It seems like ages ago that I got that first red message. (A red message is an urgent message put out by the command, usually meaning a soldier has been KIA or seriously wounded.) I remember feeling like I had been punched, I had to sit down. I spent the whole day in a sort of daze, walking around thinking the sun was too bright and the cars too loud. I did not know the men on a personal level, nor were they even in Zack’s unit. That did not matter, though. They were men, who just months prior, had been walking the same ground as I. They were a part of our brigade, of the place I lived.
The second red message came on our last day in Sardinia. We were getting ready to go lay by the pool before having to catch our flight home, when both Jamie & I noticed we had missed calls from our FRG leaders. A gnawing began in my stomach, and I nervously dialed the FRG leader. This time, it was a soldier from Jamie’s boyfriend’s unit.
When we got back to Baumholder, I don’t know what I was expecting. A black shroud covering base? People openly wailing on the sidewalks? But everyone was just hurrying through their normal lives. Getting groceries, mail, and haircuts. While one family got a half-mast flag flown, a flood of well-meaning casseroles, and a gaping awful hole that will never go away.
As the deployment is drawing to a close, I often think of those families who lost their soldiers. They won’t get to stand in the bleachers, holding little American flags and screaming their soldier’s name at a homecoming ceremony. Instead, they get to lay a little American flag at the base of a grave, silently screaming to the heavens.
This has been my first deployment, and I understand that I am a young military spouse, new to all of this. But I pray to God that I never become numb to death.
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