Army soldiers inbound toward Afghanistan aboard a C-17 aircraft.
Some Army families think their soldiers deploy too much. Some Army families have it tougher, in some ways: their soldier has never deployed. Army spouse Jenny Williams writes about it in Sunday’s New York Times’ “Modern Love” column:
Now I exchange daily e-mails with Dave in Kabul and we talk face-to-face via Skype a few times a week. He is assigned to a unit that works on political and economic reform…The two officers who were killed recently, shot to death while working at their desks inside the Afghan ministry in the wake of the Koran-burning incident, had positions like Dave’s. They were just as safe as he is supposed to be. With each new flare-up and act of violence, I wait and wonder about our choice. Will I one day stand with my children in a banquet hall watching slides of my strong, smiling husband who was killed in a war? Would my children forgive him for choosing to leave us? Would they forgive me for letting him go?