AllMilitary.com

I received the following in an email from a friend (I did edit it for clarity) whose husband recently finished OCS at Ft. Benning. I wrote a similar entry and will share it today as well. I know that some of the comments that come out of people’s mouths tend to be innocuous at best. Sometimes it is just hard to know what to say to someone whose loved one is deployed. If you are ever unsure, the best thing to say is “I don’t know what to say” or to just stay silent.

Things NOT to say to a Military Spouse

1. “Aren’t you afraid that he’ll be killed?”
This one ranks in at number one on the “duh” list. Of course we’re afraid. We’re terrified. The thought of death always lingers at the back of our minds, so thanks. Brilliant, you just brought it back to the fore front. Maybe next you can go ask someone with cancer if they’re afraid of of dying.

2. “I don’t know how you manage. I don’t think I could do it.”
This is intended to be a compliment. It is still just a little annoying and here’s why: it’s not like all military wives have been dreaming since childhood of the day we’d get to be anxious single moms who carry cell phones with us to the bathroom and in the shower. We’re not made of some mysterious matter that makes us more capable, we just got asked to take on a challenging job. So we rose to the challenge and found the strength to make sacrifices.

3. “At least he’s not in Iraq.”
This is the number one most annoying comment for those whose husbands are in Afghanistan. What do they think is happening in Afghanistan? An international game of golf? Guys are fighting and dying over there.

4. “Do you think he’ll get to come home for Christmas/anniversary/birthday/birth of a child/wedding/family reunion, etc?”
Don’t you watch the news? No! They don’t get to come home for any of these things. Please don’t ask again.

5. “What are you going to do to keep yourself busy while he’s gone?”
Short answer: Try to keep my sanity. Maybe there’s a military wife out there who gets bored when her husband leaves, but I have yet to meet her. For the rest of us, those with and without children, we find ourselves having to be two people. That keeps us plenty busy. We get lonely, but we don’t get bored.

6. “How much longer does he have until he can get out?”
This one is annoying to many of us whether our husbands are deployed or not. Many of our husbands aren’t counting down the days until they “can” get out. Many of them keep signing back up again and again because they actually love what they do or they VOLUNTEER AGAIN and AGAIN to go back to Iraq because there is work that needs to be done.

7. “This deployment shouldn’t be so bad, now that you’re used to it.”
Sure, we do learn coping skills and its true the more deployments you’ve gone through, the easier dealing with it becomes. We do figure out ways to make life go smoother while the guys are gone, but it never gets “easy.” The bullets and bombs don’t skip over our guys just because they’ve been there before. The worry never goes away.

8. “My husband had to go to Europe for business once for three weeks. I totally know what you’re going through.”
This one is similar to number two. Do not equate your husband’s three week trip to London/Omaha/Tokyo/etc. with a 12-15 month or more deployment to a war zone. Aside from the obvious time difference, nobody shot at your husband or tried to blow him up with an I.E.D., your husband could call home pretty much any time he wanted to, he flew comfortably on a commercial plane, slept between crisp white sheets and ate well, paying for everything with an expense account. There is no comparison.

9. “Wow you must miss him?”
This one also gets another big “duh”. Of course we miss our soldiers.

10. “Where is he exactly? Where is that?”
I don’t expect non-military folks to be able to find Anbar Province on a map, but they should know by now that it’s in Iraq. Likewise, know that Kabul and Kandahar are in Afghanistan. Know that Muqtada al Sadr is the insurgent leader of the Mahdi Army in Iraq and that Sadr City is his home area. Know that Iran is a major threat to our country and that it is located between Afghanistan and Iraq. Our country has been at war in Afghanistan for seven years and at war in Iraq for five years. These basic facts are not secrets, they’re on the news every night and in the papers every day —and on maps everywhere.

11. “Well, he signed up for it, so it’s his own fault for whatever happens to him over there.
Yes, you ignorant warthog, he did sign up. Each and every day he protects your right to make stupid comments like that. He didn’t sign up and ask to be hit by anything, he signed up to protect his country. Oh, and by the way, he asked me to tell you that “You’re welcome.” He’s still fighting for your freedom.

12. “Don’t you miss sex! I couldn’t do it!”
No i don’t miss sex. Nope, I don’t miss it in the least. I’m a robot. Seriously though, military spouses learn quickly that relationships must be founded on something greater than sex. We learn to appreciate the important things like simply hearing a voice, seeing a face, being able to have dinner together every night. The hard truth is most relationships probably couldn’t withstand 12 months of sex deprivation.

13. “Well in my opinion …”
Stop right there. I didn’t ask for your personal political opinions. I love a heated political debate as much as the next girl , but not in the grocery store, not in Jamba Juice, not at Nordstrom, not when I’m out with my girls trying to forget the war, and CERTAINLY NOT AT WORK. We tell co-workers about deployments so when we have to spend lunch hours running our butts off doing errands and taking care of the house, dog, and kids, they have an understanding. We do not tell co-workers and colleagues because we are giving an invitation to ramble about politics or because we so eagerly want to hear how much they hate the President, especially while we’re trying to heat up our lean cuisines in the crappy, dirty, office microwave.

last but not least….

14. “OH, that’s horrible…I’m so sorry!”
He’s doing his job and he’s a big, bad, soldier! Don’t be sorry. Be appreciative and please take a moment out of your comfortable American lives to realize that our soldiers fight the wars abroad so those wars stay abroad.

If you want to say anything, say thank you to our soldiers.

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