In honor of Veteran’s Day weekend, I was inspired to write about memories the military brought to my veteran and I. ❤️
If you’ve read even a section of this blog you know my story; A young small-town girl who married her high school sweetheart and moved to Germany with him while he was stationed there in the Army. — The Army was always Shaine’s dream. Something I knew from the beginning, something that I thought would only affect him. Boy was I wrong, oh so wrong. From the minute he said his oath, something changed. Something deep down inside of me changed, thinking back I’m still trying to figure out what exactly it was. It wasn’t my love for him. That was already strong. It wasn’t the pride I felt to be an American; it was much more profound. It was like I belonged, belonged to something bigger than myself.
Military life brought many more challenges, memories and friendships than either of us could have ever imagined.
The first challenge we faced was the separation and means of communication… We had only been dating for seven months when Shaine left for basic. I was still an irresponsible seventeen-year-old with the whole world in front of me, but my whole world had just left.
The first time we had to say good-bye. Waiting to board the plane for basic training; August 2006
I remember just crying, crying over every little thing. If I saw a cute teenaged couple at the mall holding hands, I would cry. When my friends would say how they haven’t seen their boyfriend in days, I would get angry. However all that angry quickly left when I checked the mail one sunny day at the end of August. I found the first of many letters I would receive. As the next three months went by while he was in basic training and AIT, advanced individual training, we would write. During basic training, our only means of communication was old-school pen to paper, snail mail! There’s something about a handwritten letter that makes your heart flutter. Every time I received a letter, I would get butterflies, no matter what was going on. Each hand-written letter could turn my day around. I couldn’t wait to hear about his day, hear about all the stuff he was doing and of course, hear how much he missed me.
I kept each letter and still periodically go back and read them. Those letters hold a special place in my heart. They are the foundation of our relationship.
Shaine marching into graduate from Basic training/ AIT; November 2006.
Very first picture of my solider and I together. <3
After basic training, Shaine got stationed in Germany, which meant we were officially in a transcontinental relationship. Our communication moved from snail-mail to phone calls and AIM instant messenger. (RIP AIM 💀) Now, remember this was back at the end of 2006 when house phones were still cool, texting didn’t exist and a six-hour time difference meant a lot.About a month and a half after Shaine moved my parents were looking at their cell phone bill and almost had a heart attack when it said payment due: $1100… for ONE month. 😳😳😳 After an extremely dramatic panic attack, because I thought we wouldn’t be able to talk anymore and Shaine talking me off the ledge, we learned all we had to do was put an international calling on our phone plan, and we would be ok. And good thing we did because it was only two months later (Feburary 2007) during a phone call when we decided we should get married…. Fast forward to June of 2007.
Growing up in Michigan there are no significant military presences. We have the Army National guard and recruiters in every mall but no big military bases like many other states. Which meant I had a massive learning curve to overcome when entering into military life. Like the military language; because they truly have their own. It’s part English, part profanity and a lot of acronyms.I remember one of my first days in Germany. Shaine took me to an FRG (family readiness group) meeting where the high ranking officers of his company and their wives talked to all of us about the upcoming deployment. They spoke so fast, so very fast and said things like FRG, POA, Sponsor, PFC, downrange, PCS, ELB and more. I just sat there with my eyes wide open and my jaw on the floor. What the hell is that lady saying? And why can’t I understand her? I just kept looking at Shaine hoping he would clue me in, but he couldn’t they were talking too fast. After the meeting had finished the super fast talking lady, I would learn to be the Captain’s wife, came up to us to introduce herself. She politely asked if I had any questions, which was the wrong thing to ask at that time. Of course, I did, I had hundreds of questions. She was so kind to explain what each term meant and told me I’d get the hang of it eventually. And she was right. I would later become fluent in “military lingo” which unfortunately does include a few f-bombs. 😜
What my “driveway” leading me home looked like.
Family of 3; December 2007
Just enjoying life as husband and wife; March 2008
Just as I was getting the hang of military life; the language, the housing, the security, reality set in. We would face one of our most significant challenges. Deployment separation but this time I needed to learn how to handle it as a wife. Separation was not new to us, but it was going to be different this time. This time I understood how it felt to live with him, I understood his job, and I realized how much it was going to suck. What I didn’t prepare for was how much I would worry about him and the other friend’s I had made. Military life is hard, but the people you meet make it bearable. The bond you create is unlike anything you could imagine. Meaning my new emotions of, fear and sadness, were not just directed towards Shaine. Of course, I missed him the most, but I also missed my friend’s husbands, the other guys on the team, and even my regulars customers at the bank I worked. You go from seeing these people every single week to not at all for an entire year.
1st Platoon, B Co 2/6; April 2008
A permanent reminder to always stay strong.
Three of my favorites. Smith, Shaine (obviously) and Palmer. Smith and Palmer accepted my crazy, immature self from the beginning and became the older brothers I never had.
Because I thought I could fake my smile…
… but I was very wrong.
And what about communication? We had already mastered snail-mail, mastered phone calls but what about that short 15-month “vacation” to Iraq? I cried weeks leading up to it because I didn’t know how our communication would change? And once again it did. Out of the entire 15-months, he was deployed I only heard his voice three times! Three times in 15 months. The lines for the phones were so long and the time limit was so short, we choose to talk on Skype instead. We could then see each other. I would speak to him but since he was in a room full of other guys he would have headphones in and respond to me by typing. Was it ideal? No, but it worked, and we got to talk a lot more than if we used the phones.
June 2008; Somewhere in Iraq
February 2009; Still… Iraq.
You know the saying all good things have to come to an end? Well, I believe all bad things will end too and end it did. The deployment was long, but that coming home feeling was so so worth it. I got the call that he was coming home when I was at work, it was like the world stopped spinning. Nothing else matters, he was on his way home. I hurried up, rushed home and got ready. It would only be a matter of minutes until he was home. Well, those minutes turned to hours, but at the end of the day, he did come home.
I talk a lot about the most Shaine because he’s MY veteran and I’m so proud of him and to be his wife but he’s not the only veteran in my life. Many of us have parents, grandparents, great-grandparent that have served. I consider myself lucky extra fortunate because I also have a ton of friends who have served. And those months following their return were full of laughs, memories and lots and lots of German beer.
Beer + grass + sandbox cover = Not a good ending but a great photo
It may be blurry but so is our memory of this night!
A Veteran can be many things; a hero, a friend, a husband, a wife, a husband, a boyfriend, a mother, father, a friend, a child, a stranger and a role model. My Veteran helped make me into the person I am today. He provided a life for us when we were to you too young to know how. He made me thankful, made me independent, made me strong. However as much as I love him, he is not the reason I feel as strongly as I do for vets. When Shaine was deployed, he was gone through Christmas of 2008. I was alone in Germany, unsure of what to do for Christmas. I didn’t want to fly home to the state because I knew just how upsetting it would be to be there without him. So I started thinking, what could I do to make this Christmas as good as any other Christmas? And then it dawned, there were many others who were spending Christmas away from their loved ones. That Christmas morning I got up and drove to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, in Ramstein Germany. Landstuhl is a large military hospital that all of the wounded servicemembers stop at to have surgery or become more stable before returning to the US for continued treatment. There were many servicemembers who lost limbs, who were shot, blown up and we’re celebrating Christmas all alone. To my surprise they were not down, they were not depressed, they were thankful to have seen this Christmas Day. I sat and talked to about 15 soldiers for almost four hours. I asked them about their families, their holiday traditions and just about life. That Christmas was the most memorable and the most rewarding. It showed me just how proud members of our US military are. And I for one am even more proud to support them day in and day out.
Every year around November 11th we all speak of how proud and thankful we are for our nation’s veterans. An important point to remember, they show up every day, no matter what and so should we. Don’t let your appreciation fade just because we are past veterans day. Always stop and thank a veteran for their service because without them our lives would look very very different.
“What is a veteran? A “Veteran” – whether active, discharged, retired or reserved – is someone, who at one point in their life, wrote a blank check made payable to “The United States of America,” for an amount of “up to, and including his or her life.”