Pre-Deployment Frights

I'm really scared. More than I have ever been in my life, with good reason. My fiance is deploying to Afghanistan next month, and he'll be over there for a whole year. He tells me not to worry, he'll be just fine. I want to buy that so badly, but there's a part of me that refuses to allow it.

I've seen this coming for a whole year and for that whole year I've been pushing it aside, ignoring it, and burying it under my crazy life. Well now it's smacking me in the face relentlessly. It won't go away. I said goodbye to him two days ago for the last time before he deploys. I knew this would be the hardest goodbye because this evil part of my brain kept whispering to me, "it could be the last time you see him alive." Every time that comes to me, I want to punch through a wall and scream out my denial that no, not mine. I'm already a complete internal disaster and he hasn't even left the base where he's stationed yet. I morbidly can't stop thinking that every soldier who didn't make it also assured their family they'd be perfectly fine. I know he says this to me because he doesn't want me to worry or freak out or fall apart. But I already am.

I saw a post from a friend of his on base yesterday and it said, "My family and friends don't know what I do and I pray they never will." This friend is the same MOS as my fiance, which scares me even more. I know there's stuff he doesn't tell me about his job and his deployment because he doesn't want to scare me but I need to know. The things my own mind comes up with are a million times worse.

I want to be angry at somebody, I want to blame somebody for the hell and separation and pain we've been through the past year. I can't be angry at him for joining: it's what he really wanted to do and I will fully support him on that. He also hadn't met me when he joined up. I can't be angry at the military: they're doing their job and doing it well. They'd still be deploying soldiers whether he was in or not. It just so happened that he joined while they were still doing major deployments. I can't really blame the people we're fighting: if it wasn't them, it would probably be someone else. And there are innocent people over there who are just trying to get on with their lives with a war going on around them. I just want to be able to take my anger and resentment out on somebody.

Since he's gone for a whole year, I need to get rid of my fear one way or another; otherwise I'll just be a loony wreck when he gets back and he's going to need me. I want him to come back more than anything (preferably in one piece). And I cringe to think anything opposite. We want to get married when he comes back mid-tour so I guess that's more motivation for him. He says the time will go quickly, but I don't agree. For him, I'm sure. But me, I'll be sitting in my hometown, doing everything like normal while time crawls by. No wonder military wives are so strong if this is the kind of stuff they have to get through. I definitely need God to help me now because I know I'm not very strong naturally. So I'll learn how to be stronger and I'm going to pray for him every day. For both of us