Being the wife back home, it was good to hear the other side. Logically, I have always known that my husband is protecting me with his brief and inconsistant e-mails about nothing that is happening over there. But emotionally, it always hurts that he doesn't share more about his time there. I respect their secrecy for security reasons but when you are used to sharing everything with them when they are home it is hard to adjust your expectations. But I guess truly, most of us wives at home do the same thing. We only tell them the good things that are happening here instead of the bad because we want to keep their spirits up and make them think of home as this wonderful place for them to look forward to returning to.
It is/was hard enough living with the killing and death I caused/saw, without dumping it on my wife. Her main concern was my safety and keeping my spirits up- trying to protect her meant lying about how close I was to the front, or how much fighting I was in. It was hard to open up after returning and she knew it. It's not fair nor right and when the PTSD really kicked in, she had to make many adjustments, but at least maybe she slept better at nights while I was deployed
You can't say everything you want to. I've probably told friends more than I have my own family, and my brother more than anyone else in the family. Siblings are good for that sort of thing - there's things your parents don't need to know, at least not for a while, you know?
As the author pointed out, it's only partly to keep your family sane. It's also partly to keep you sane. It's an escape. All I want to do is hear how life is back in normality. About how my grandmother is doing, how my brother nearly broke the cat's tail, which beer was discovered by whom, the last-minute expedition through the deserted city-scape in search of tamales on Christmas Eve.
Besides, the shielding works both ways. I don't want to hear how hard one uncle is taking my grandfather's death - though I can hear it between the lines. I don't want to talk about how strange it is to have Christmas now that my Dad has passed away, too. I'm sure there's been some scary moments with my ailing blind grandmother - she's taken some nasty spills in the past.
I just want to connect. And we can't focus on the negative, we, all of us, separated by so many miles and so many truths, need to stay strong until we can be together again.
I could readily identify with the author's not wanting to write or call home. My wife at the time of the Gulf War couldn't understand why her friends were hearing from their spouses so often and she wasn't. Part of that was the job position, and part was maintaining an "out of site, out of mind" attitude in order to get through the ordeal and do the job I was there to do. If you're not thinking about the loved ones at home, you're not missing them as much.
About 8 months into my time in Iraq, I stopped writing letters. I still called as often as I could and sent short emails, but I couldn't put pen to paper anymore. Why? It's hard to put in words, but it made it too real and permenant. I didn't know any more how to translate my experience into words for my family in a meaningful way. It's been 4 years now and I've been able to talk with my wife more and more about it, but there is still a way to go. I geuss my point is that your soldier(sailor/marine) wants to talk, but they'll need time. Bah, I'm not making sense.
