From an Army wife, Extension is Absurd:
- My husband has been in the Army for 17 years, and I’ve been proud of that because we’ve done a lot of good things in many ways. We never regretted any place that Army life has taken us because we knew our job and our place in the Army world. My husband has been in many other places, and we’ve always stood side by side. But the extension of the deployment of 1st Armored Division soldiers in Iraq is absurd.
I cried for an entire day after getting the news of the extension of the soldiers in Iraq. Now I have to laugh knowing that everywhere we look, we don’t see any welcome home banners anymore. Now we see crisis and anger management banners. Everything was supposed to be happiness. Now it’s sadness, and still they pretend we are calm, happy families, like what just happened is nothing but part of the soldiers’ jobs. They forget that these same soldiers are fathers, mothers, sons, brothers and sisters, and have done their jobs in Iraq. Now it’s time for them to come home!
There’s not going to be any sweet, beautiful answer that anyone can give my two children to make them understand why. Why is daddy not coming home? My kids are going to think that their daddy is not coming home because they did something bad. That’s what a lot of other children will be thinking while they are crying at night.
For a year my children and many other kids all marked off each day on the calender, hoping that each day that went by would be one day sooner that their fathers would be home. A lot of people’s dreams and plans were shattered once again.
As a proud Army wife, I think there’s no fairness in any of this. I don’t expect miracles to happen. But if a lot of we spouses raise our voices together, maybe we can do something to bring ours husbands, fathers, mothers, sons and brothers back home where they belong after a yearlong deployment. I am a very proud and angry wife and mother.
Lorna I. Soto
Baumholder, Germany