Duty and Honor Bound

My husband is a man of duty and honor.

Which is why this will be a solemn homecoming.

Soon (of course I cannot say when), my husband is scheduled to return home, but his mission is not complete.

Before DH came home on R&R, we wrote constantly about what we would do when he returned: what I would cook, where we would dine out, who we would visit.  His much anticipated leave did not go as planned--Lilah's slightly early arrival and subsequent diagnosis of a congenital heart defect limited the ambition of our R&R plans.

This time, we hardly talk at all about the homecoming.  We are still eager to see one another, but we cannot savor the moment as much as might otherwise have done.

DH is returning home to see his firstborn, his only, his baby girl, have heart surgery.

He is returning to support me, so I do not have to face this on my own.

He is returning before he could lead his last few missions.

He is returning without his men.

And I know it breaks his heart, and so it breaks mine.

DH knows that no soldier, no matter how good he is (and he is good from what I hear and from what I know of his character), is irreplaceable in this man's Army...from Private up to the Commander in Chief. No one is irreplaceable at any job. He is only irreplaceable to me and to Lilah--I only have one husband and she only has one father.

I am grateful that they are able to send him home for this.

We reassure each other that his Platoon Sergeant is high speed. Dude is a race car. In fact, if I had to pick one NCO of those I have met to entrust with a life I love, it would be him.

Still.

What does a man do when his duty and honor oblige him to be in two places at once?

I suppose he does what any man does--the best he can.

And I will pray, and wait, and hope, until every last one of his soldiers returns.

When Lilah is well and home and we can greet those brave men together as a family, then I will be able to breathe again.

Comments

[Megan]

Well those men are his family and they wouldn't want him to be anywhere but at your side. My prayers go out to you and your family. You are all about to fight a huge battle. The toughest anyone has to fight. Being a parent and turning your child over to someone elses hands is the most difficult thing in the world and I know everyone of his men will be pulling for you guys and waiting to meet that little girl. Take care

[LAW]

Molly, all our thoughts are with you and your husband, and that darling girl. he is irreplaceable to you both. and his men will understand, they have their own families. So don't you dare do the good army CO's wife's stiff upper lip. oh yes, I know that one. let him come home and comfort you both, and allow yourself to lean on him.

take care of yourself and them. we'll be here, waiting.

LAW

[Sarah]

I remember feeling relieved in a way that my husband was the absolute last soldier to leave Iraq, just so I wouldn't have to feel like he'd left anyone behind. But at the same time I was a bit miffed that they left him there and sent the two single guys home :) Deployments are full of conflicting emotions.

And I know what you mean about good Platoon Sergeants. We named our dog after my husband's, that's how big of an impact he had on us...

[MJLAUER]

My husband got out of the active duty Marine Corps mere weeks after returning home from Iraq.

In less than a few months his unit was sent back over and two of his friends were KIA.

I held him as he sobbed in guilt for not being there for them, for failing them.
"I could have done something," he kept saying. "I could have saved them."
Then he said something that made my heart stop, "At least I should have died with them."

As a wife, listening to her husband say that he would rather have died with his Marines than abandoned them, his words filled me with both a sense of honor and of pain.

I thought, "But what about me? He would have left me here all alone. He would have abandoned me. I'm his wife and they're his... Well, they're his what? "
Then it hit me. I finally UNDERSTOOD what those Marines really were to him.

Yes, I was his wife, but they were his brothers. While I was home, sleeping in a bed, they were beside him in the mud and muck. While I was eating good meals and watching movies, they were sharing MREs and telling stories of home. While I wrote him letters to tell him of my life back home, he SHARED his life with them. They bled with him, they suffered with him, they were more of him than I was.

I started to cry myself because I had the tiniest glimmer of what filled his senses.

A few weeks later, he reenlisted in the Marine Corps Reserves.

My Mom once asked me if I was jealous that he seemed to care more about his Marines than he cared about me. I had to think about that for a very long time because to the casual obverer that may seem true, but to me and to him, it's not. It's not that he cares more about them than he does me, it's that they share something with him that I don't.

They share the blood and the sweat and the tears and the pain. They can look into each others' eyes and say, "I understand," and know it's true.

I can't do that.

Yes, he loves me very dearly, and he is a wonderful, caring, and generous husband, but when his Marines need him he'll never again be left behind to watch them fall without him.