An Army Wife Remembers on The Fourth of July
Posted by dorothywilhelm
I cried when my husband received his orders to Korea. and I begged him not to go. I was twenty two years old, and new to the business of being an Army wife. He was twenty four, a newly promoted First Lieutenant, and it would be our first separated tour. He wouldn’t see me or our two small children for sixteen months. “I have to go,” he explained patiently. “Even if I wanted to get out of the Army – and I don’t – I couldn’t leave until after this tour of duty.” And he said, for the first time, what I was to hear him say often, over the years, “We just have to keep marching.”
The Korean War started when I was sixteen. As a typical teen ager, my great worry at first was whether the war would spoil my Sweet Sixteen party. Of course, the reality slowly dawned. We learned names like Inchon and Pusan. When the handsome boy who lived across the alley was maimed at the Chosin Reservoir, the full impact struck me. Soldiers and Marines who had only recently returned from world War II were being recalled to fight again at places we’d never heard of. “Those that were there will never forget! Those who were not will never know,” President Ronald Reagan said.
My young husband and I were lucky, of course. By the time he landed in Seoul, the actual fighting was over, and the discussions had descended to squabbles over the size of the negotiating table and the height of the flag staffs. So he wasn’t in danger, perhaps, but he certainly was gone.
It’s sort of a joke among military wives that something awful always happens at the start of a separated deployment. Either the dog runs away or the car stalls or the furnace
quits. The first day Roger was gone, our eighteen month old son fell down the stairs at my mothers house and required emergency surgery. Luckily little guys bounce back fast. In between caring for him and his sister, I managed to write every day but I never mentioned our son’s accident . What would be the use? It took four to six weeks for a letter to reach Roger. By that time, our boy would be well. I’d receive no mail for weeks sometime and then it would come all at once; letters and tapes on old fashioned reel to reel tapes. I still have every one. I don’t think either of us ever missed a day. No email, no phone calls in those days.
Military wives generally form the habit of not sharing big problems with the absent spouse. We work it through – and we keep marching.
A generation later my daughter in law, as a Navy wife, kept what she called a Whine Journal. She wrote in it everything that went wrong while my son was at sea; how angry and frustrated she felt, and then when that was finished she’d close the book firmly, and write her husband the usual cheerful letter. She just kept marching.
I learned by watching what it means to be a soldier’s soldier. Often the phone rings in the middle of the night with news of some crisis
or some young soldier in trouble. The soldier’s soldier throws on his clothes and is out the door before his sleeping wife can say, “What is it.” The welfare of the troops comes first.
Every time. By the way, every officer knows from the day he is commissioned that he is forbidden to speak in public or to the press about his Commander in Chief or his policies.
His wife knows it too. Because he’s the Commander in Chief, that’s why.
So for fifty seven years, I’ve been a military wife, widow, and mother and here’s the message I need to leave with you. You can say all you want about how how the President is ruining the country. That’s your right. I can vigorously disagree with you. That’s my right. But I’ve had the opportunity over the years to live in a few of those countries where a sinister knock on the door in the middle of the night is a reality. It gives new meaning to the too familiar phrase, Freedom isn’t Free. In a very real sense
Freedom is a toll road and the toll is paid by our military and their families.
They’ll just keep marching. What will you do?
Monday, July 5, 2010
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Friday, February 19, 2010
Spring is here
 | Spring is here |
We know that it may be depressing news in other parts of the country, but here in the Pacific Northwest, Spring is definitely under way. Today I've seen crocuses and daffodils and a very
bemused looking bunny rabbit. But it's what we expect in the Northwest. After all, it's February 19 - but oh well, Spring is a little late this year.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Ash Wednesday
| Don't Give Up for Lent - Add up!! |
I don't know whether I'm embarrassed or proud to say that I'm an old fashioned Catholic, still observing Lent in the good old fashioned way, which is to say that I'm sitting here in front of my computer with a smudge of ash on my head. I like it. See here's the thing, I've come to the age where I really don't have to do things I don't like anymore. That's pretty good. I don't give up things for Lent any more. I try instead to add things to my life, to find activities, or books, or meditations that make me more the person I'm supposed to be. As the years go on, I figure I'd better get it together if I'm ever going to. Florence Littauer, author, professional speaker, and humorist summed it up for me when she said, "I feel as if I'm cramming for a final examination I have no hope of passing. " My number two son just reported on his facebook page that when the priest asked at Mass tonight "What keeps you from being free?" a second grader answered "Our Parent s." Well, there's always something isn't there? I'd love to hear what, if anything, you do to observe Lent.
Monday, February 15, 2010
It Wasn't Presidents Day
| It wasn't President's Day |
I was stunned to learn that whatever we celebrated today, it wasn't Presidents Day because there is no such federal holiday. Well, my first thought was, so how come I didn't get any mail? That's because today is officially the combined Lincoln-Washington Birthday. THAT's the Federal Holiday according to Greg Joyce in the St. Petersburg Times. I kind of like the idea that this is holiday the people created - if by people you mean car salesmen and mattress dealers, but still. I've always loved stories about the presidents and I love to think about how ace reporter Nellie Bly got an interview from Grover Cleveland by sitting on his clothes while he was having his morning swim and refusing to give them back til she got her story. I love the story of President Theodore Roosevelt becoming convinced that no one listened to what was said in reception lines so he began saying outrageous things in reception lines: "Good Evening, Mr. President." "I have just murdere d my Mother in Law." "Wonderful news, Mr. President!" "She is upstairs in the bathtub." "Bully, Mr. President." And if you've ever stood in one of those lines, you know the chances are he was right.
My favorite president story right now though, comes from when my daughter and I visited Mount Vernon, and we toured the home and heard the stories of all of the years that President Washington and his wife lived there. We also heard how even after he left office for many, many years their dinner table was crowded with visitors seeking his advice. And then, after, I think, about ten years an unprecedented event happened and the occasion was entered in General Washington's diary. It is also painted on the dining room wall. This is what it says: The date is listed and then, "Tonight, for the first time in the history of the Republic, General and Mrs. Washington dined alone."
Can't you just see them together at that great table? Did they sit at either end or close together? Did they have anything to talk about. We know now that President Washington's many physical problems would have made it impossible for him to get into the army today, but there was a time when there were giants among us - and we miss them today.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Ode to My Mac
| Ode to my Mac |
Tonight I attended the meeting of my Northwest Apple Pickers group - an organization for Mac users. I am learning gradually. In tonight's program we had a tutorial for InDesign, which apparently has replaced PageMaker. My situation has been pretty tenuous right along, because I didn't even know PageMaker had been replaced. It has been my method to do a lot of cutting and pasting like in the good old newspaper days. I love that Macs are pretty trouble free and spam free.
I would have a laptop, but alas, Macs are expensive.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Spaghetti Sauce
Today I painted a watercolor. I used fresh tomatoes, peppers, onions, garlic and hot peppers.
You know what that means, don’t you? Now that the painting is finished, I’m going to make spaghetti. I haven’t painted anything in a long time, so this was a lot of fun. I think it’s important to keep doing new things, but not to lose track of the old things either. I had two friends come to paint with me, because they wanted to try something new. One is 84 and one is 87. It was a very fun day.
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