Saturday, July 9, 2016

Blessings and Being Thankful

This weekend is my husband's last weekend of drill.  EVER.  He is retiring, officially at the end of the month, but this weekend is his last scheduled time to actually report for duty.  Twenty-five years of service and dedication to his country.  He will miss his fellow soldiers, but not the bullshit that comes with serving our country.  It's a great honor to serve, and the people that chose to serve whether for 2 years or 25 years, deserve our thanks and gratitude, and you deal with bullshit at just about any place that you work, so please don't think I'm being negative about the military.


His retirement is truly a blessing, and I personally am very thankful for his retirement. 


Never again will I have to wake him up on a weekend at some ungodly hour so that he can drive to the armory and spend his weekend away from his family.  We will be able to sleep in every weekend we choose to (well, as late as Dominion and Gabriel will permit of course), and only wake up before the asscrack of dawn to go hunting.  :-)


Never again will I have to worry about sending him off to some foreign country to serve his country, to worry that he will get injured, maimed, or worse. 


I'm thankful that we did not become members of the Gold Star families.  They deserve much respect and gratitude, but it's not a "club" anyone wants to be a part of.


Never will I have to worry that he will be activated to deal with some domestic issue, whether it's maintaining order after a natural disaster, or dealing with protestors who get out of hand.  We're unfortunately just starting to see a lot of the latter starting to happen, and I'm extremely grateful that I won't have to worry about seeing him off to deal with those things.


I will miss seeing him in his uniform, whether it's his regular drill duty uniform, or his dress blues.  The Stetson was my favorite part of the uniform, but there'd been a recent change from Cavalry to Infantry, so my favorite hat was no longer a part of his uniform anymore.  :-(


I will miss the fun we would have at the military balls (lol I said balls!), but not the stress of finding the perfect dress to wear and being ready on time and driving into Atlanta to go to some fancy-smancy hotel, to spend time with a bunch of people that for the most part, I don't know.  The balls were honestly a lot of fun to attend (hee hee I said balls again!), and seeing the honor and traditions on display was something I was glad to have been able to experience.


In the short 10 years that we've been together, and 5 that we've been married, I consider myself fortunate to have only dealt with 1 deployment, and not a whole lot of other stuff outside the ordinary "1 weekend a month, 2 weeks a year" commitment that my husband made.  He's made trips to Scotland, Ft. Benning, Ft. Stewart, and many others for AT and various schools he's attended.  There's a lot of bureaucracy and red tape stuff you have to deal with for various things but overall it has been a good experience.


                                                 Military Ball 2011




      Kosovo, 2011-2012




Military Ball 2014


Thank you for your service my beloved husband!  Happy Retirement!  I've got the honey-do lists ready!  LOL

1 comment:

  1. Congratulations to Brian & thanks so much for your service!

    ReplyDelete