Who knew? Who knew that in Afghanistan IEDs are placed in trees and remotely detonated from cell phones in order to kill handfuls of Americans at a time? I certainly did not. I thought that I had seen it all over the last 13 years as an Army wife. Just when you think you have heard of everything...
So, now there are another 7 dead American boys and more injured.
It is hard to be on the receiving end of information about such an incident and be able to do nothing. It is a panic that sears through logic, and you find yourself wishing that your loved one's injuries had been more severe so that they could have just come home. Instead, they will patch them up and send them back into the fight. That is the way it should be. That is the way it has always been. If you still have a fight in you, then fight. So, we wives continue to fight.
"What do I do now?"Asked an Army wife who nearly lost her husband in this horrible, cowardice attack. He is not severely injured, perhaps bumps and bruises, and he will head back out into the bullets as soon as he has his wits about him and some new soldiers to replace the dead and injured ones. That is a hard reality to face. It is hard enough to keep calm most days when your loved one is in harms way, but to know they are going right back into it after such a close call, is an excruciating feeling.
"You just be okay," was my response. "You just find a way to be okay. I don't have a magic elixir for it. I don't have any advice. You just have to be okay."
That is a tall order to ask of anyone, an insurmountable one it seems at times. But the Army isn't special because we can do this. Everyone hikes this mountain at some point in their lives.
A woman braving breast cancer as her children watch, a soldier carrying his wounded and scared comrades, a fireman witnessing a building falling in on his men, a child sitting with her pet in its final moments...these are all moments just like this Army wife's. Tragedy has hit or is about to. There is no escape from it. There is nothing left but to brave the winds, no matter how they batter us. We stand tall, and refuse to let panic and uncertainty pull us into despair. Then, we find that invisible strength we need to just be okay. We push on. We run towards the fight. We embrace the strength that we will gain for having survived the storm. We find the wherewithal to swallow hard and keep moving one boot in front of the other, march on.
So, now there are another 7 dead American boys and more injured.
It is hard to be on the receiving end of information about such an incident and be able to do nothing. It is a panic that sears through logic, and you find yourself wishing that your loved one's injuries had been more severe so that they could have just come home. Instead, they will patch them up and send them back into the fight. That is the way it should be. That is the way it has always been. If you still have a fight in you, then fight. So, we wives continue to fight.
"What do I do now?"Asked an Army wife who nearly lost her husband in this horrible, cowardice attack. He is not severely injured, perhaps bumps and bruises, and he will head back out into the bullets as soon as he has his wits about him and some new soldiers to replace the dead and injured ones. That is a hard reality to face. It is hard enough to keep calm most days when your loved one is in harms way, but to know they are going right back into it after such a close call, is an excruciating feeling.
"You just be okay," was my response. "You just find a way to be okay. I don't have a magic elixir for it. I don't have any advice. You just have to be okay."
That is a tall order to ask of anyone, an insurmountable one it seems at times. But the Army isn't special because we can do this. Everyone hikes this mountain at some point in their lives.
A woman braving breast cancer as her children watch, a soldier carrying his wounded and scared comrades, a fireman witnessing a building falling in on his men, a child sitting with her pet in its final moments...these are all moments just like this Army wife's. Tragedy has hit or is about to. There is no escape from it. There is nothing left but to brave the winds, no matter how they batter us. We stand tall, and refuse to let panic and uncertainty pull us into despair. Then, we find that invisible strength we need to just be okay. We push on. We run towards the fight. We embrace the strength that we will gain for having survived the storm. We find the wherewithal to swallow hard and keep moving one boot in front of the other, march on.
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