Faces of War: Understanding My Husband.

Last night Jeff and I were watching Alpha Company: Iraq Diary on the Military Channel. There was a part in the episode that we were watching in which the soldiers stopped to examine the result of a recent IED attack. It was pretty disgusting and the documentary went into graphic detail. They highlighted bits of body parts seared to the pieces of metal. The final shot was that of a foot that had blown off of someones body. It made my stomach turn. But this scene sparked a conversation between Jeff and I. I think it's a story that he needed to tell. The things he saw out there are still fresh in his memory. He went into graphic detail about a young female soldier. She was about 19, he told me. They were flying her to the C.A.S.H (combat support hospital). She was involved in an IED attack. She was in critical condition. She had lost most of her legs. Jeff said that what remained "looked like swiss cheese". He said that at one point during the flight he turned to look at her and her eyes were just glazed over. He said that "you can tell when a person is dead. They get a look in their eyes. Their eyes just kind of glaze over." I think it affected him more so probably because she was female and she was young.

Then he started to tell me more stories. Stories that I didn't want to hear because of how disturbing they were but I knew that it was important for him to tell me, to tell someone. Stories of frustrations they had out there, people that they lost. I'm not the type of person to ask for "war stories" when someone comes home. I just figure if they want to tell me they will. Why make someone relive something that was horrific?

These stories gave me a glimpse into my husband and an understanding of why he behaves the way he does. He doesn't like to socialize, probably because when he is around other people, they always want to hear war stories. And forget about when they hear that he has a purple heart. He says he doesn't mind telling them but as I looked into my husbands eyes last night as he told me these stories, his eyes were glassy. And this is a man that I have only ever seen cry once.

I think it's the purple heart story that gets him the most. His wound will forever remind him of the great man we lost last deployment. Not because his death was directly related to Jeff's mortar attack but because he died in a similar incident. He died in a mortar attack while working on an aircraft. An aircraft that Jeff was supposed to be working on at the time.

War is not pretty. If anyone thinks that they can go into a situation like Iraq and Afghanistan and not come back changed for the rest of their life, they are wrong. It affects the solider and the family members that they leave behind. It is something that forever changes a relationship and that's why marriages in the military today have a high divorce rate and that is why the military is seeing the highest number of suicides that it has seen in years.

Pray for our military, pray for the families. Support and love on soldiers and veterans that you see no matter what your feelings on the war or wars they fought in. Every deployment, soldiers leave apart of themselves on the battle field. They always come back changed. I try my hardest everyday to love on my soldier. It's not easy. It's one of the hardest things that I do on a day to day basis.


DUSTOFF