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Okay, I have read and read, and I've kept my mouth shut so far, but something has begun to rankle... Let me first explain my own situation. I'll try to not be TOO lengthy! :)

I, too, am married to a soldier--he joined the Army when he was 17 and was immediately sent to the jungles of South America to chase drugs lords. Over time, he left the Army and joined the Guard -- boom, they started deploying him. He is on his 5th deployment (yep, 5th!), and is currently in Iraq for the 2nd time, so at over 50 years of age, this is something he has done since before he even had his drivers' license. (Speaking of which, the first thing he ever drove was a tank, I've always thought that was interesting)

Anyhow, this man means everything to me. I am about to hit 41, and I have never met anyone like him (I'd been looking around for quite a while LOL). The room lights when he enters, the charisma just beams from him. Everyone who meets him, male or female, is instantly charmed. Suffice to say, I adore him. And he is also my hero :)

A month and a half before our first anniversary, the Guard yanked him away from me. In two months, he comes home from Iraq. This was the most horrible, devastatingly lonely year of my entire life... On the evening of December 24th, I sat alone and crying on the couch, and something in me shifted. I know a part of me broke.

I will be fine. He has done this all his life, and I'm sure the man has had every kind of therapy they offer, so I'm quite confident that over time, he will be fine. As he keeps saying, "Been here, done this." I know alcohol will become a part of his life--it has been since he was 17, but he's not an alcoholic--and I know the dreams will continue, but he will be fine.

When he came back from Afghanistan, the dreams were bad--he was so upset at times that he would go into the bathroom and vomit when a particularly bad one woke him up. The only other problem, and it was blessedly VERY infrequent, was drinking a little too much. He loves his beer, but every once in a while, he would overdo it, and he would sit beside me on the couch, telling me about the time he held his best friend in his arms as he lay dying, blown literally in two by a roadside bomb.

Any fool should know I can never truly understand what he went through. Unless someone has a similar experience, NOBODY can ever completely understand what he went through. The sand, the bugs, the fear, the lack of privacy, overblown dirtbags yelling in his face for no other reason than they have higher rank--sure, we civilians can never completely fathom this, but I have NEVER heard my husband say "You wouldn't understand".

Bottom line...a human is in distress. What more would I need to understand? No, I don't know what it feels like to watch your best friend die in your arms, but I have a pretty damn good idea of the pain that this will cause! It really bothers me to hear people use that phrase..."you wouldn't understand"... And if I ever heard it, my reply would be "No, but I love you, and I see that you're in pain. I understand pain." And I probably wouldn't rant. LOL

The more I hear that "You wouldn't understand", the more it ticks me off... Grrr... :( If you love someone, in more than a little way you DO understand...

Okay, I'm fine now! :D