The “E” Word

There’s one word Soldiers never want to hear and that’s “extended”. Today I heard it, unofficially, because the Army has as hard a time sticking to a date as Jello does to a tree. But its 99% certain that I will be here about six weeks longer.

My 50% done just dropped to 33% done. How long would it take you to write a list of everything your spouse and children / grandchildren have done in the last 45 days? Imagine writing all the pages of every thing they’d do, all the memories, events, questions, affections, romance, and even the mundane. It would probably fill a couple of notebooks at least. Then imagine locking those notebooks away where you could never view their contents. All those things would still happen, you will just never know what they were or how they felt. And that’s what I am feeling right now. But…

Katy and I knew all along this was a possibility and Katy, becoming ever the sharper, tried and true Army wife, essentially planned on this. If I came home as originally scheduled than that would just be a surprise. Smart thinking. It looks like she will be on her own for the Army 10 Miler, something ummm we were ummm really ummm looking forward to doing ummm together . Seriously she’s trained really really hard for this and I’m immensely proud of her. Now she’s got to find a pal to take my number and run in my place.

I can’t speak for Katy. I can only imagine how she feels. She took the news in stride and kept plugging along as she does so well. As for me, I hate the thought of missing another 45 days or so hanging out with my girlfriend and love of my life (the same person for the record), and being with the kids. Last night we were all chatting on the computer and when Grace saw me on the screen, she said, “Dadda hold me”. Breaks my heart as she was literally trying to reach through the screen. Stephen has been training hard too to build his muscles and learn some new “action moves” to beat me up.

Wrestling was our daily adventure when I’d come home from work. He’d stand in the living room waiting on me squared up like a gunfighter in the Wild West. Grace would usually say, “Ding ding, dadda”, and the fight was on. He’s a tough little scrapper and we bonded through the wrestling, laughing, winning and losing,  just like I did with my dad when I was Stephen’s age.

I have a bud Steve here who said, “If you’re looking for sympathy, you won’t find it here.” He’s right. He’s on his second consecutive year here as are many, many others. Even with the extension, my tour will be a third that of the normal Army guy time here.

What pops in your mind when you find something like this out are odd though. For example, I thought of turning 36 alone over here. My side of our family has NEVER made a big deal out of birthdays, something I keep forgetting about Katy’s side…and yet that was one of my first thoughts. Then I thought about potentially being here for the elections and how that would be a historic opportunity. Then family again and missing time with Katy and the kids, then back to looking at fellow Soldiers who’ve been here once, twice, three, and four times, and how I am still staying so briefly. It’s almost manic.

On the one hand you feel sad for staying but duty bound and humbled by it too, like you know it’s the right thing. Without diminishing the death of a loved one, it is vaguely similar to that feeling. You know it is hard and sad to let someone go, but at the same time have that sense of finality and release that comes with the vanishing cloud of uncertainty. Does that make sense?

Neither of us feel alone. We know that God has His plans for this and that’s enough. We’ll be purposeful about maintaining our courtship and parenting via the world wide web. We humbly ask for your continued prayers for our children, our marriage, our extended family, and relationships as we’ve added a little hump to our sandbox adventure.

Thanks for being here, through thick and thin!

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