Behind Those Camouflaged Shoulder: A Military Family Tribute (Video)

It's been a dozen years and I can still remember the day like it was yesterday. It was the day my husband was deployed to the Sinai Peninsula.

My red-rimmed eyes were almost swollen shut.

My mind refused to admit the day had come. Smiling through the tears, not wanting him to worry, when all I could do was just that.

Worry...

The worry for him at a time when our post was locked down because Osama Bin Laden had just bombed the embassies in Africa.

The worry for me, alone with a toddler, away from family and friends, in a winter that got to be -60 degrees in interior Alaska.

It literally ripped my heart out to say goodbye.

So when I think about my fellow service members being deployed for the third time in war torn Iraq or Afghanistan, it kills me.

My husband being gone for six plus months blew a hole in our little family.

My little guy stopped talking despite therapy. He became essentially selectively mute to deal with the loss and no amount of speech therapy helped until his Daddy came home.

The experts said they see it a lot with children that experience a loss or divorce which makes one parent absent.

This was completely out of my and CG's hands. In fact, missing CG fifteen months out of the first 2-1/2 years of our marriage, Eldest's first 2-1/2 years of life, was never a choice, but an oath and a promise he made to our country.

An oath I understood being in the reserves myself.

However, I would be outright lying to say I'd even want to be in the military again.

Or even see my little guy, now the size of a man, join up.

My mommy's heart just couldn't take the worry.

So when I happened upon this video below on Facebook?

These families with holes in their hearts, with their loved ones in great danger... then suddenly replete with surprise and utter joy?

Madness. Here I sit eyes swollen, wet-checked, sobbing just like I did on that day at the beauty...

{video}

...because I also so remember the day he came back and cannot fathom going through it again-- much less three times during war time.

We often thank the soldier, but today this post is devoted to the military family waiting in the background, heart torn, gut twisted, worry framing their every conscious minute until they can, but just wrap their arms around those camouflaged shoulders once again.

So to you military mothers, wives, husbands, sons, and daughters, my family understands just a small bit of your great sacrifice and we thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

'lisciously scribed by Heather Murphy-Raines @ 10:45 PM