Deployment: The Prologue

We are currently in the midst of preparing for an upcoming deployment. As this is our first deployment, we are learning all about what crazy stress does to your body, emotions, and even memory. For example, when I experience stress the first thing to go for me is sleep. Seeing as how I am already lacking in that department (see: three-month-old son), I have gone beyond sleep-deprived and have entered the world of delusional.

So one day about a month ago I was driving my daughter to school and looked down and noticed my wedding ring was missing. I tried not to panic, although I never remove my ring for anything and had absolutely no clue how the ring went missing, I was sure it had to be at home somewhere, maybe in the bathroom. In six years of marriage, I had never even misplaced my ring, and now that my hubby was about to leave for a year, I felt a crazy sense that the whole world would come crashing down if it was really gone. The crusade to discover missing ring began. I tore my house apart. I asked at the gym and even checked all the treadmills myself. I asked at the tanning salon, even though I hadn't been in about a month. The ring was gone. 

A week went by, then two. My sleep kept shrinking, and the more deprived I became, the more convinced I did something with it in my sleep. I searched under the nightstand, in all the drawers of the dresser, and finally under the bed. I had looked under the bed when I first lost the ring, but only under the side I slept on the night before it went missing. I crept underneath the other side of the bed and sure enough, there it was! Somehow, in the middle of the night, I had removed my ring, crawled under the bed, and placed it under there for safekeeping. Why? Who knows!

If any of you have experienced a deployment, you are probably very familiar with what I am talking about. In my naive little head I had always assumed that pre-deployment time would be spent cherishing your spouse, gaining all kinds of closeness you never knew possible, and having everything completely ready to go by the time he/she leaves. I assumed the actual deployment time would be the hard part. I have learned the hard way that this simply isn't true. 

At our last FRG (family readiness group) meeting we were given a pamphlet (in the army there is a pamphlet for EVERYTHING) titled "Emotional Cycles of Deployment." One of the categories is called "Emotional Disorganization". This is a nice way to say that deployments may/will make you multi-polar for awhile. The common reactions listed are:

• Magical thinking
• Sleep and appetite disturbances (um, yeah!)
• Feelings of relief, guilt, anger, numbness, disorganization, indecision, loneliness, vulnerability, irritability, aimlessness

Other than magical thinking (I have no idea what that means), I mentally checked off each one: yep, yep, yep, I experienced all these things just in the last hour! Okay so maybe I'm not insane, I'm just like everyone else going through a situation that the majority of people will never have to experience. The most difficult part of this whole thing is that even though I want to be close with my hubby and enjoy the time we have left together, at the same time I find myself pushing him away so I feel like I'll be able to handle everything when he's gone. This is something we both have really had to work on. There is definitely something to be said about openly communicating.

Luckily for us we get to go to Hawaii for two weeks for block leave. I can't think of a better way to unwind and de-stress. I think it's really important to spend some quality time together, which is difficult since my hubby (and everyone else) is putting in 16-hour days most of the time.  My next post will be all about our Hawaii adventure.

 

Wha? Huh?

I'm a newbie to the army way of life. I grew up in Idaho and the closest encounter with anything military was an air force base an hour away. Other than that, I've watched (parts) of Saving Private Ryan and all of Major Payne. So when my husband Denver first brought up joining the army upon completion of school, I really had no idea what we'd be getting ourselves into. 

While Denver was away at boot camp I did my best to try and absorb the millions of different little nuances and details that encompass the United States Army. The acronyms were (and are still) really the worst. In the army, there is an acronym for everything, even when there is no justifiable purpose or convenience for one. It was almost like people were talking in code, and it was a code I couldn't even begin to figure out or understand. This is coming from the girl who loves languages and has studied German, Spanish, Italian and Latin.

Somehow after all this rigorous study, I missed the single most important acronym: H.U.A. Heard, Understood, Acknowledged. Otherwise known as "hooah".  The "hooah" is to the army what "eh" is to the Canadians, only probably more so.  The Wikipedia definition of "hooah" is "referring to or meaning anything or everything except no."

Some examples of how "hooah" can be inserted into a conversation:

• What to say when at a loss for words.
• "Glad to meet you," "welcome".
• "That's cool" or "that's OK." As in, "That's hooah."
• To motivate another soldier.
• Did not hear what was said, but not going to ask to repeat.
• describe a dedicated soldier. As in, "He's hooah-hooah."
• in place of "I really hate my job but it's a guaranteed paycheck."
• be used as a call and response cheer, with one soldier exclaiming, "hooah!," and other soldiers responding in like.

You can imagine my bewilderment at Denver's boot camp graduation when someone would be speaking and out of nowhere I'd hear what sounded like "wha?" and suddenly all of the graduates would shout back "huh?". It didn't really seem like it was a question, but to my untrained ears, I couldn't fathom why in the world the speaker would interject a "wha?" at the end (or middle) of every sentence and everyone in unison would shout it back and seem very excited about it.  

It wasn't until later I asked Denver about it and found out it wasn't "huh" or "wha"; it was the infamous "hooah". No one really knows where or when "hooah" originated, it seems as though it is just ingrained in the army.  General Gordon R. Sullivan, former Chief of Staff said,  "I don't know how exactly to spell it, but I know what it means. It means we have broken the mold. We are battle focused. Hooah says 'Look at me. I'm a warrior. I'm ready. Sergeants trained me to standard. I serve America every day, all the way.'"

And that's hooah for now. Hooah?