You're Going To Miss This

You're going to miss the military.  I know you know that but, it will be far deeper than you might think.  We know our husbands will miss it and we expect that.  We're prepared for it.  We're at the ready to support them through the transition and help them settle into civilian life, just as we have been there for them through countless deployments and TDY's.  But we aren't ready ourselves and we don't even know it.

That final, long awaited PCS.  The day he retires.  We've talked about it, planned about it and suddenly it's here.  There's a lot more work involved than you think but, that's ok.  The busyness will keep your mind occupied at first.  You'll gather up all the shot records, school records, dental records, resumes, and umpteen copies of that DD-214.  You'll go to those exit briefings about everything from retirement pay to disability to insurance after retirement and desperately try to keep track of all the information crowding your head.  You'll have a file for the paperwork and the pamphlets handed out at those briefings but it will all look like Greek to you.  Meanwhile, you plan your husband's retirement ceremony.  There are invitations to send, lodging to arrange for out-of-towners and a cake to order.  You go through photos to put into a slide show to be shown at the retirement and the process takes way too long because each photo reminds both of you of dear friends and favorite stations and your heart cracks a little.  In all this chaos you might be starting to realize, you're going to miss the military.

As he leaves the house for his last day of active duty, you watch him walk out the door and you catch him back for a kiss, then let him go.  He's in his uniform for the last time.  Pressed with heavy starch and with hard-won stripes on his arms and his name on his chest.  His boots!  Those boots have been from Korea, to Alaska, to Panama, Afghanistan, Somalia, and places you don't know the name of.  They are so well broken in and so well traveled but the toes are still kept shiny.  His putty green beret with the silver flash on the front that designates his career field, is molded to his head from countless hours of wear.  He's worn this uniform, or some variation of it, for decades.  You'll idly wonder if he even knows how to dress himself without it.  He wont look like this again.  Ever.  And now it's starting to hit you.  You're going to miss that beret.

As military families, some of us embrace the lifestyle.  We jump in with both feet and view each new base, each new culture, as untapped opportunity to learn, to grow, and to be better.  Some of us spend our entire time as a military family dreaming for the day when we are just 'average' Americans in our average home town, surrounded by family and familiar accents.  But most of us do both.  We volunteer in each new place.  We join churches.  We mentor new, young families and we babysit each other's kids.  We celebrate birthdays and holidays with other families who, like us, couldn't go home for Christmas or Easter or Thanksgiving.  And we mourn with each other when we cant go home for a family funeral or when on of our own never makes it home at all. We make friends fast because we have to.  We pray for each other and, sometimes, we fight like siblings.  No matter what type of military family we are, when that season ends its.....well, life changing.  You're going to miss this 'family'.

The last time you pull over to the side of the road as the bugle call for retreat is blasted on the loud speakers, mark it in your memory.  Look around you at the children who dropped their bikes and stopped their  swings to stand, hand over heart, at the sound of the first note of retreat, and who stayed that way til the last note of the anthem drifts away.  You dont know it now but, in a few months, you will crave to hear that.  

When you go to a movie in a civilian theater, you'll wish that they would play the national anthem before the movie and that everyone would quietly stand like they do at the base theater. Nobody directs the response.  It just happens because it's important to everyone in the theater.  You're going to miss this community.
When neighbors and co-workers that you barely know and will likely never see again, come over and help you pack boxes and load the heavy stuff onto that ABF tractor trailer you'll realize afresh, this community, this military community, is special.

So, after the paperwork is all completed and filed, and the last going away party attended, your world goes quiet.  His phone abruptly stops ringing.  And, for a while, the silence is deafening. Your life after will look more 'normal' after leaving the military.  At least to everyone who never served.    You'll get used to the changes for the most part and even embrace some of them.
You never really figure out what to do with all those uniforms.  You can't bring yourself to get rid of them.   You'll keep his final shadow box award displayed for the rest of your life most likely.
Your children will mourn on the day they age out of their dependent ID cards as they suddenly find themselves cut off from the only life they knew.
Yes, we know our husbands will miss the military.  The camaraderie.  The sense of a shared purpose.  We've braced ourselves for that, and so have they.  But, be prepared.  Some day it will sneak up on you and steal your breath with the intensity of it.   YOU are going to miss the military!