My great-grandfathers were military, my grandfathers were military, I grew up as a Navy brat, served in the Army myself for nine years and, as most of you know, am a military wife. I know first-hand the sacrifices that our military and their families make in serving our country. While I’m grateful to each and every one of them, I’d like to tell you about my very own personal soldier.
I met my soldier at an Army school at Ft.Devens, MA on July 5 th, 1992. We were married just two short months later. I don’t thank him enough for the things that he does for me, our sons and our country. I think it’s clear that I love him as a man and the father of my children, but as a soldier, my heart swells with pride for him.
He’s been a Federal Special Agent with Criminal Investigations for ten years. He seldom wears a uniform. We’ve had neighbors for a year that didn’t know he was in the Army. His hours are very long and demanding and he has been very short-manned our entire tour here, but he maintains his positive outlook on life and always-jolly mood. Middle-of-the-night phone calls are common in our home
He is fair, professional and caring. His men love working for him so much that, on several occasions, they have asked to be assigned with him, even when it meant deploying to Afghanistan. In February he will leave for his second deployment to Afhganistan. The first time he was gone for eight months. It will be a year this time with two weeks R&R leave somewhere in the middle. It’s a year that he will miss out on not only the little luxuries in life that we all take for granted, but it’s a year that he’ll miss out on his sons and his wife. I know for my husband that will be the hardest part. Missing his family. And though daily life for us here at home will be tough as I muddle my way through single-parenthood again, the hardest part for us will be missing him.
Each deployment gets a little easier with new technology. When he went to Bosnia he got a video every week of toddler Daniel.When he went to the Pentagon to process the crime seen on 9/11, Celluair gave them all phones to use for free while they were there so we could get hold of him at any time and as it was playing out on CNN, he could call to let me know he was okay when the Pentagon collapsed and caught on fire again. When he went to Afghanistan the last time, we had Yahoo Instant Messaging and games to play together online (I cheated my pants off on online Chess and didn’t admit it to him until he came home). This time we’ll have DSL and great web cams. It will still hurt and we’ll miss him but we’ll get through it.
So, thank you, Dan, for being the man, husband, father and soldier that you are. For setting a fine example for our sons to follow and for loving your family and making us so proud.
A little update on Jeremy: As I type he is outprocessing during his last day in the Army. He will be on his way to his grandparents and civilain life this afternoon.
