Military homecoming videos are all over the internet. With the holidays coming they seem to explode in number. The videos are beautiful, heart-warming, and I can’t watch them.
You see, I am a military wife. Those homecomings have been our homecomings. Twice I have said goodbye to my Husband as he went off to war for months to years at a time not knowing when or if he would return.These experiences do something to you. They change you. Every time I see a homecoming video, I am back in those big cavernous buildings surrounded by strangers as I say a very private goodbye to my soldier, only to have the same scenario repeated when he returns.
The hellos on the radio from service members abroad to their families? They make me bawl. I also can’t listen to “I’ll be home for Christmas,” as right after he left for his first deployment friends took me to see the Army Band put on a performance for the holiday season. Watching a soldier come out in desert fatigues singing “I’ll Be Home For Christmas,” a song written for soldiers at war and their loved ones, I lost it.
This year marks my husband’s 20th year in the military and soon I will no longer have to fear him being deployed to a war zone. It has been a journey that has changed us. Made us.
I don’t know that I will ever be able to watch the videos. Maybe when I’m old and gray? But maybe not. And that’s okay.
Thank you …Thank him. Your family change; made our family safe.