September Column Winner

Military families fight own battles on the home front

By Jeff Mullin, Enid News & Eagle

The photo was taken in early morning, before the kids went to school.

The whole family was gathered, the oldest boy a high school student, the next boy in middle school and the youngest, a daughter, in grade school.

Mom and dad, both master sergeants in the Air Force, were in their everyday uniforms.

There were smiles on all the faces, but tentative ones, as if all were making the effort to look happy but not quite achieving their goal.

Their weak smiles couldn’t hide the shadows of sadness dimming the light in their eyes.

It was a momentous morning for this little family, one they had experienced before but have never gotten used to.

Mom was leaving. Again.

This was not a split precipitated by anger, abuse or betrayal, but by duty, honor and country.

Less than a year after dad returned from deployment and just a couple of years since her last unplanned trip abroad, mom was leaving for a posting in the Middle East.

She didn’t want to go, she wasn’t supposed to have gone, but she is so good at her job that she was specifically request-ed for this assignment. So, she had to go, the operative phrase being “For the good of the Air Force.”

And so she’s gone, for half a year, and dad and the kids will just have to get along without her. Again.

She will miss birthdays (including hers), school programs, Thanksgiving, Christmas and a whole bunch of ordinary days when nothing special happens, but which are the mortar that binds the bricks of daily life.

We call them heroes, these folks in uniform, and well we should, for that’s what they are. As of last spring 0.4% of Americans were active duty military personnel. Combine them with reservists and members of the National Guard, and that bumps the total up to about 1% of the U.S. population.

To be sure, they were not forced to put on the uniform, every man and women in today’s armed forces volunteered for the job. They knew what they were getting into.

But did their families know? The men and women in uniform, that 1%, are doing it for the other 99% of us. And we thank them for their service.

But who thanks their families? The spouses and children left behind are not potentially putting their lives on the line as their family members in the military are, but they often are required to put their lives on hold while a parent is serving this country in some far-flung part of the globe.

And that’s not to mention the average military family moves every two to three years. Pulling up roots, leaving behind friends, once again being the new kids in school, with new teachers and new rules.

Military families are certainly not ignored. There are government and private organizations designed to help the families of service members through all manner of challenges.

But no program can ease the ache left by the absence of a loved one, or the ache that service member takes with them abroad.

Granted, deployments are easier in this era of instant worldwide communication, with texting, FaceTime and the like. But while you can hug a cellphone, it can’t hug you back.

We have many of these self-sacrificing military families right here in our community. If you get a chance to help them in any way, by all means do so. At the very least thank them for their service in support of their military family member or members.

America is not presently at war, but the way the world is going we could be soon. Then more moms and dads will have to leave and be away for months on end, and there will be more photographs of more military families trying their best not to cry in the final moments before they say farewell.

Her deployment will end in the late winter or early spring and she will return home. But the kids will have grown and changed, as kids tend to do, in that length of time.

Undoubtedly her homecoming will be glorious, as they all are. No matter how many military reunions are shown on television, they never fail to bring a smile, and perhaps a tear. Those reunions represent families once again being made whole after living with a missing piece for so long.

For all those military families out there, to quote Winnie the Pooh, “You’re braver than you believe, stronger than you seem and smarter than you think.”

Go get ’em, Sarge. Make us proud. We know you will.