Letters from War

Jason and I were married on Aug 22nd, 2009. 2 months after we were married, Jason and his infantry unit in the Marine Corps deployed to Afghanistan for a 9 month deployment. On the night before Jason deployed, I found out I was pregnant. I remember coming out of the bathroom in our hotel room at the Best Western, and just stared at Jason laying on the bed. He was leaving the next morning, and he was leaving as a father and a husband. On the Marine corps birthday I found out that we lost our baby. I was devastated, but the Marine Corps allowed my husband to come be with me as the emotional toll on us both was pretty intense. After his emergency leave, he went back, and he was helicoptered into a "shit-storm" the news kept calling "Operation Angry Cobra." I dropped him off at the airport, turned on the news, and knew it would be weeks before I heard anything from him. Sometimes when a Marine or Soldier deploys they are in whats called a FOB (Forward Operating Base), and there they have computers and phones where Marines and Soldiers can call home or video chat. Other times they are sent to small encampments where the only line of communication is snail mail (letters), or the occasional Satellite phone when a drop was made of food and supplies. Jason was in the latter. It was then that these letters would come. Its was like hearing an echo of his voice that I knew was spoken weeks before I heard it. Sometimes it would take 2 weeks for me to get a letter, and I wondered what has happened with him in the meantime.

Today I pulled out those letter as I do every now and then, and I let myself feel again. I read our words to each other and I feel it all over again, the fear..oh God the fear, the longing for him to be home, the desire to relate every small detail of my day, even the mundane as a man in war strives on the mundane. It brings him home. I read how we spoke to each other after only a few months of marriage, the endearing words, the promises and the dreams. How we dreamed of a family, and where we would live. My letters still smelled weakly of the perfume I would drench the paper in and I imagined how Jason's nose must have grazed the paper to smell it amidst the dust and dirt and blood of war.

I tied my letters back up again, and hugged the me that echoed around me from 2009. Sometimes I think back at it all and say "How did I do that? How did we get through that really difficult time in our lives?" and the answer is always "We just did....one day at a time." I think it's good to reflect back with a removed observance. It's not healthy to dwell, but to taste those feelings again so I never forget, is like stepping back into a dream where I know the ending, but I can still experience those feelings again.