In many ways, I feel that my husband Rob and I are an unusual military family. We manage our own law firm, and had always considered ourselves lawyers and entrepreneurs first. However, early in our marriage, Rob volunteered to serve in the National Guard. My uncle had retired from the Army Reserves, so I had some idea as to what he was signing up for, but I hadn’t experienced it firsthand. Shortly after he raised his right hand, he was shipped off to Fort Benning to train to become a soldier, and I was left alone as Managing Partner of the firm. I excelled in running the business and keeping the home fires burning. Once Rob graduated from Fort Benning, he was off to Virginia to learn the ins and outs of becoming an Army Lawyer and a member of the Judge Advocate Generals’ Corps. Once complete, Rob returned home and we fell into the routine cadence of “one weekend a month, two weeks a year” that you see on the National Guard brochures and commercials.
Last year, our cadence shifted when Rob volunteered to deploy to the Middle East. We leapt into gear and prepared for this deployment. While I had maintained my role as “Managing Partner” of our firm, we still double and triple checked that his clients had no loose ends prior to deployment. The train up was like drinking from a fire hose, with Rob learning things like “reacting to fire” and “radio communication protocols,” and me getting inundated with Family Readiness Group information, Red Cross Messaging Protocols, and printing and memorizing base names and places in the Middle East. We made a last-minute system of code words in case he wanted to tell me when he was somewhere dangerous. Finally, his deployment ceremony finished, and he marched to a bus which took him to the airport. And then, he was gone.
But not really. Technology has made the world small, and we were able to talk on the phone at will. He would update me on his living situation, his rating of the food at the dining facilities, and what sort of “Army Life” he was either loving or hating at the moment. I would tell him funny things that our daughter had done, how my cases in Court had gone, and what our family had planned for the weekend.
It was as if he was living a double life. On the one hand, he could FaceTime with his daughter anytime he wanted and we could discuss mundane things like paying bills or buying groceries, but on the other hand, he was often in places where he couldn’t tell me his location, how long he’d been there, and where he was going next. And when he came home, I could tell that it took him some time to fully “come home.”
Things were going great for a few months after he came home, until one morning Rob was watching the news and eating a bowl of Cheerios with our daughter. Iran had just bombed two Military Bases in Iraq, and I physically heard Rob grow dead-silent. He saw on the TV a burned-out hull of the office he had used, smashed to smithereens. In that moment, I could tell from his stare, that he was transported back, thinking hard on what could have been.
These are the challenges that face our citizen soldiers and their families. I didn’t know it at the time, but Rob and I are actually the typical deployed military family these days. In an era where our Nation relies heavily on the National Guard and Army Reserve to both actively participate and support the war effort overseas, more and more members of our community are being deployed overseas with one foot firmly planted back home. In the Iraq war alone, more than 250,000 National Guard soldiers deployed into Iraq. As of 2018, more than 50% of all Soldiers and Airmen in the National Guard have combat experience. While the pace of mass deployments have slowed, the role of the Ready Reserve has not diminished. In fact, in many roles, the Ready Reserve outnumbers the Active Component in Theater.
I understand the issues facing military families because I lived it. I know that there are opportunities for our Community to step up and provide support to our friends and neighbors who have answered the call to serve our Nation. Offering support and resources for military spouses while their other half is a world away is something that our Township can – and should – do to make an immediate and lasting impact on our military families.
Many times, our Veterans could use the same helping hand, and I would love to help promote those Veteran Service Organizations that already provide wonderful resources to our Veterans. But we can, and should, do more. Shelby Township could develop a Military Families liaison dedicated to providing resources to our Veterans and Military Families. A liaison that interfaces with the Michigan Department of Military and Veterans Affairs. A liaison that can help track down retirees who may not know that they are eligible for Pensions, or the DMVA is having difficulty finding. There are currently hundreds of Veterans that are due pension payments that the military cannot find, and some of those Veterans could be our friends and neighbors. We need to look out for them. It’s the least we can do.
Join me in supporting our Military Families and Veterans. Our Community is wonderfully supportive of our men and women in uniform, and with a little directed effort from Township Hall, we can provide focused resources to those families and Veterans who need it.
Lucia
NOTE: Use of Rob's Military rank, job titles, and photographs in uniform does not imply endorsement by the Department of the Army or Department of Defense.
Comments