Taken from National Military Family Association Please look further down in this post at “Continued” for the entire writing or go to the link to read the entire statement.
The fact that my husband is on military deployment in Iraq does not make me unfortunate…….. there is a misconception that having my husband away on a military deployment makes me unfortunate. Please do not consider me unfortunate! Consider, just for a moment, that I might be incredibly blessed.
……….I’m on a journey that is unveiling a beautiful level of self-confidence. I believe that I am at a time in my life where God has my full attention to teach me what he feels I need to learn.
My circumstances may be demanding from time to time, yet I have never fallen from grace into a forgotten, subpar state of being. I, most definitely, am not unfortunate.
Wild Thing’s comments…………
There are wives and there are a-hem wives, and there are mothers and then there are breeders. Cindy Sheehan is a breeder. She shows no respect for her son. And I would bet she did not show him respect when he was alive.
This is so wonderful what this Military wife wrote. A woman like this stands along side her husband and knows he is making a difference in this world. He is a part of history, and she in being supportive makes the hardship of sacrifice a little bit easier for her husband. Cindy Sheehan will never understand that. She USES our Military to get her 15 minutes of fame. She uses her son’s service and death to draw attention to herself. Cindy is aiding the enemy with each breath she takes and every word she utters. What a difference in these two women.
Compassion’s OK, but please hold the pity
By Emily J. Bari
The fact that my husband is on military deployment in Iraq does not make me unfortunate. I don’t enjoy being the poster child for pity.
When my husband, Dan, left for a deployment to Iraq with the Minnesota Army National Guard 10 weeks ago, I became a bit of a celebrity. As the wife of a deployed soldier, I experienced an outpouring of handshakes, hugs, e-mails and phone calls.
Yet as the first couple of weeks passed, I felt physically drained as I was emotionally adjusting to Dan not being around. My fatigue forced me to slow down the pace of life, and my senses heightened as my mind began to relax. I would write to Dan about every drop in temperature; the multiple shades of red, orange, and gold that appeared with autumn; and my delight in the season’s first tasty cup of rich hot chocolate. But there was something else I noticed.
Pity.
If you’ve ever been through tough circumstances, perhaps you’ve also noticed that compassion and pity are two emotions that evoke very different facial expressions, motivations and actions.
Although my closest friends, family members, and brothers and sisters at church continue to support me as they always have, it’s become apparent that some people relate to me as if I were a crippled wife and an unfortunate woman.
When people ask me how I’m doing, some expect a conversation dripping with despair. They even seem disappointed when, instead of sharing depressing stories of unimaginable loneliness, I simply tell them I made two big pancakes for dinner last night and I figured out how to fix the squeaky dryer.
A military deployment is indeed a very difficult lifestyle adjustment. I cried my heart out when I realized the bed sheets no longer smelt like Dan. I turn on radios and televisions in multiple rooms because sometimes it’s too heartbreaking to listen to the silence. Without my husband next to me, I often feel exposed.
Yet there is a misconception that having my husband away on a military deployment makes me unfortunate. Please do not consider me unfortunate! Consider, just for a moment, that I might be incredibly blessed.
First, I married a man with extraordinary courage and dedication, a man who loves me so well while so far away, and a man I can wholeheartedly flaunt to my future children as a hero.
Secondly, personal character is tested in mediocre amounts when driving in rush hour or waiting in the urgent care clinic lobby. While every circumstance is a test of character, my situation has thrown me into the deep end of the character pool. I’m on a journey that is unveiling a beautiful level of self-confidence. I believe that I am at a time in my life where God has my full attention to teach me what he feels I need to learn.
So do not pity me. Have compassion for me, encourage me and help me if you want. I will do the same for you. My circumstances may be demanding from time to time, yet I have never fallen from grace into a forgotten, subpar state of being. I, most definitely, am not unfortunate.
Emily J. Bari, a communications contractor, lives in Plymouth.
It takes a special woman to make a military wife, a very special one. There is something about them that their contemporizes in the civilian world don’t understand. I hope you don’t mind, but let me tell you about my military wife.
She spent 20 years of my 26 years in the Air Force with me, supporting my career 200%. At my 12 year point I was planning on getting out but she told me I only have 8 more years till I reach 20 and that I will do 8 more years; then I can do what I want but I will do 8 more years. I said “yes ma’am” and not only did the 8 years but at her prodding did an additional 6. When I was a Flight Chief in a KC-135 unit we were deploying constantly because NKAWTG (Nobody Kicks Ass Without Tanker Gas). It was my job to select and prepare people for these deployments. She would insist that I deploy along with my troops, saying “you can’t send people all over the world if you don’t go yourself”. While deployed I never knew of any problems back home. All she would say is everything is going great. When I got back home, she then informed me of any problems like my son getting hurt and going to the emergency room. She never wanted me to worry while I was gone. She would say, “after all, there’s nothing you can do about it from half way around the world”.
We retired in 1999 and one year later I buried her back in the area she grew up and loved; she had leukemia. I remarried two years later and my new wife is a wonderful woman but she would have never survived life in the military. It takes a special kind of woman to be a military wife and they are few and far between.
Oh Bob, tears are all over my face. What you have written is so beautiful. I can’t tell you what it means to me to read about her. I am so sorry that she got sick and has passed away. Thank you Bob for sharing like this.
God has blessed you with a second wife that is wonderful too like you said. Each one being their own unique person.
My heart is full and so blessed to have met you online and call you friend. Thank you.
BobF:
The wife you described can never be explained in the terms we have today for relationships. I’m no longer religious, but I know that only a narrative that includes God can illuminate the kind of devotion you experienced, and the selflessness that went with it. And it’s certain that you had something to do with it, yourself.
As for Sheehan (in contrast to Emily Bari), there is much we don’t know about her. But it’s safe to assume that home life with her was grotesquely political, and contaminated everywhere with her narcissism, vulgarity, dependence, emotional ugliness and monstrous will.
But Sheehan, like Dean, is just a sideshow act in the bizarre carnival called Popular Culture, and the promoters are in the Main Stream Media. They’re no longer distinguishable from the creatures that inhabit Hollywood or reality TV. Sheehan might as well be eating cow brains and earthworms on camera for money. The kind of spectacle no longer matters.
Both Sheehan and Dean, and a gang of similar entities (Durbin, Kennedy, Schumer, Reid; the rest), fill the late postmodern appetite for the gross, the horrible, the destructive and the titillating. It’s not excessive to say that the lamp of Western culture is kept burning by The Right, whatever our faults, and would be extinguished everywhere if we let them near it.
I, for one, will never allow it, as long as life permits. Thanks to Wild Thing for the pulpit.
Hi Rhod, I agree with all you said and it you said it perfectly. Thank you so much.