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During my lifetime, I had driven through the gates of the academy as many different things. A girlfriend, a fiance, a bride, an officer’s wife, the wife of a Veteran, and now… well, now things are different. Now I am nothing. A “once was.”
The guard at the gate approached my car as I opened the window to hand him my license and a temporary pre-screened identification card. “What’s the reason for your visit today, Ma’am?” he asked as I stared blankly at him. A few years ago, I would have driven into a different lane. One glance at the blue DoD sticker on the windshield, a once-over of my military dependent ID card, and the guard would have waved me through the checkpoint without much concern. At times, that feels like someone else’s life. The guard waited for my answer as he inspected my car, looking under the hood and through the opened doors and trunk.
“I’m visiting friends who live on post,” I replied as he nodded and proceeded to inquire about the details of who they were and where they lived. I dutifully rattled off the answers and was eventually allowed to continue. Slowly, my car inched forward until the guard shack was out of sight. The memories of a previous life, however, were everywhere. At every turn in the road and every crest of a hill, I saw ghostly glimpses of a young couple with so much life ahead of them.
“Visiting friends on post,” I said to myself, alone in my empty car. That was a shortcut answer to give the guard. If I thought for a single second that he had any interest at all in my true motive for being there that day, then I would’ve turned off the ignition, stepped out of the car, and started at the very beginning.
I was there to visit my memories.
“Hello, memories. I haven’t seen you in a while. I’m sorry I’ve been avoiding you. It wasn’t my intention, I swear. It was just too painful to remember the fairy tale.” Well, that’s what I thought I had for so many years – the fairy tale.
I thought I had the epitome of the “high school sweethearts” love story, the young love that would survive all of the twists and turns that life throws at you when you are just starting, stepping out into the unknown. I wasn’t completely naive, and I fully expected detours, but I didn’t know just how twisted the road was going to get when I married into the military during the summer of 2001. But that’s life for you, always giving you the things you can barely handle. Somehow, you just survive.
For a long while, visiting these memories felt like I was trespassing upon someone else’s territory. The academy was never my school. They were never my classmates. I never took an oath, nor did I ever wear a uniform, and I certainly never put my life at risk. What right did I have to visit with those memories? Except, those were my experiences too, weren’t they? Those were so many years of my life that I shared with the boy I loved and our friends. I wasn’t an active duty member of the armed services, but I grew into adulthood along with these young men and women in uniform, and they embraced me. The military community welcomed me with open arms for what I was: an ally and supportive member of the community.
I was a “June Bride” in 2001, and in less than three months, everything would change. On September 11th, we were far from our home state of New York and temporarily stationed in the midwest. As I watched the events unfold before me on the morning news, alone in the emptiness of a “just starting” apartment of twenty-something-year-old newlyweds, I felt the shift in the trajectory of all our lives. On that Tuesday morning, smoke and flames bled from the places that represented my life. I grew up in the suburbs of Manhattan, a commuter town where many family and friends worked in the city. The skyline was as familiar to me as the face of a loved one. It was devastating to watch it change before my very eyes, understanding the instantaneous loss of life. And the Pentagon, which represented this other family I had just married into, had a vulnerable and open wound at its side. My family. My friends. My spouse. So many of us watched as our past, present, and future were covered in ash that day. Twenty years later, I’m still finding corners and cracks in my heart where the ashes still hide.
Thrust into a world where the only thing you could expect was the unexpected and the only control we had was, well… nothing. So, I had to master how to be comfortable with the unexpected, uncontrollable, and unpredictable. Or rather, I had to learn how to figure out a way to uncomfortably endure them. For years. It was a steep, steep learning curve, and the everyday stress of living in fear for your loved ones and friends manifested in migraines and anxiety. Access to mental health care and medication eased some of it, and I came out on the other side, pocketing the skills that I would later rely upon during my divorce and then again when facing the uncertainty of the pandemic.
During the years leading up to the deployment, the one and only one I’d endure as a spouse, there were bake sales and social gatherings. There were “friendly” sporting events between units to stand along the sidelines cheering. There were Hail and Farewells to welcome new members of the unit and to send off departing ones. Coffees and luncheons. Casual gatherings during training missions to help ease the loneliness. It was all about building connections to one another to lean upon during the uncertainty. The larger you grew your circle, the more you risked losing; those weren’t just your spouse’s coworkers – those were friends you grew to care about and love. The sense of community was profound. I would later crave and search for the feeling it provided many times over, understanding the value of genuine connectivity and surrounding yourself with those who help you refill your cup.
As with anything in life, the choices I made and my experiences are different from others. For instance, I chose to stay with my family nearly 5,000 miles away from our duty station for the bulk of the deployment. It went against the grain and awarded me some raised eyebrows and sideways glances from the chain of command and some of my peers, but the bottom line: I did what I thought was best for my mental health. Those of us who chose to leave the base became one another’s long-distance support, a lifeline for me. Friendships planted deep within the ground, watered with tears of sorrow and laughter during some dark and difficult days.
Years later, my spouse and I came out of our experiences as two very different people. How could we not? We tried our best to navigate the new terrain together, even venturing out into the civilian world for the first time in our adult lives. Eventually, though, our paths led us both elsewhere. Those years, however, helped form who I am today, and as much as I have tried to dissect myself from those memories, they are a part of my story, my personal history. And those friendships, merely seeds decades ago, are fully flourished and an integral part of my life, even now. We learned that time nor distance could chip away at those shared experiences that bound us to one another. We have witnessed each other stand with strength and beauty during hardships and take turns holding memories for one another, reminding each other of that strength and beauty when we cannot see it within ourselves. And, sadly, we lean on one another as we still lose those who have shared that journey with us. A few years ago, when the loss of a military friend was hitting me particularly hard, one of these lifelong friends said to me, “grief touches other grief.” And she was right. For anyone who has ever loved a service member, especially during these past twenty years, there is no escaping some sort of loss.
In addition to the 20th anniversary of September 11th, triggering images and stories emerge from Afghanistan. The losses feel profound. My mind is constantly playing a slideshow of pictures from years ago. Photos of things now lost or forever changed; friends and foreign landscapes, locals, jingle trucks, street bazaars. My marriage. But the ones that keep flashing before me? The ones that have repeatedly been waking me up at night? The ones of children smiling and playing. Those children have aged into adults now, and a deep sadness overwhelms me, knowing that those smiles have faded, replaced by current images from the news of the children and their families fleeing from a dark future. My heart is perpetually breaking for all of them, but especially for the women and children. I feel profound grief for the tidal wave of losses from the last twenty years. And the only other people I know who understand this current that keeps pulling me under? Those with whom I shared part of my journey years ago.
And so, I visit these memories. I turn to my friends who understand this loss and grief that civilians just can’t. They remind me that I am not nothing. I just have one foot in that life once lived, speaking a language of acronyms that I forget I am fluent in until it slips out in conversation, and one foot over the notorious “civilian-military divide.” It can be lonely sometimes, not really having a place on either side.
A wave of complicated emotions is emerging for some who served and those who have loved them. It feels exasperated by the “everyday life” that ticks on around them by those who have not served. I’m glad to see organizations and individuals sharing resources and support available to the military, Veterans, and their families. But I’m also asking you to reach out to the ones within your community who may have once loved and stood beside a service member. Most resources do not extend to them. Offer them space to speak about their experiences and emotions right now. They, too, may carry invisible scars with them from a life once lived. They, too, have carried some of the weight of the past 20 years, and they are not nothing.
