A Deployed Husband and a Military Wife Communicate

Last week I posted a link to a Pentagon public affairs piece on the Her War blog by Melissa Seligman. My brief visit there gave me an impression of a smart, expressive person, and that impression is confirmed by this piece of hers carried in today's New York Times. MP+

One Husband, Two Kids, Three Deployments
By MELISSA SELIGMAN
Published: May 24, 2009
Fort Riley, Kan.

FIVE years ago, my new husband, David, swallowed his tears as he tried to find a way to say goodbye. He held our baby girl to his nose, inhaled her newborn scent and searched my eyes for understanding. “You know I have to go, right?” he asked. I nodded, trying to understand his leaving, his sense of duty. I imagined that I did as I watched him walk out our kitchen door toward a war in Afghanistan, but I didn’t.

We talked — sometimes twice a day — ignoring the popping and snapping on the line and the long delays between our voices on the Webcam. And I fooled myself into believing a two-dimensional image could transmit and sustain a three-dimensional marriage. After all, I could see his eyes, hear his laughter. But he knew nothing of what I thought about our marriage, nothing of my postpartum depression and nothing of my anger at feeling lonely in a life that he chose.

Read the whole piece