So as soon as I finish blogging about suicide and spouses I flip over to my facebook page. There the Blue Star Families have posted a link to a story on NPR that will discuss a new program launched by the parents of Clay Hunt, former Marine that committed suicide last month, his best friend, and also Alison Buckholtz, author of the story that brought spousal suicide to light. In response to this article, the following responses were posted:
"I, for one, am tired of being made to feel guilty and ungrateful. I didn't ask for the wars and I didn't ask for my tax dollars to be spent on the military machine. I didn't walk around with signs saying "Invade Iraq" just because we can."
"Thank you for your service, but you volunteered. Young people kill themselves every day without ever experiencing the horror of war. I don't know how you can claim to be different or special."
In the civilian world, suicide is the third leading cause of death at 10.4 for 10,000. In the military it is the second leading cause of death at 11.4 for 10,000. This figure for the military, "Carr, Hoge, Gardner, and Potter (2004) suggested that correcting reporting and classification mistakes might increase suicide rates in the military by as much as 21%" (Martin, Ghahramanlou-Holloway, Lou, Tucciarone). I really don't even have to comment on that do I? Why the numbers for the military are staggering and the above comment about kids kill themselves everyday what makes military folks "special"? Especially because if I go into any greater detail about that argument I may just throw my computer against the wall.
When I originally saw the post on IAVA's wall about the spouse that tried to kill herself there were quite a few veterans that were upset it was being posted. A bunch were saying that it was a veterans page and that if they wanted to talk about spouse pages to make a page for them...What happened to needing support for the soldiers?
I've been on some facebook pages lately that are meant to support our troops and there are people on there that just disgust me. What is happening to our country? Its one thing to be up in arms about being at war. I guess I can understand that. Some don't believe in the reasons we are there-but we are there. And the men and women fighting it are not killers. They are human beings with families. The men and women fighting these wars do not go overseas aiming to hurt and maim innocent people; they go over there to secure a better future for the ones coming behind them. They go where they are sent so someone else doesn't have to. They go because its necessary and its their job. To insinuate otherwise its cruel, hurtful, and disgusting.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Battle Buddy
So, my husband has often said to me-everyone needs a battle buddy-and for once, the man is actually correct. In the military, soldiers are required to have one-a person that they watch over and in turn, checks on them as well. It's the Army's way of creating another balance and check system on their soldiers, just in case the higher ups miss signs that someone closer to them might see. Think of when you were a kid on a field trip and you had to hold someone's hand and keep track of them all day. That's what a battle buddy is.
There are no rules for spouses and battle buddies. Recently an article in the New York Times titled, "War, Wives, and a Near Suicide" by Alison Buckholtz that discussed the recent blog by a military spouse in which she had written her readers that she was going to kill herself. Luckily the military spouse had scheduled the blog to be sent out and was in fact in a hospital at the time of its release but that does not detract from its message. What was further disturbing to me was that after finding the blog discussed in the article, finding readers commenting back to her saying they had been in exactly the same place she had. There were many military spouses that had felt this same way that were replying to her, encouraging her to seek help, that life does get better, and I began to wonder just how widespread is this really???
In talking to a friend of mine, I began to think about how easily I could actually see this happening. I think a lot of it stems from a feeling of isolation. In military life, you have constant moves, constant change, and as stated before, your life becomes the military. There are some families that have become accustomed to cutting ties when they move from place to place and even those that stay in contact with friends when they move might find difficulty forming new relationships in new locations. On the opposite side of the coin are the families left behind when all their friends PCS. What happens to these spouses when all their friends are gone and their husband deploys (or wife)?
There are some wonderful FRG systems in the Army, I've known people that rave about theirs. I've also known just as many that had a leader that wasn't effective. I've volunteered and taken an officer position in an FRG and not been informed of meetings and happenings so it isn't always about how involved you are. And, let's face it, the leaders of the FRG, while they take classes are not paid, they are not enlisted members of the Army, they are simply spouses themselves trying to keep it together. A lot of times, they have the difficult task of finding spouses when they move home or talking to parents that are a distance away.
What kept me sane and sometimes I think the only thing that kept me sane was my battle buddy. My husband left me in the capable hands of an Army Wife of 15 years that had been through four deployments while I was on my first one. She had three kids that were in their teenage years and I had a 14 month old and was pregnant with my second child. She didn't drive and I did. We were a perfect match. That's not to say we didn't annoy the poop out of each other and want to tear each other's hair out a million times over during the deployment but without her, I would have fallen on the floor in a heaping mess at least five times a day and given up. She made me go to the doctor and get medicine when I had post-partum depression, she was at the birth of my daughter, she came to the ER when my son needed stitches, she killed roaches in my house from my dirty neighbors, but most importantly she made sure I was alive. Had I not had that relationship or someone checking up on me, I'm not sure what would have happened to me. I don't think I would have gotten to the point that the woman in the article did but you know-who's to say. I'm certainly not judging her and everyone has a breaking point. The moments Tasch and I got out for coffee and bagels even if my kids in the car were stress relief, if I hadn't done that who knows where my breaking point would have been.
Point of my thoughts...find a battle buddy, find your spouse a battle buddy. Makes all the difference in the world. Find one that is positive, that loves their spouse, that loves their kids. They can be annoyed all the time about the things their spouse and kids or job do-but at the base of their annoyance, should be love, otherwise they will drag you down with their negativity and you certainly don't need that. Surround yourself with positive people. Allow yourself that one person that you can be weak in front of because Lord knows you can't be strong all the time.
There are no rules for spouses and battle buddies. Recently an article in the New York Times titled, "War, Wives, and a Near Suicide" by Alison Buckholtz that discussed the recent blog by a military spouse in which she had written her readers that she was going to kill herself. Luckily the military spouse had scheduled the blog to be sent out and was in fact in a hospital at the time of its release but that does not detract from its message. What was further disturbing to me was that after finding the blog discussed in the article, finding readers commenting back to her saying they had been in exactly the same place she had. There were many military spouses that had felt this same way that were replying to her, encouraging her to seek help, that life does get better, and I began to wonder just how widespread is this really???
In talking to a friend of mine, I began to think about how easily I could actually see this happening. I think a lot of it stems from a feeling of isolation. In military life, you have constant moves, constant change, and as stated before, your life becomes the military. There are some families that have become accustomed to cutting ties when they move from place to place and even those that stay in contact with friends when they move might find difficulty forming new relationships in new locations. On the opposite side of the coin are the families left behind when all their friends PCS. What happens to these spouses when all their friends are gone and their husband deploys (or wife)?
There are some wonderful FRG systems in the Army, I've known people that rave about theirs. I've also known just as many that had a leader that wasn't effective. I've volunteered and taken an officer position in an FRG and not been informed of meetings and happenings so it isn't always about how involved you are. And, let's face it, the leaders of the FRG, while they take classes are not paid, they are not enlisted members of the Army, they are simply spouses themselves trying to keep it together. A lot of times, they have the difficult task of finding spouses when they move home or talking to parents that are a distance away.
What kept me sane and sometimes I think the only thing that kept me sane was my battle buddy. My husband left me in the capable hands of an Army Wife of 15 years that had been through four deployments while I was on my first one. She had three kids that were in their teenage years and I had a 14 month old and was pregnant with my second child. She didn't drive and I did. We were a perfect match. That's not to say we didn't annoy the poop out of each other and want to tear each other's hair out a million times over during the deployment but without her, I would have fallen on the floor in a heaping mess at least five times a day and given up. She made me go to the doctor and get medicine when I had post-partum depression, she was at the birth of my daughter, she came to the ER when my son needed stitches, she killed roaches in my house from my dirty neighbors, but most importantly she made sure I was alive. Had I not had that relationship or someone checking up on me, I'm not sure what would have happened to me. I don't think I would have gotten to the point that the woman in the article did but you know-who's to say. I'm certainly not judging her and everyone has a breaking point. The moments Tasch and I got out for coffee and bagels even if my kids in the car were stress relief, if I hadn't done that who knows where my breaking point would have been.
Point of my thoughts...find a battle buddy, find your spouse a battle buddy. Makes all the difference in the world. Find one that is positive, that loves their spouse, that loves their kids. They can be annoyed all the time about the things their spouse and kids or job do-but at the base of their annoyance, should be love, otherwise they will drag you down with their negativity and you certainly don't need that. Surround yourself with positive people. Allow yourself that one person that you can be weak in front of because Lord knows you can't be strong all the time.
Monday, April 25, 2011
What Defines Me....
When I married my husband, he was enrolled in college, trying very hard to obtain a degree in Nursing. He had previously been in the Air Force, having enlisted straight out of high school, but had gotten out when his four years were done. After three years as a civilian (during which we met and married), he realized this was just not the life for him. He missed something, he didn't feel fulfilled, and he began his journey back to the military.
There was no one in my family that I was close to that had ever been in the military. My parents weren't, no cousins, no aunts or uncles. My grandparent's had been in World War II, but that was quite a bit ago. I had some second-cousins that were in the military but that's not quite a close enough relationship to have any idea what I was getting into.
My husband joined the Army this time around with a different MOS which meant he had to go to WTC-sort of a Basic Training for switching branches-and AIT for job training. Right away, I was immersed into what happens when your husband is away because the life of things you experience alone began. Now, all this seems minimal and to anyone with a military spouse, I don't need to go into further detail. I'll simply say that this began with finding out I was pregnant for the first time, solo ultrasounds, and after a few years, moving houses, runaway cats, and even the birth of our second child alone while he was deployed in Afghanistan. Well, not alone, my mother and my battle buddy were there; but without spouse yes.
Recently we've moved back home to be able to participate in this program for my husband. I have to say, I feel displaced. It feels like we are civilians, or retired and we are not. We are still active duty and I absolutely cannot find my bearings. Maybe its just me; maybe I did, "drink the kool-aid" as my battle buddy says, or maybe its that the military now defines me too. I know I always say that its not just my husband that is in the Army, its all of us and maybe I'm only just realizing that.
I have friends that say once they no longer have to deal with the military they will run as far away from it as they possibly can. I thought that too. I thought once we were off post, back in our old lives, we'd be normal; but there is no normal anymore. This experience does change you. For example, some random facebook site I belong to has some people posting on it that soldiers are murderers. The people posting these things are Americans sitting in their houses. My battle buddy was on a game in yahoo and went into the lobby when someone chatted her and asked "how many babies has your husband killed?" because of what her screenname is. There is a pride I experience when I hear the National Anthem,a sadness when I see the flag at half-mast and an anger when I feel our troops are being attacked. Until he enlisted, I don't know that I felt this way. And now, I can't be separated from it. Now, This is what defines me. I am a Patriotic Army Wife.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)