Monday Jan. 2nd, 2012

Happy New Year to all my friends and family! I hope that this new year brings happiness for each of us. So have you all heard the news? The Army is doing cutbacks, what does that mean exactly? Well they are sending some troops home early. Not all and not nearly as many as they should send home.

But there are some families that have been blessed to welcome their loving soldiers home earlier than expected. I'm happy for each of them that get that opportunity. It's always great news to hear about our soldiers coming home before we thought they would.

Others are still waiting and will continue to wait and hope.One thing being a military family teaches us is to not get our hopes up too high. As sure as you do, your heart will get broken. So while we have hope, we cautiously hope. We tell ourselves that not all the soldiers will be lucky enough to get home sooner than they had thought. Still, we can't help but hold onto the hope that our soldier will be one of those lucky ones. Then we tell ourselves that it probably won't happen, they are needed where they are or they wouldn't have gotten sent there in the first place.

Do we wish that our soldier could be one of those few that get sent home? Absolutely! We can't be selfish, as much as they are wanted and needed at home; they are also needed to do a job. And while we may not always (or anytime for that matter) agree with them being there, we know that they are good at what they do.

It is certainly a tough situation. I would give anything to have my Jon home. I pray every day that he will get to come home early. In my prayers I ask that he be allowed to come home safe in one piece, and sooner than we have been lead to believe. At the same time though, I ask that his coming home early not mean he comes home physically hurt. I would rather spend a year apart from him than have him in any pain from a physical injury.

The mental side of this deployment I am ready to handle. I know that his reintegration will be difficult. Our soldiers see so many things that we can't even begin to understand. We cannot expect them to come home to us as if they had never left. Parts of them will always be in the war torn countries they have gone to protect us from.

Back to my train of thought here; with cut backs in the number of troops in Afghanistan that means changes for those that are going to be staying there. For some that means that they will have their two week leave postponed. Others will find out that their deployment will be extended by months. Which means a twelve month deployment may lead to an eighteen month tour instead.

The families of those that will be seeing their deployments extended will be put through even more agony when this happens.Those troops will need even more morale boosters. It's tough enough to get through a year away from home in the middle of a pile of sand. A year and a half becomes ones epitome of hell on Earth.

Our soldiers and their families need our help even more through these trying and extended tours. Let's all reach out and help show them that our love and appreciation doesn't end at the twelve month mark.


Reach out to help here: Operation We Send Love


Peace,
Betty