Memorial Day: Here’s your military
Imagine I said “here’s your military” in the title much like Bill Ingvall would have said “here’s your sign.” Because when I say that, I say it as deadpan as possible. Why? Because it should come as no surprise that your military currently serving is so young. I was 17 when I enlisted, 18 when I went to boot camp and only 22 when I got out.
I know for many people, Memorial Day is over already. It’s past midnight on the East Coast. And a lot of things seem to run on East Coast time. But for me? I have another two hours and twenty minutes or so before it’s “over” and I’m “late.” Rather than waxing poetic about my military service – to be saved for another day – I was busily purging the house of junk today. It seems to accumulate and, being a military family, we can’t exactly have too much junk.
But among the junk, I found some old photographs from when MarvMan and I first got together…
I was 19. He'd just turned 20.
See that in the caption? He was only 20. Already a third class petty officer, if I remember correctly. And I was 19. Still an E-3, but full of hope. And man, when love is fresh and new, it’s pretty darn exciting if you can’t tell by the big goofy grin on my face. Now I still get a goofy smile on my face, but it’s less “OMG CAN YOU BELIEVE THE HOT GUY I’M WITH?!” Hehe.
But really, who the crap did my eyebrows? Yikes.
And on my trip down memory lane, that photo was buried under a pile of letters.
Letters sent by MarvMan to me while he was deployed to Japan. Reading those letters was an amazing reminder of all the things he feels for me that he has trouble putting into spoken word, but that the distance of the Pacific Ocean and half a bottle of Jack will give him the courage to write.
So here’s to the young kids in the military. The ones who don’t know what, exactly, they’re doing, and maybe they’re thinking about giving up. The kids who want to do something worthwhile, something they’ll be proud of. Ones with drive, ambition, and a desire to serve their country. But right now, they’re just trying to keep themselves safe on the flight line, flight deck, or combat lines.
You’ll figure it out.
And here’s to the letters that hold marriages together when drunken phone calls at two in the morning make you so angry you’re swearing up and down you’re not going to pick him up at the homecoming at the hangar. To the spouses who stay behind and hold down the homefront while their heart is thousands of miles away. To the ones who sign their lives away and are in harm’s way every day for this country of ours.
Deployments never get easier, you just start figuring out how to cope a little better.
And here’s to the rest of MarvMan’s Naval career. I’m so very blessed to have had him come home to me, and I bow my head in silence for those who aren’t coming home.
May they rest in peace with the solemn gratitude of their fellow countrymen for paying the ultimate sacrifice for freedom.
Hey Lins, thank you and MarvMan for your service! Our town will be honoring one of it’s own on Thursday by renaming the post office after Corporal Joseph A. Tomci (may he rest in peace).
Thank you so much, Anna. It was a pleasure to serve and it’s an honor to stand by MarvMan now. And what a wonderful thing for your town to do!
Such a sweet post….and brings about so many memories. I never served, but I did marry a Marine who also served in Japan (Okinawa) shortly after we got married and have a couple stacks of letters myself. Now he’s in the National Guard and we just spent our 10th anniversary with him at mob station at Ft. Hood, getting ready to deploy to the Middle East for a third time. Sometimes I think it’s the deployments, and the letters they bring about, that keep us close. Funny as that is to say. ‘Cause they don’t say those things when they’re home, playing WoW and watching Family Guy, do they? lol
Happy Memorial Day….a little late.
Haha! For MarvMan, it’s the XBox. I swear he could more poetically describe his love for that sometimes as opposed to saying something poetically sweet about me! Thank you for the sacrifices you make as a military wife. It’s such a tough job! Good luck as he deploys, and I’ll be praying for him. The letters are something I remember looking forward to so much, even though we still had phone calls and e-mail.
Great post! and letters are the best…I used to carry them around in my purse while he was gone!
blog browsing led me to this. Thank you SO much – this is the first time I have ever seen age acknowledged. I work with a group of 60 other Sailors, (44 of which are 21 or younger) and you said it best:
“young kids in the military. The ones who don’t know what, exactly, they’re doing… who want to do something worthwhile… But right now, they’re just trying to keep themselves safe…”
Officers don’t want to “deal” with us, Upper Enlisted don’t have the “time” to train us. Like MaryMan, I’m a 20 year old E-4, trying to figure it all out one adventure at a time. And still, I find a way to get letters home, because I still believe the people I love need to receive them as much as I need to write them.