Deployment Day.

Well, yesterday we drove to Jon's post to see him off during a Deployment Ceremony. After that was over we went out to eat. As we were preparing to leave the restaurant our oldest daughter Brandi broke down. She said to me, "he was just gone three weeks and it felt like a lifetime, how are we supposed to make it a year without him?"

How do you answer that from a child?

All I could say is, " we'll make it through together and he'll be okay."

That didn't help her or me at all. All day today people have been telling me that everything will be okay, and that he is coming home. You know what I want to tell them? No everything isn't okay and we don't know if he will be able to come home. There are no guarantees at all. Every soldier that goes over there has a family member at home thinking everything will be okay and that their soldier will be home. Guess what it doesn't always happen to be the case for the soldiers. They don't always get to come home.

Jon and I have only had a short time together as it is, and it may be the only time I ever have with him. I hate that our government can take that away from us. Yes, it is the governments fault if Jon doesn't make it home. They ORDERED him to deploy there. Yes, I realize Jon was the one that signed up. He wanted to support OUR country. Not go over and fight and kill people.

Now I'm sure it seems like I don't support our military. Quite the opposite though. I support the military, I support our troops. I just do not support our GOVERNMENT ordering these troops and their families to make these year long sacrifices. By the time that Jon gets home he will have missed the following:

birthdays
doctors visits
the birth of our baby
the first 4-6 months of his son or daughters life.

All because the US government decided to send our troops over to other countries to kill others. Even having gone over there and killed those that were responsible for 9/11, we are still there killing even more people. For what purpose?

Our country would be made safer by having all those troops here in the US protecting us here. I would certainly feel safer knowing there were 30,000+ troops here watching out for us.

I will continue standing behind my dear Jon. Because I love him. I will however never stand behind a government that uses our brave troops to murder people in other countries. To me that is no different than someone walking in the middle of the street and killing anyone that gets out in public.

How does that make us here in the US any different than those that come here and kill innocent people? It doesn't. Either way it is murder. I am not calling our troops murderers by any means. They are only doing their jobs.

I love Jon with all my heart. I will always stand by him in whatever he does. I am proud that he is standing up for the freedoms that we all hold near and dear.

The road to Jon coming home is going to be a long one filled with emptiness and sadness. It will also be filled with anger and pain. Yet it is a road that I must travel, because at the end of that road if I am lucky, my soldier will be back in my arms again where he belongs.