so i had never really considered how hard these constant deployments and our ever changing family status could be on my g.i. joe’s sister. i love her! she is my saving grace in so many ways.
it wasn’t until the other day though that i fully understood just how hard each of the previous three deployments had been on her and how this one seemingly is the hardest thus far. you would think, and i just assumed, that with each deployment she just got use to it. i mean, i know my g.i. joe is her little brother and they are close, but never did i realize how much harder lil man and i and the bun i bake have made these deployments on her.
as we spoke on the phone just a week after my g.i. joe had left, i figured she’d be excited that the countdown had begun. instead she was mad. not mad at myself or her brother, but mad at our government. she explained that she couldn’t understand how her little brother was spending yet another year or longer away from his family while we are paying for illegal immigrants to send their kids to school here. she was fuming that her little brother has to pay, and i didn’t even mention how much he’s paying, for his crapfastic internet in his room so that he call at the end of his exhausting day just to tell us how much he loves us (he calls from his computer via yahoo messenger rather than tracking the 2 miles across his base to use the phones or the internet cafe that have time limits and no privacy) while we continue to support ridiculous bail out programs that haven’t and probably will never work. she was mad that her little brother was going to miss out on another year of his son’s life that he’ll have to watch through his computer screen and pictures in his care package. and then she started crying when she said she was mad that her little brother would have to miss out on feeling the bun i bake kick in my belly and all the ultrasounds and doctors appointments and being there to hold my hand as we faced this blessing yet scary pregnancy.
i had never thought about all these things this way. and as we talked some more, and i’m sitting at baskin robbins trying not to bawl my eyes out, we reassured each other that we would get through this. and then i told her that each time she got mad about something related to her little brother’s deployment to fire off an email to her congressman and tell’em exactly how she felt about it. and as we said our ‘i love you’ and good-byes, i was reassured that she too is more than army strong.