Although the authoress is well-written and expunges any internal venom or vitriol from her narrative, the article, to me, as a committed military professional, is simply stunning. I may well be taking the whole thing too personally, as her former husband's career timeline pretty much parallels my own, except (not denigrating the ex's) mine--and my family's--was/is tougher.
The article is the most ego-centric screed I've read in a while, to the point that it almost seems like parody. Every deployment, every friction point, is examined and articulated strictly in the terms that it affects the authoress.
In fact, when I review the authoress' timeline, she had a pretty fucking easy ride. The deployments that caused her relationship--or, her commitment to her relationship--to dissolve were often years apart. This passage, in particular, leads me to thinking that I'm reading the musings of an ego-centric bitch
Then came 9/11. My husband, like so many others, saw the attacks as a call to action. He went back on active duty and volunteered for a tour in Egypt. Our children were old enough to miss their father now. I put a calendar up in the kitchen so we could check off the days, took them both for cupcakes to cheer them up as we walked home from kindergarten. A part of me was proud of how brave we were all being. The other part was weary with being brave. I took a job at an independent bookstore and started spending time with the young, funny, book-reading guys I met there. When John came back things were awkward. I couldn't stop myself from being angry, couldn't help feeling abandoned.
So, you resent the fact that your husband couldn't refuse the sweet siren song of duty after your country was attacked and he figured that he had the training and experience that might just help preserve our country and our way of life. But hey, at least you got to spend time with young, funny, book-reading guys at the bookstore in which you worked. I mean, what better foil against which to compare your manly, balls-to-wall husband than a bunch of snarky, wise-cracking, haven't-done-shit-in-the-real-world post-adolescents who are still probably living off of Mom and Dad--mostly Mom.
What makes me foam at the mouth is the total moral vacuity of the authoress. When I look at the sacrifices that I've seen a multitude of Army wives go through--not to mention my own wife, and our kids--I pretty much want to vomit. There is no awareness at all of serving a greater good. Of any sort of cognizance at all of sacrificing for something above and beyond one's own self. Instead, it's all about her.
Hey, Toots, I've seen Army wives suck it up to a degree you can't even imagine. I've seen women that have put up with circumstances that would drive a Valkyrie to her knees. I've seen a snowed-in housing block where the sole husband not deployed (with a four-wheel vehicle) stomped house to house asking "Okay, so what do you need above and beyond diapers, milk, and bread?" I've known Army wives who have seen their husbands deployed two of every three years since 911 because of the husbands' particular skills and training. I've seen wives who've had to follow behind the Chaplain and Notification Officer again and again, because their husband was the Commander, and try to help a new widow pick up the pieces of her shattered life, while still scared spitless over her own husband's fate. I've seen a street marked in chalk, where all the wives could gather of an evening, with the chalk marks delineating where all could get reception on their baby-monitors.
This woman is a disgrace because she doesn't once acknowledge the impact of her (former) husband's service beyond how it impacts her. She doesn't acknowledge that the service and sacrifice of an Army wife is as great and significant as that of the Soldier himself. She can see no further than how it affects her.
The great irony is that she now lives in Manhattan with her avowed Marxist husband, cuddling over hot cocoa at night over some book or other, without realizing that the fact that she doesn't cringe every time a jet flies over is because of her ex.
Yeah, leaving a Soldier on deployment is easy, bitch.
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