I waited and waited to find out when Hunny would be home. It was torture. Or so I thought. Now that I know, time has come to a standstill. Maybe it’s just the weekend. I have hated weekends since this deployment started. I guess because during the week it was normal to be alone all day. On the weekends we were together. Of course things will pickup after payday. I have an appointment with the “shrink” that afternoon, an FRG meeting that evening. Thursday we have reintegration classes. I was going to skip them, but I do want to hear the ptsd info. I’m not worried about us adjusting, that will happen immediately. But I do want to know more about PTSD. I know him well enough to notice if he’s a little off, but better to be informed.

Then I need to get my hair recolored, and hopefully re permed if I can manage both before he gets home. If not, just the color. I’m going to go to Total Image to see the girl that used to do my hair. I’m thinking about getting my nails done too, but that probably won’t happen. Acrylics are so damaging. I need to get his favorite foods and snacks in the cabinets. I need to buy our thanksgiving fixings, I may need to borrow Lizz’s freezer for that. We’re just going to postpone our turkey day until he’s here. I have to get the truck cleaned out, vacuumed and washed again. I’m thinking I’ll use one of those places that does it for you.

I think I’m going to burst before the week ends. Even with my meds my anxiety is through the roof. We’re just so close, and it magnifies all my worries and fears to twice the normal level. What I really find amazing is they are finally coming home, and yet still the complaints continue. I will be thankful when I hear he’s done working, I’ll be even more thankful when he leaves that place. And when he gets off that bus and into my arms, I’ll be thanking everything that’s holy that it’s finally over. well, Until the next one.

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View will be shared in this post. You’ve been warned. Disagree if you must, but I’m not arguing any points. These are my beliefs and your arguments will not change them.

Why on earth is it so awful to NOT be angry about the extension? Why isn’t it ok to just deal with it. To carry on and wait? There is an overwhelming attitude that if you don’t loudly disagree with this extension, you are less of a wife, you’re blind, you’re blindly following the government. That’s bull. All the websites that popped up, what purpose did they serve? Have they gotten our brigade home any sooner? No. They have not. They’ve given the wives a place to vent, a place to ir their grievances. And that’s great. Everyone needs that. That’s why I have a blog. Or four. And every time an article is published at strykernews.com, the “against” readers attack anyone with a different view, and accuse them of insulting the troops, or of not being supportive. What is wrong with that picture? I admit this sounds paranoid, but I believe in it, and I’m not going to budge. The enemy reads these sites. Strykernews I’m sure is read by them. They see families, and soldiers alike voicing their unhappiness. Which they have an absolute right to do. But it gives them propaganda to use against us. Anyone remember Tokyo Rose? The Japanese/US citizen who along with a group of other women broadcasted stories of defeats, of cheating wives, etc over the airwaves after luring their American GI listeners onto the station with American music? Of course they already know we have unhappy troops. That’s a given. But seeing it over and over gives them more hope, to them it makes us look weak. Which of course we are not. We have the best forces in the world.

As far as Iraq goes, I’m still in support of it. The extension didn’t change that. And I’m tired of hearing “we didn’t find any wmd”. Well of course not! We spent months wading through UN bullshit before we could even get anyone in there after the inspectors were again kicked out (which by the way violated the treaty made after the first gulf war). Now, if you had something to hide, and knew you were going to be invaded and searched…what would you do? Destroy it. Ship it away and destroy any evidence of it. Sell it. So many options there. The other thing I’m tired of is “If we had deposed Saddam the first time…” yeah we’d be in the same situation, because the country has no leadership! And don’t tell me they have a PM. I know that, but he isn’t much of a leader right now. And of course there’s the “We need to pull out now” theory. What is going to happen if we do that? With an unstable middle east, the whole region is then vulnerable to take over by these insurgents/terrorists, our guys get sent back over, and into a situation 10 times worse than it is now. Or they get stronger and formulate another attack on us.

But you can’t say those things these days. All the media wants to print is anti Iraq, all they want to interview are wives and service members with grievances. When is it going to get better? When are opposing, positive opinions going to be anything but scoffed at? What is wrong with us? Shame on us for not complaining, shame on me for driving on. No. Shame on anyone that believes that.

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As many of my readers from my many blogs know, my husband is one of a brigade that had it’s tour extended in Iraq just as they were to head home. It sucked, to be honest. I was crushed, devastated, shocked, appalled, and disappointed. Just to name a few. But it happens. This is the military, these things happen unfortunately.

We are not the first to be extended. There were many units back in 2003 when this started that went to Iraq for a six month tour and found themselves there for 12 to 24 months! What makes us unique? The amount of notice we got. Some of us just hours. But we have dealt with it. It’s almost over. The majority of us that is.

Some have felt the need to go to the press with their grievances and distrust. The most recent, has completely and totally pissed me off. I am seeing RED. In THIS article, is an excerpt that might as well say that any of us wives that have accepted our fate and “drove on” are idiots.

When the 4-23′s Baghdad deployment was first announced, Tamara says the families split into two camps. “There were those wives who sat there and smiled like the women in ‘Apollo 13,’ who just smiled when they were thinking ‘Oh my God,’ kind of like Stepford wives, and then there were those of us who said, ‘This just isn’t right,’” recalls Bell. 

NICE Huh?? Well Screw you too! If you want to protest fine, if you want to paint messages on your car windows, great, if you want to talk to the press about your unhappiness, and your husband is ok with that, more power to you. But you DO NOT run down the rest of us that stand in quiet support of our soldiers.

We are doing what OUR soldiers expect us to do. We picked ourselves up, dusted ourselves off and put on a brave face. We put on our big girl panties and pushed ourselves through what has been possibly the hardest time of our lives. We did it so our soldiers would know, without a doubt that we were OK. So they could focus on their missions. We know they are tired, we know they are homesick, they know we want them home as bad as they want to be here.

We did all of that without going to the press to stab the other “camp” in the back. We did it without any attention, because the press only wants to report the negative, the protests, the outrage. You don’t see interviews from spouses that are upbeat and positive. They want to publicize the missed birthday parties, the poor me stories. They feed on it, they breathe it like the last cubic foot of oxygen in the universe. So congratulations, you got your 15 minutes of fame. Again. And you’ve done it  while insulting those of us that are DAMNED proud of the job we’ve done, and of the job our soldiers have done.

It’s wrong. It’s just fucking wrong.

Signed,
PROUD STEPFORD WIFE

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