While Logan keeps asking when his daddy is coming back from camping with his soldiers again. While I watch them sleep, and hang his uniforms, and wonder what will we do if this stops being our life.

I have not been able to shut off my mind. I have worried and worried and worried.

I see it in the faces of the soldiers. I hear it from our spouses. Hushed whispers, some not-so-hushed. Questions I can't answer. Fear that I cannot calm. People are worried. 

A reader emailed once telling me how good of an "Army Mom" I was to her and I laughed out loud. But I understood the term. When I was at my lowest in some time, I called my "Army Mom" and poured out my heart. She listened. She let me cry and vent and share my fear. 

These are the moments that she would usually turn to humor. We are similar in that way. Sometimes you just need to laugh through the rough spots but this particular call was not the time for that. She said, "Megan. (breath) You are a woman of deep faith. Do not let that be shaken now. He will put you where you need to be - wherever that is."

The message was firm. Strong.

Do not let your faith be shaken.

I know so many of us are beaten down. That we feel forgotten, abused, thrown-away. I know that we are angry and tired and maybe even in disbelief at what is happening. 

But it is happening.

Our lifestyle is changing. Our paths are changing.

This is not a time to lose our resolve. This is not the time for me to crumble and beg for answers. He has never failed me while I have failed Him again and again. He has never led me to where I am not meant to be. He has never let me take a step alone. He has never taken me where He did not walk beside.

The road ahead is uncertain. The future is never promised. 

But His promise to bring us through is certain. His Grace will always rain down.

It is taking every part of me to let my human worry go. To live in the today, the right now. C is working each day as if there is no worry, the same way he always has. He is fulfilling the promise he made fourteen years ago - to serve as long as his country will allow him. None of that has changed. I have been humbled by his unwavering commitment, shrunken by his will to work just as hard for his men, for his nation.

Do not let your faith be shaken.

Bloom where you are planted. Every day, wherever that may be.

A Closed-Ended-Question

I used to be a sales manager. I was throughout college - working throughout school. I remained one during the beginning of my marriage. I worked for a very good company, with some incredible women, and so much of what I learned in that experience has remained with me beyond it. One of the first rules of sales - or at least one of mine - is to always, always, always ask open-ended-questions. It forces an answer. Starts a conversation. Helps to get information. A closed-ended-question only leaves room for a 'yes' or a 'no'. Think of "What are you shopping for today?" versus "Are you shopping for anything in particular today?" Nine times out of ten even if you are shopping for a particular thing you are going to say, "No," and thats the answer whoever asked it expects. But if they ask the first question - the open-ended-question - you will probably say, "I'm looking for something for your niece's graduation," or "My son needs a new pair of khaki's," or "I want to get something special for my husband's homecoming." Think about it.

In the last nine days we have put three-thousand-five-hundred-fifty-seven miles on my car, ventured through five states, had two bar-b-que's, stayed in two homes, had one hospital trip, and been asked the same closed-ended-question a batrillion times. 

(Okay, I may be exaggerating a bit on the last one.)

But really, once is enough and I honestly don't have a clue how many times we've heard it. It isn't the question that gets to either of us. The question makes sense. I would have asked if C hadn't given me the answer many months ago. 

"Do you have to go back?" 

There are, in theory, two answers to this question. I say 'in theory' because C is an Infantryman. I say 'in theory' because with the state of the world this is an (almost) silly question. I say 'in theory' because it seems that his answer will always be the same.

"Yes."

And we receive the same response every time. Faces contort into strange frowns, anger shows, confusion takes over. "Oh, no!" "That isn't right." "They can send someone else." "That's not fair." "How do you know?" "Are you sure?" "Where?" "When?" "Why?"

And then we tell them. "We have been incredibly fortunate." "We've had it 'good'." "We've been so very blessed." Because by the time that deployment rolls around, it will be only three in eight years. Because C has been in country, beside me, for the births of both of our boys. Because he has returned to us unharmed each time. Because with the exception of this year, we have been together on every anniversary. He is going back. And in the time before he does, he will re-sign his contract. There will be no signing bonus, no special treatment for doing so. It will be the same as every other time and he will still sign it. 

Because when it comes down to it, they can't send someone else. They're right, it isn't fair. It isn't fair that there are not more willing to stand beside him. It isn't right that we live in a world that has so much hatred. It isn't right that people can't understand that there are not enough men and women willing to stand up against it. 

So he will. 

**********

I always prefer open-ended-questions. If you know me, you may notice how much I use them. How helpful I find them. I have been very blessed to have so many people around us who use them as well. "How can we help?" "What does he need?" "What do you need?"

When you ask a spouse or a soldier if there is another deployment in the future go into it expecting the answer to be "yes" and then tell them you will be praying during the preparation and the deployment. We've already gone through the "Send someone else" and the "This isn't fair" and the "Why?" Hearing it again, from anyone else, does nothing to strengthen us. 

Think about your questions and think about your answers. 

They matter and they can make a difference.

Questions and Answers

There are few things I get truly passionate about - and they take up so much of my energy. I love this life, I am amazed and blessed by my family, I will go to nearly any length to help a fellow Army wife, and I will lose my voice, my sanity and, sometimes, my heart over LSU football. I had an incredible weekend visiting with friends, my alma mater, and enjoying the sea of purple and gold surrounding me. I expected to have people I hadn't seen in some time ask about my children, ask how C is doing over there, ask when he would be home. I expected to hear these things repeatedly as I ventured across the familiar campus throughout the day and I did. There was one question I did not expect and it came after the excitement of the incredible win had died down and the pain of walking the campus all day had settled into our feet.

"Can you tell me why we went over there?" she asked.

I was not surprised by the question itself, I guess. It is a question we all hear over and over and over again but usually with a horrible tone behind it. Her tone was different. She truly, honestly, wanted to know what was being fought for. I wasn't offended by it - not for an instant. As I have said before, I truly believe many people simply don't know the answers to things and cannot understand the reasons behind this battle because the information is not put out there.

I am not going to get political; I am not going to get into why we went over there. Because to be completely frank, it doesn't matter. What I can do, and what I will do, is what I have done a handful of times before for those who truly and open-mindedly wanted to hear what I honestly thought. And what I am going to say, like everything I say is just my opinion. It is my experience with this war, my understanding from what I have learned from my husband and what I have heard from other spouses. And you don't have to agree with it, I don't expect most to agree with it. You don't have to take it as truth, you don't have to like it. But I figured I would answer her other questions here because I never got to answer them all last night. But I will repeat that I do not think that why we went there matters. It does for the history books and for years and years down the road, but for our men and women currently serving this country it does not matter. We are there. That is what I can talk about.

"What are they doing?" she asked next. Not at all offended by my answer to the first question (I hope).

What my husband has been doing in Afghanistan is completely different from what he did in Baghdad a few years ago. And I think that for a lot of this very few people, including myself, can completely understand what they are doing without seeing it. And there are a few explanations I have given in my one-on-one conversations that I won't give in such a public forum so I don't know how effective this will be. But still, I want to try my best to answer the questions that have been put before me.

In this country, I would bet, our poorest people are of greater wealth than most Afghans. I cannot tell you how many times my husband has said after going "out" on a drive, "I have never known such poverty. The kids, Megan, ..." They live in filth, they live in squalor, they live in conditions unthinkable to most of us and don't know anything different. It is easy to say it isn't our problem. Easy to say that helping them is not worth the lives of our defenders and at face value, I would agree. But it is so important to understand how horribly dangerous that absolute poverty is to this country and our way of life. It is because of this poverty that those who wish only harm to us can have such enormous control over this region. Recruitment for terrorism is much easier when it can mean the difference between quite literally having your body eat itself to death from starvation or being able to provide food to one's entire family. It is much easier to recruit when guns are held to the head of one's wife demanding their sons join their training camp. Fear is powerful. Fear is life-altering. Fear from this evil does not just exist here in our country. We are not the only victims of terror.

In Baghdad, my husband viewed and documented the body of a young girl with countless bullet holes throughout her entire body - from head to feet. The smell, the flies surrounding her body, the blackened blood that covered her body will never leave his memory. This toddler was doing nothing wrong when an unimaginable horror entered the home of her family. This is the only thing my husband has ever told me about what he encountered during his tour. This was the first time I had ever heard my husband cry. This moment - with 6,000 miles in between us - will forever be engrained in my head. We are not the only victims.

So many of these people want change. Not to change their way of life, exactly. But they do not want to live in fear. They do not want to live in fear that one day they would be met with the choices of life as one of them or death. One of my husband's interpreters has two little boys - like us. He does not go home to them each night. He will be separated from them for months at a time. But when he lays his head down at night, he does not just wonder how they are doing like my husband. His heart does not just ache because he didn't get to see his youngest son's first steps - like my husband's will. His heart aches because he wonders if he will go home to find his toddler, almost the same age as our Logan, also lying in his bed (if he has one) with his body nearly unrecognizable because of all of the bullets and blood and flies and maggots. This will never be an image my husband has to fear for us. No one will enter our home and kill our children to send him a message like happened in that home in Baghdad, or that his interpreter fears will happen for his family. There are people in these countries that care and that are working hard to change what they have always known.

For each region that our soldiers secure, and then teach a trade, provide a resource, build up a police force, they change the course of things. They make it that much harder for the Taliban to reign over these people. They offer a chance to experience and sustain a life with far less fear, far less opportunity for terror to grow, far more hope for a different future. They diminish the possibility of young boys being stripped from their families or sold by them who can be taught and brutally raised to believe in and conform to the will of the extremist. Our soldiers cannot just wipe them out - but they can make their impact over this region far less intense.

"Why can't they all just leave?"

A good question. And the answer is because it isn't possible. The only safe way to get every service member out of the region at the same time would be by an incredible magic trick. It doesn't happen like that. It won't happen like that. To leave Afghanistan right now would cause the death of far more soldiers. It would be horrendously dangerous and would not take into account the lives of those left behind. We still have posts in Germany, in Korea, in Japan, and will always in Iraq. Whenever we do leave Afghanistan, we will still have some there. If we leave the middle east, it becomes far easier for the extremists in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Pakistan, in Iran to step up their evil plots because the cost to return soldiers across the world is great, takes incredible coordination and planning and would not happen with the swiftness it would require.

We live in a different time. Wars are different. This enemy is different.

Soldiers are not just "killing Taliban," they are not just searching caves and kicking down doors. Most of them aren't. They are showing how to build, how to teach, how to survive without the threat or option of terror. It is not an easy process and it requires cooperation, patience.

Why we went there doesn't matter. What matters is that we are there. What matters is that our soldiers will do everything in their power to never allow us to live in the fear the Afghans live in.

They are not just helping these people like I described to be good people. We are not providing humanitarian aid. The intentions of our nation are very selfish. By helping them, we help ourselves. By protecting them, and teaching them to protect themselves, we protect ourselves. By securing their future, we secure ours.

It isn't pretty. It isn't fair. But it is how it is. I don't like that we are there just like anyone else. I want nothing more than to live in a world where my husband can be here with me and our children. But, in my opinion, we do not live in that world. We live in a world where our soldiers will fight in whatever way is most effective. What is effective is altering the norm. What is effective is bettering these people. I pray with everything in me that it works.

I do not like this war. No one likes war. But there are times when it is necessary. I grew up with this conflict. I recognize that for those the age of my little sister - they can only remember our country at war. That is beyond frustrating, beyond imaginable, beyond what should seem acceptable. But I believe, with everything that is in me, that our country would have suffered another horrible and terror-filling attack if we had not entered into these countries. I believe that if we leave now, this country will experience another 9/11. As long as he feels that there is something he needs to fight for, as long as he believes that his life is worth losing for this purpose, he will continue to defend this country. As long as my husband is wanting to stand up for this country, I will support and defend his sacrifice.

Keeping Grace

Very rarely do people give the right response when they find out my husband is deployed. And there are really only a handful of responses that I feel are appropriate - or really just one. Very rarely do I get it - and when I do I truly thank them for their words.

"Thank them for their service," "I will be praying for their safety," or quite simply a "Thank you" they want relayed. And when these kind, understanding people say these things you can see it in their eyes. Sometimes almost tear-filled because they understand that completely what our soldiers are knowingly sacrificing for them. It is rare, it is beautiful, it almost makes up for the far too common inappropriate ones.

"Oh, that's terrible!" She sighed when she realized where the hand and foot print covered package was going. "That is just awful that he has to be there." I knew it was coming and I gripped the counter slightly, mentally preparing myself for what was about to follow.

"Isn't it just awful that they have to do something so pointless? It's just stupid," she continued placing the labels on the packages that had been put together and donated by a youth organization. They had come up with over 30 boxes packed to the max for C's soldiers. So many we asked for addresses from others we knew were deployed. "And for WHAT?" she continued.

It didn't phase her a bit. She didn't seem to catch onto that fact that she just insulted me and my husband. "It is just insane that these men and women have to leave their families for nothing. He must hate it. It is so dumb." She still continued with checking customs labels and re-taping. I was just glad she wasn't really looking up.

I wanted to say something but I couldn't. I DO believe that people's opinions can be changed given accurate information but the effort to explain is time consuming and they have to want to hear it. They need to be open. This was not the time, this was not the place, this was not the person. The conversation moved on - eventually.

I try to be as graceful in this life as possible. And so many things in it are far from graceful. But to those who are not in it, to those who don't understand, I try to keep grace. There is never a time when it is more of a challenge to do so.

So many people are incredibly misinformed, or aren't informed at all, and simply decide that what our soldiers are doing is "pointless" and "dumb." And people are entitled to their opinions but to express that to an Army wife, or heaven-forbid, a soldier befuddles me. Who does that and thinks its appropriate? TONS of people. They apologize for him having to do something so "terrible". Well, I am sorry he is defending that person's idiocy.

I fully understand that so many people just do not understand what they are doing there - because they aren't in it - and that is the only thing that prevents me from saying everything I think of what they just said. But please understand this:

Many of these soldiers joined during wartime and those who joined before have reenlisted or re-signed since then. My husband joined three years before September 11th but has re-signed his contract twice since we invaded Afghanistan and Iraq. No one forced that upon him. Do not diminish the service of our military men and women by acting like this has been forced on them. They chose this, knowingly, understanding what they were about to face. They choose it everyday, as well as their families. No soldier joins, especially now, not understanding that there is a war going on. If they weren't willing to fight - they wouldn't volunteer to do so.

Do not forget September 11th. Our soldiers remember. Those who joined the day after remember. And don't think for a moment that that doesn't still matter. We have not had an attack on our soil since then. Thank a soldier for that.

I miss my soldier every moment. My children miss their father. It breaks me every night when my son repeatedly presses the button in the teddy bear that holds my husband's voice. But I do not resent him or this country for taking him from me. This is my reality. A reality I also chose when I chose him. I am proud of my soldier. I am proud of his sacrifice. I am proud of his choice. Do not apologize for our separation. This is our reality. I recognize it. I live it as greatly as I can. I will thrive in it despite the challenges it presents.


There is good being done in those countries by our soldiers. Every job they provide to an Afghan civilian, gives one less penniless man for Al Qaeda to recruit. One less recruit to fly a plane into our buildings. One less tragedy that pauses our lives. There is so much more that our troops do than what people hear on the news or read in the paper. They are not just killing Taliban and hunting down members of Al Qaeda - there will always be more. They are weakening their hold on these poverty-stricken people. They are giving other options to survive in an area that has depended on these extremist to survive for decades and decades. They are giving options in a land that never provided another choice. Do not be misinformed as to their mission. There are many - they are all vital to our safety and our survival.

"And for what?" she had said. "What is the point?"

THAT is the point. For us to never feel what we felt on that day again. For us to never feel the absolute terror. For our children to survive. For our children to live in the country that we knew before September 11th.

This war will end. It will end when all that can be done, has been done. And if another comes - these men and women will stand up again ready to defend. Our freedom is never guaranteed. Our freedom is always at risk. Do not allow that promise of freedom to cloud your understanding of what it requires to sustain it.

My husband is a soldier. He does not demand your apology. He does not demand anything from you.

Do not look to me with sad eyes. Do not offer me words of regret. They are not welcome here.

Offer your gratitude. Offer your support. Offer your prayers. All of these will be taken. All of these will be appreciated. All of these will be relayed to the men and women who deserve them.

Please keep all other opinions to yourself - and if you can't, pray that I can continue keeping grace.