Growing Up Me

The pen is mightier than the sword was reconfirmed to me a few months ago. I had been dealing with some frustration with my husband’s drinking and partying since he came home from Iraq. I know he is dealing with things I can not comprehend; but you can not drown them at the bar. Even when you’re hugging the toilet bowl puking up half the liquor store, they will still rear their ugly head. Putting pen to paper as I often do to release my frustrations, I wrote for a while and eventually ended with the following poem.

Forgotten

Who are we but your family?

Always in the background we stand

As days go by, we wait and wait

For the gentleness that once came from your hand

Now are we just a memory

As you are too busy being the band

Nothing will pause your gait

There’s an itch for the pool stick in your hand

How boring is this family?

Who can’t compare with a beer in your hand

Today is now yesterday and it’s too late

To make the call across this great land

Oh how we’re forgotten so easily

Wow we must be bland

For we don’t even spark any hate

Just get brushed off like specks of sand

To my shock and amazement my husband actually read my poem. I think it hit home more than any of my begging, pleading, and crying had. His depression, grief and need for lack of responsibility won out in the end but it actually seemed to improve things for a little while. Just for that little bit, the pen was mightier than the sword.

Is the military doing enough to support the soldiers’ mentally?  No, I definitely think not.  My husband was in Iraq for 16 months.  The entire time he was there, he was on a mental decline.  Sometimes he would not talk to us for weeks at a time.  He just did not want to talk to his family.  After he finally gets back state side, he is sent for the little mental evaluation that every soldier has to go through upon getting home.  I don’t know what was said to the counselor, but she runs out of the room and refused to go back. Apparently, it was enough to scare the living day lights out of her.  Well, that should have been their first clue!

For five months, the entire family walked on egg shells never knowing when some mundane statement was going to have him blowing a gasket.  During this time, I tried to get him to get more counseling.  I talked to his Sargents as well.  My concerns were completely brushed off.  Some days he was just fine and on others he hated the world.  On our daughter’s birthday, he decides that he no longer wants a wife and children or the responsibility or anyone waiting for him to come home.  Not even a happy birthday for his two year old.  It’s now been nine months and he still has not gotten help.  He refuses to go and the military will not enforce it even though they know that he needs it.

Some people believe he is just fine. I do not.  I knew my husband before he joined and ever went over seas.  I know what came home to me may look like my husband but it’s not. It is just an empty shell walking around.  A man that loves his wife and family doesn’t decide to not speak to them for over a week, wakes up one morning and throws it all away.  Will they ever end this war and and start trying to put our soldiers lives back to as normal as they possibly can be again?