THE ONE

On my first deployment, I was a young and naïve soldier with no family of my own.  The thought of dying was far removed from my conscious, barely a blip on my radar.  Even when faced with exploding things and some fairly fucked up shit, I still rarely considered my own mortality.  None of it really seemed to be actually happening to me- it was more like a television show than anything.  At our welcome home ceremony, the band played victory marches as everyone else jumped into the arms of the loved ones they had left behind.  I stood in the middle of the commotion, surrounded by people but more alone than I had ever felt in my life.  It didn’t even register to me at the time how soul-crushingly alone I was; I just needed more beer and I would be fine.

I found more beer, but it did very little to fill the void.  I tried to find romantic connections, but each one felt hollow and lackluster.  I was a rudderless ship, afloat on a sea of alcohol.

And then She came into my life.

We each had every reason in the world to not end up together.  I was a meathead jock from Kansas; She was a city girl with a troubled past.  She had kids, and I still was a kid.  We came from completely different worlds, and yet we both felt a connection unlike anything before.  It was scary how quickly we moved once we both knew: in just three short months I stared in awe as She walked down the aisle in her shimmering white gown, the most beautiful woman on Earth walking to join me forever.  Just like that, I was a husband and a father. 

Our love grew strong as we were forced to struggle in the life of a young military family away from our families and alone with only each other for comfort.  We saw other military couples disintegrate under the same pressures we faced, curious as to what made us different than them.  Where others drifted apart, we found strength in each other and never let go of that.

We were somehow able to avoid lengthy separation for a while, but we always knew that our luck would run out sooner or later.  When our number finally came up, it happened just a few short months after the birth of our fourth child.  It was then that I understood the pain and loss of separation that the others had felt so long ago.  We spent the days before my departure locked in each other’s arms, but it still wasn’t enough time before I had to go.

That deployment was nothing like the first one.  Everything felt real, everything felt painful, and every day that we were apart felt like an eternity.  We both experienced separate trials of fire during that period and were both incapable of helping the other for the first time.

Due to a particular trial of fire that would challenge us both more than anything before, I left one war zone to come home to another.  We were reunited by tragedy, but we finally were a team again.  Loss piled upon loss, but we remained locked together, fighting to maintain the family that we carved out together. 

We have fought together against the darkness.  We have celebrated triumphs together.  We have comforted each other through unimaginable losses.  We have shown our children how to keep fighting no matter what, and what the meaning of unconditional love is.  I would not be here today without her and our children to keep me going.  She is more of a warrior than I could ever claim to be.  Her commitment to family and strength have given us a home, no matter where we find ourselves.  I hope she knows how much I love her, because words simply do not do that feeling justice.