<p><strong><em>Top 10 tips on how to get through a deployment</em></strong></p><p>There are many ways to get by during a deployment. I’m sure you can add many to this list, but here are 10 to get you started:</p><p><strong>1. Know a good handyman/mechanic—or be one.</strong></p><p>Know how to fix the basic stuff, and know a dependable person who can fix the other stuff. </p><p><strong>2. Get your papers in order.</strong></p><p>Make sure you have a file you can put your hands on quickly that contains all the papers, forms, and information that you may need in case of illness, accident, or any other calamity that may arise.</p><p><strong>3. Stay busy—but not too busy.</strong></p><p>Stay busy, within reason, but don’t overschedule and stress yourself out. Find a good balance.</p><p><strong>4. Get together with your “battle buddies.”</strong></p><p>It can be helpful to plan a weekly afternoon to get together with the other wives from your unit. It will give your children understanding peers to play with and let you relax among women who truly know what you’re going through.</p><p><strong>5. Be prepared for comments.</strong></p><p>Most people don’t know what to say—they may talk about news stories of attacks or discuss their political views with you. If these people are close to you, tell them how it makes you feel. If they aren’t, ignore them and move on.</p><p><strong>6. Count down by weeks—not days.</strong></p><p>This is just a simple trick that may make the time seem to go by faster. But if marking off a day every day, makes you feel better, do that instead.</p><p><strong>7. Take pictures.</strong></p><p>Take pictures everyday. Put them in an album to share with your spouse when they get home.</p><p><strong>8. Plan an interesting outing every month.</strong></p><p>This gives you something to look forward to on a much shorter timeline than your partner’s return. It also provides positive and interesting stories to share with your spouse when they call. </p><p><strong>9. Try not to complain.</strong></p><p>It is hard to take on all the daily responsibilities of the house. Keep your spouse informed of what is going on, but try not to use your partner as a sounding board to vent or complain.</p><p><strong>10. Take care of yourself.</strong></p><p>Find some time every week to do something just for you—whether it’s a manicure, reading a book, or even just taking a nap, it is important to spend a little time recharging your battery.</p><p>I am sure that you have many more helpful tips to share. Let’s share the wealth and help each other through these difficult times!</p><hr><p><span style="font-size: 11px;">Image via Shutterstock.com</span></p>
<p><strong><em>ESME’s Angela Ricketts talks about her book</em> <strong>No Man’s War</strong></strong></p><p><em>“The grey of another deployment, of a home with a man of the house who wouldn’t know which drawer held spoons. He’s the man of the house in concept alone. He is three months into a yearlong deployment in Afghanistan, with no need to even own a house key.” </em></p><p><em>These words from </em>No Man’s War: Irreverent Confessions of an Infantry Wife <em>(Counterpoint, 2014) by Angela Ricketts, </em>ESME’s <a href="https://esme.com/resources/c/military" target="_blank" class="wordlink">Military</a> Families Resource Guide,<em> convey Ricketts' candid and poignant voice. Her memoir explores the experience of being left behind to raise her family while her husband served eight long deployments. Ricketts is knee deep in writing her second book and promoting </em>No Man’s War,<em> including an interview with NPR’s </em>Fresh Air<em> host Terry Gross—and ESME is fortunate to have her serve as our Guide to Veteran’s Assistance/Military Family Resources. </em></p><p><strong>Q: How did you came to be a <a href="https://esme.com/voices/perspectives/whats-a-solo-mom" target="_blank" class="wordlink">Solo Mom</a> for a series of seasons? What inspired you to write </strong><strong><em>No Man’s War? </em></strong></p><p>A: I didn’t necessarily choose to be a serial Solo Mom, but it’s the way the chips fell in my life. My husband is an army infantry officer, and we happened to have two very young children when the war began in 2001 and a third child a few years into the war. </p><p>I was inspired to write my book after a heart attack I had in 2010, despite the fact that I had never smoked and was 41 years old and in great health. Suddenly I became keenly aware of the toll of not only a decade of war, but a decade of solo <a href="https://esme.com/resources/c/parenting" target="_blank" class="wordlink">parenting</a>. At that point, he had been gone at a fairly steady pace of about every other year since 9/11, more or less. When I had the heart attack, he was three months into a year-long deployment, his third deployment to Afghanistan. We made the decision for him to finish the deployment with his troops in Afghanistan, but we agreed that would be his final of eight deployments since his first to Somalia in 1992. In practical terms, he’d been gone for about half the lives of our two eldest children and about two-thirds of the life of our youngest. Although he missed so much “boots on the ground” with family, he did an excellent job of making the most of every minute he had at home with the kids. Even still, having him around was more of a novelty to us than our normal. After my heart attack we knew we had to make some lasting changes to that hypervigilant mode of back-to-back deployments. </p><p><strong>Q: That had to be a Solo Mom nightmare—a heart attack while your spouse is deployed. Could you share what happened and how you coped? </strong></p><p>A: To this day, cardiologists are not sure why I had a heart attack. Women present so differently than men. My heart attack happened in the middle of the night, and I experienced classic symptoms (chest pain, nausea, dizziness, back pain, sweatiness), but I tried to tell myself it was a panic attack. Remember, my husband was three months into a yearlong deployment in Afghanistan. When my left shoulder started to hurt, I went to the hospital. Yes, I drove myself. I didn’t call 911 because I didn’t want to draw attention or put anyone out. Women are conditioned to think that way. </p><p>I had the support of my close-knit family who lived a few hours away, and most importantly, I had the support of a tremendously strong group of other army wives and Solo Moms during my recovery. </p><p><strong>Q: The romantic notion is that when a partner returns from being away for a long period of time the reunion will be wonderful and passionate. The reality is usually much different. What tips would you give someone to avoid burning up on re-entry?</strong></p><p>A: The honeymoon period last anywhere from a few hours to a few days. The reality is that coming home doesn’t solve every problem and make everything better. It’s an upheaval. Redeployment is something that both the soldier and the family spend a year or more looking forward to, and it can be a letdown. So my advice would be to lower those expectations of a perfect reunion. Allow yourselves time and space to get to know each other again. None of us are unchanged over the period of a long deployment, something to be mindful of. </p><p><strong>Q: What challenges have you faced in writing about your children? </strong></p><p>A: Using the term <em>our</em> is an effort on my part. “My children” comes more naturally; I have to make an effort to remind myself these are “our children.” I’m not alone in parenting, at least not in theory. In reality, yes, I was mostly alone back then. </p><p><strong>Q: Raising three children through numerous deployments had to be difficult; however, there is very little mention of your children in your book. Was that a conscious choice? How has your family situation affected your children? </strong></p><p>A: I didn’t write much about my (OK, <em>our</em>) children because I didn’t think it was fair to them. They didn’t choose this life. There’s been a big focus on the kids’ resilience and the impact of this on them. The truth is, I don’t know. I do wonder how they will describe their childhood someday. This life is all our kids know, their friends have been through the same or similar experiences with deployed parents. That’s a good thing. This is their normal. </p><p><strong>Q: Your memoir doesn’t shy away from discussing other military spouses and to a lesser degree, certain military members, in unflattering terms. Has there been any personal backlash caused by the book? What about professional ramifications since your husband is still on active duty?</strong></p><p>A: Sure, you can’t please everyone. This is my story and no one else’s. Certain characters in the book would likely have written it very differently. As far as personal backlash, all I’ve gotten is some nasty <span style="font-size: 16px;">Amazon reviews by folks using pseudonyms who admit to not even reading the book. My husband has only gotten <em>kudos</em>! It’s crazy. We both expected a lot more angry responses, but those cases have been isolated. The response we’ve gotten from our usually tight-lipped subculture has been overwhelmingly positive. Before media or lectures, I often re-read my book to refresh my memory. Each time I cringe a little bit at how angry I was. I’m not an angry person by </span><span style="font-size: 16px;">nature but NMW is a snapshot of a period in my life. And I was angry and exhausted.</span></p><p><strong>Q: A very moving part of the book is when your friend’s husband dies in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan. It shows the possibility that in an instant you can shift from sometimes–Solo Mom to permanent–Solo Mom. Could you speak to the impact such a death has on the sisterhood of military wives and the harsh reality that once a military wife is widowed she no longer stays on post?</strong></p><p> A: Thank you for asking this question. To me, it’s one of the most important themes of the book. Military spouses identify ourselves through our spouse, and if we lose that spouse to death or <a href="https://esme.com/resources/c/divorce" target="_blank" class="wordlink">divorce</a>, a huge chunk of that identity goes out the window. The impact of that loss cannot be underestimated. It’s devastating. We rely on that sisterhood to hold us up. So in addition to the tremendous <a href="https://esme.com/resources/c/bereavement" target="_blank" class="wordlink">grief</a> and horror of losing a spouse, the eventual paradigm shift of identity is not discussed enough. </p><p>Most widows leave the military community fairly quickly after the death of their service member, but for others it takes some time for them to figure out an identity beyond the military. A transition from military to civilian community is tough enough without factoring in the loss of spouse. The widow I wrote about stayed on post for a year while she figured out where to go and what to do. That was certainly longer than average, but it’s what she needed. So many times during that period I put myself into her shoes and realized how lost I would be without calling myself an Army wife. That would have felt like a slap in the face to me, having a huge piece of myself torn away by the system, even though I would have realized that it only made sense that I needed to move on. Knowing and accepting are different things. Military spouses "hitch their wagon" to their soldier. We're lost without our wagon.</p><p>Something interesting about the sisterhood is how protective we are of those who have paid the greatest price, particularly our widows. I was reluctant to even write about that tragedy because I wanted to be sensitive of her feelings and reaction. But I wanted to include that chapter because I thought it painted a reality of our lives that the public never really sees. I included her in the process of writing the book and allowed her to read and alter anything that referenced the death of her husband. Of any content of the book, that’s the only thing that makes me feel uncomfortable discussing in interviews because I still want to protect her feelings and privacy. I hope the portrait I painted of her honored her grace and struggles as both a new mother and also a new widow. She continues to be a strong voice of advocacy in our community.</p><p><strong>Q: What does the army get right for military families during deployments? What could they do better? What can the military do to support National Guard and Reserve families who don’t have the ready support of a base/post available during deployments? </strong></p><p>A: I can’t criticize the military over the course of this war. No one knew how long or how intense it would be. We were all taking it one day at a time. Active duty families who live near military installations had many resources in terms of child care and general support, but now that the war is ending those are being taken away. </p><p>Reserve and National Guard families have my utmost respect. I have no idea how they managed to cope. I couldn’t have endured what we endured without the safety net of the Big Green Machine. </p><p><strong>Q: Elizabeth is one of the few Army wives you speak highly of. You mention that the fact that she has outside employment may be what sets her apart from the others. Do you think the Army should do more to encourage and facilitate employment/careers among military spouses?</strong></p><p>A: I don’t think it’s the army’s job to encourage spouses to have outside employment. That’s an individual choice. The truth is that it’s hard to find a career that is mobile enough to withstand our nomadic lifestyle. I was fascinated that Elizabeth was able to maintain her own identity. There are many others like Elizabeth; I just used her as an archetype for those army wives who forge their own way. I did not have a career during those years and was a full time mother, and I wouldn’t change a single thing. Somehow the perceived negative characters in my life stuck with me. The positive characters far outweighed the negative, but it's not fun to read about roses and rainbows, is it?</p><p><strong>Q: What’s next for Angela Ricketts?</strong></p><p>A: ESME, of course! I've been doing a lot of media and lectures about the experience of families during wartime and that's been very rewarding and personally cathartic. Also, I am in the early stages of putting a book together.<br></p><hr><p><span style="font-size: 11px;">Image via Counterpoint</span><span style="font-size: 11px;"></span></p>
<p><strong><em>Are online threats to <a href="https://esme.com/resources/c/military" target="_blank" class="wordlink">military</a> spouses by supposed ISIS groups real?</em></strong></p><p>Last week as I sat in the waiting room of a doctor’s office, I decided to kill some time scrolling through my Facebook newsfeed. I fully admit that I only truly know about a third of the people on my supposed-friends list, but as I scrolled I noticed something new. And weird. Names suddenly looked unfamiliar. Then I realized I couldn’t find a few of my army wife friends. <em>What the hell?</em> I thought. <em>Did she unfriend me? The nerve. </em>After writing what some folks in the military considered a tell-all book that exposed the inner working of our tightly knit infantry culture, I’ve been unfriended a time or two. <br></p><p>Then I realized. Many of my military spouse friends had changed their profile names from typical first and last names to nearly unrecognizable monikers like Bobandanne FamilyForever. I had to look at the profile picture to realize that was my old friend Anne. There’s only one reason for this: fear of ISIS. Even the word ISIS sounds like the hiss of a snake. </p><p>The paranoia about cyber-threats aimed at a handful of military spouses has grown leaps and bounds over the past six months. These “cyber caliphate” groups claim to be ISIS affiliates. Some friends have gone so far as to spend days trying to erase their online footprint. Others have deactivated social media altogether.</p><p>Recently at a parade held in celebration of the national ruling in support of gay marriage, a reporter from a major news outlet reported that an ISIS flag waved in the crowd. It stood out like a sore thumb in the sea of rainbow flags. The utter horror. It turned out instead to be a flag full of a gamut of sex toy outlines, which appeared to be Arabic writing. Hard not to snicker at our readiness to jump to the conclusion that ISIS had infiltrated a gay pride parade. Blaming ISIS for everything has become oh so easy. Not long ago the wheel on my grocery cart rattled and faltered and I wanted to blame it on ISIS. For days after the dildo-outline blunder, I watched the backpedaling and embarrassed apologies of the reporters involved. It looked like an <em>Saturday Night Live</em> skit. </p><p>Why are we giving these online threateners the attention that they probably want? It’s likely that these individuals aren’t even associated with the real Islamic State terrorist group at all, but instead launch these threats from their mother’s dank and musty basement in some random small town right here in the United States. Maybe these forlorn characters hope that ISIS is impressed and recruits them into far away camps, finally giving them a sense of belonging. Who knows, but I do know that crazy people do crazy things. </p><p>Sometime in the past six months, ISIS issued supposed threats to military spouses, including my own family. These threats said things like “We are coming for you” and “We are in your PC.” <em>Ahh!</em> The terror and bedlam initiated the deactivations of accounts and the name changes. But I thought to myself, <em>I use a Mac not a PC. Hmm. </em>It all smelled fishy to me. </p><p>I find it impossible to not wonder who is really behind these threats. Doesn’t ISIS have bigger fish to fry than an army wife who wrote a book about drama, the sisterhood, and struggles between army wives? I wish I could say that our national officials had an answer to that question, but they don’t. The threats are difficult to trace (seems hard to fathom in today’s era of big brother watching over our shoulders) and are erased within minutes of being launched. <em>Poof.</em> Gone as quickly as they arrived. </p><p>ISIS has embraced and spread themselves on social media like a thirteen-year-old girl with her first smartphone. They campaign worldwide for cyber jihadists to unite. The supposed–ISIS affiliates—whether they’re sympathizers or actual ISIS members (does this come with an annual membership dues?)—have hacked into personal accounts and even a high level, high profile joint military command public affairs account. These guys know their way around the Internet and computers. </p><p>No one is more alternatively unflappable and alarmist than a battle-hardened military spouse. Don’t screw with us! However, we also make ourselves easy targets because we overly embrace social media as a way to stay connected to our military sisters around the globe. Damn you, ISIS, for spoiling our Facebook bunco group with your threats of Sharia law. </p><p>Who better to ask for an opinion on how to handle this than one of my own kids, my teenage son? He thought for a few minutes and then said, “It’s probably a hoax, but maybe not. Why take a chance?” That’s a simple and yet common sense answer. The bottom line: If it makes some of us feel better to tighten our online privacy settings and change our names to FlowerArmy Gurl on Facebook, then fine. But I don’t think we should allow it to take up too much space in our already hectic lives. Let’s not allow them to frighten us, which is what these online trolls ultimately want: fear.</p><hr><p><span style="font-size: 11px;">Image via Shutterstock.com</span></p>
