There will be no reprieve for my husband.  He's going to have to deploy this spring. 

He'll be leaving to go to a three week training in New Jersey in a couple of weeks, then he'll be home for three weeks, then gone again.....for 6 months. 

The good news is that he won't be going to Iraq.  He might also get an opportunity to work about half of his deployment in a location that pays $100 a day per diem.  If that's the case....then he's already said that money will be used to purchase plane tickets to England for Christmas this year and the rest will be spent on the Harley we've been hankering after.  The money won't make up for another summer spent apart, of course...but it will give us something to look forward to, a goal at the end of yet another deployment.  It will certainly soften the blow.

I talked to his bosses this morning.  They were all afraid I was going to have a meltdown and kept apologizing for him having to leave again.  I'm not mad at them; it's not their fault.  The person who dropped out of the deployment is getting court martialed for his offences, and you know what, JU?  I'm going to attend it.  I'm going to sit in court and watch him get rank and privileges taken away from him; I'm going to sit there and be a constant reminder of just how many people his actions affected. (Once the court martial is over I'll be able to tell you what happened (and I can't wait to do just that).  For now, I have to keep my mouth shut.  All I can say is that I TOLD D to watch out for the Poison Dwarf; I read her like a freakin' book.  He watched out.  Other people didn't.)

So, my love is leaving again.  It hurts to have to prepare to say 'see you later'.  It hurts to be apart, to go to sleep at night with the person you love and cherish above all others on the other side of the world from you.  It just hurts, all of it.

We're going to cram as much living as we possibly can into the next few weeks.  We're going to abandon our diets and eat what we want, we're going to go on as many dates as we can and have as many family outings as we can; we're going to cherish our family dinners together and we're going to try to take advantage of any opportunities to hold hands or say 'I love you' because we know that there will be a time coming soon when we won't be able to do that. 

I love him.  I don't want him to leave.  But I know that he has to.  It's part of being in the military; it's part of the life that we have chosen for ourselves.  It's part of being a Air Force wife.