I’m re-posting a wonderful entry from a woman living through deployment and musing about marrying her soldier. You can see her blog here.

I don’t know any military spouses who haven’t had moments of ‘I can’t do this,’ or worse still, ‘I don’t want to do this.’ Certaintly I felt that way plenty during Paul’s deployment. But somehow you make it through the day, and the night, and the next day…. and suddenly a year has passed and you can look back and see that you were stronger than you ever thought possible.

And you know what, that knowledge is worth something.

My marriage ended as a result of the deployment – but had I known how it would turn out, I would have done it anyway. I absolutely would have. Why? Because I know more about myself now than I did a year ago. I like myself better. Being an Army wife made me a better person – a strong, independent, capable person who wants a partner, but doesn’t need one.
And, yes, that was a hard lesson to learn. And I am still learning it now that the deployment is over. But what I know beyond a shadow of a doubt is that I will be OK. I will always be OK. The deployment gave me that knowledge. Even as it took away my husband.

Here is Carla’s wonderful post:
A lot of times I live in fear. And I have doubts not just about myself but about God. That makes me feel like a failure.See, sometimes I really can’t handle deployment. Like really can’t to the point where I sit on my couch staring blankly ahead with tears just streaming down my face. And no matter what I’ve done, that feeling returns. It isn’t even about Iraq though. It’s always about the uncertainty of the future.

We were supposed to have 3 years of stability to be married and start a family so I wouldn’t have to do it alone. Now I don’t know how long it is. From what I recall, there’s at least one year for sure. After that it could be back to Iraq. Or Afghanistan. Or who knows with Korea or Iran.

It’s everywhere and sometimes I feel like I can’t breathe from it all. Which is stupid because he’s coming home but I have to be real and have my eyes open about this and know that marrying him means more deployments. Which sucks. As amazing as he is and as excited as I am to spend the rest of my life with him, I’m really scared for the future.

I feel like a failure on the days where I’m just waiting till we’re done with the Army. I feel like I’m not strong enough, I’m obviously not trusting God enough, and I’m making David feel like crap over a job that he loves, is amazing at, and is exactly what God’s called him to do. I can clearly see that. And that fear makes me have lots of doubts about myself as a person and how good of a wife I’m going to be.

How good of a wife will I be if I’m just waiting until my husband is finally done doing a job that he loves and has a passion for? Because, let’s be honest, the Army isn’t really the safest job out there and it’s not like he can avoid deployment. And what kind of person would I be if I asked him to stop? I can’t do that.

My options are to get out or suck it up. I’m not gonna get out. He’s worth doing it all alone if I have to. But I will marry him. So that leaves me my choice of sucking it up and moving on. He even said that part of marrying him means I’m married to the Army. I have to abide by those orders as well.

I get that not all of life will be deployment but I’m also not seeing an end to the wars we’re in. All I really see is the beginning for probable new wars. Which ups the deployment likelihood factor considerably.

Once it’s morning I’ll be fine and really embarrassed by this entry. It’s just that night makes things more scary and depressing and lonely. My nights have been really lonely without our webcam dates and so it leaves my mind to run amuck. Obviously we all see how dangerous that can be.

Every time I think I can’t handle this. I’m not sure I can. I do handle it but it never ends.Tomorrow I’m really going to regret posting this. Half of me even started to go make a new blog that David wouldn’t know about so he’d never have to read all of these awful things that I think of. I don’t want to have a secret life from him though so I’m gonna post it.