(without further ado… i give you militarytracy, raw… – promoted by pfiore8)
I’m always at choice. It’s the only rule I can count on and I have come to accept with 42 years of reluctance. At this point in my life I choose to ponder Iraq daily or even hourly because the country that I have been born into has done things to Iraq that deeply conflict with the laws that my soul knows and understands. All aboard the Iraq War train. I wish I was standing on the platform though like a citizen of France maybe or a citizen of any other country that didn’t invade Iraq in my lifetime, and just taking all this in from that distance. I wish that lightening had not struck my train.
It is a hard thing to send someone you love to Iraq and then find out a few months into it that there aren’t any WMD’s. My personhood was deeply wounded; I’m damaged goods dealing with who I thought I was and who I thought our leaders were. And it really hasn’t gotten much better from then on either. I wanted my husband to leave the military after he came home from that first tour. I wanted it so much I threatened to divorce him several times and the fights in this house rang out across the neighborhood and he was just as traumatized as I was, two blood and hell survivors making just about as much sense as such survivors do when still in the trauma. And then it began to ebb. We applied as many balms to the bloody sores as we could find and the betrayal continued even after Democrats took charge…..new and different balms were needed and like the doers we are we went and sought them, found them, applied them.
We sought our healing out individually and together and then came the day when he told me he was retiring out and maybe even giving extra years past twenty now. Nothing set in stone though, he’s just there while he’s needed and he’s badly needed right now. It winded me, punched in the stomach. I couldn’t breathe looking into his eyes because I know those eyes and something deep very deep was there and it scared me very much. See, I’ve never walked on fire any longer than maybe 15 seconds and he was talking crazy. Who knows the truth and acknowledges that fire burns and will consume you and decides to stand in it? I married a God damned freak or something.
But he made soldiering for the United States his life work before fools rushed in and took office and with that comes a larger commitment for some soldiers, that when it all goes bad they stay until it’s dealt with. My husband says that Dubya isn’t forever, but his country could be. Even larger than Dubya though (he would freak out reading that something is larger than him) is the fact that the U.S. military is likely to have to last for a very long time and be accountable for its wrongs and errors so that it can have that probably needed longevity, that is much larger than Bush and his ways. And lastly young men make the choices of young men and old men make the choices of men who have had to live with some of their more stupid past choices so the old men must not leave, they must lead. I submit to the fact that my husband is always at choice while never submitting to the fact he has rank. He has no rank in this house! He does have rank though in places where people often die right now and the voice of one person has been all that was needed so many times in order for terrible things to not happen.
A strange thing has happened to me too in all of this and I don’t fear his death anymore. We all die. We have no guarantee either that we will always live in a land fraught with peace but I know this man who knows who he is when the land is peaceful and when it isn’t and that is no small thing. He knows he is always at choice given whatever circumstance arrives and he made his choices and until America leaves Iraq he will go to add his voice to the mayhem with intent to aid all human beings that he is able to. He does it decently knowing this is where his hands serve their best at this time of insanity. We will leave Iraq one day but apparently it isn’t today so off he goes.
On the Iraq War train I dedicate this song to my fire walking husband.
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I tried not to cry but I didn’t make that either 😉
i’ll promote and then read.
mwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa tracy!
this portrait of your husband and bringing into my mind, full blown, a man who stands for something. a leader.
thank you so much for this tracy.
…the foreground and the shadows keep changing places, the pain and the clarity, the rising above and fading back to shadow again.
Thank you for this fine, deep soul writing.
very touching essay….
i’ll read again in the mornin, but for now i’m keeling over.
g’nite all!
This essay is a pretty persuasive argument for you to be writing more often!
Heavy, stirring stuff….
I’m glad we have men in our military like your husband. But on the other hand I’m sorry for the stress your family goes through because of what the administration has done.
Your family is in my heart and thoughts.
Both of you are very brave. Real heroes. I’m very glad you shared this here. Stay strong Tracy.
with your brilliance, insight and humanity. My heart is reaching out to you and your husband with all the love it can muster
This should be required reading by our so-called representatives in government who cannot seem to answer the question of why we went to Iraq and why we stay with anything resembling truth. The truth is that we are placing an enormous burden on military families, are not providing adequate post-deployment services, and are wasting a ton of money in the process.
Bless you, MT, for sharing your powerful story.
~♥~
Living with emotions swinging back and forth over the same issue and trying to find and arrive at stabilizing thoughts, conjunctively, must be so draining of one’s energies, mental and physical.
I wish that your husband did not have to abide by his loyalty and self-avowed oath in this god-forsaken war for which there is no justification. It’s a terrible shame for someone like him to be “used” in this instance.
I HOPE for you, for him!!!!! Many hugs to both of you!