So my husband is a soldier.  He has been doing this for almost 24 years now.  He is not a violent person and carries a weapon because he has to, not because he wants to.  He is in the medical profession and to that end cannot fire a weapon anyway unless he is fired upon first, or is offensively firing in defense of his patients.  He went to war because he wanted to.  He has been volunteering for combat since March 19, 2003, when OIF started.  We were watching the war unfold on TV from the safety of our living room and he turned to me and apologized for not being there to lead his soldiers.  We had left our previous unit when he figured they wouldn't see combat again (they were the first regular Army "boots on the ground" into Afghanistan after 9/11) and moved to a post where he was then non-deployable.  He spent the next 4 years volunteering to take anyone's place so he could go to Iraq.  Finally, he was reassigned to the 101st Airborne Division and there he is.  I cannot explain his devotion to duty to his country from a historic perspective as his father never served and neither did anyone else except for an uncle who was a Marine in Vietnam and a brother who did a stint in the Army and then got out.  I personally come from career military--my father was a fighter pilot, my brother flies F-16s--so I "get it" from their eyes, but not my husband's.  His parents don't approve of the Bush administration (they're Democrats) and never fail to tell me how bad everything is "over there."  As if they've been there.  My husband is apolitical.  It doesn't matter what his personal views are on the war, why we started it, why we are still there, etc...  To him, his job is to lead soldiers, period.  He is not a grunt and didn't go off to war to kill bad guys.  His job is to save anyone who is wounded and train other medics to do likewise.  It drives me absolutely crazy when people say--upon learning he is deployed to Iraq-- that they are so sorry he had to go.  DON'T BE!!  He chose to go.  It's his JOB.  Do wives of firefighters get people telling them how sorry they are their husbands had to go fight that bad warehouse fire last week?  That's a dangerous job with an equally hateful "enemy."  Soldiers, by and large, do not WANT to go to war, but if there's a war going on, they want to be where they can do the most good and do the job they've trained to do.  People here just ought to be grateful there are volunteers out there willing to sign their name on that dotted line and pledge to serve this country regardless of what task is set to them.  Don't be sorry someone is willing to risk it all for you!  John Stuart Mill said, "War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."

So, my husband is off doing his job and we are left behind.  This doesn't mean we are pining away or the kids terribly miss their daddy, etc...  He spends so much time away from us they really haven't noticed he's not here (except when it comes to the Saturday afternoon wresle-fest I do not participate it like he did!)  I really can't say I'm doing anything now that I didn't do when he was here (except the vacuuming--he does it obsessively and I don't.)  I have always had to do the kids' things, school, pets, etc...I do all the banking, finances, etc.. anyway.  I DO have to pay someone to watch the kids when I do stuff on my own, but that's so rare since I can easily do most things when they're in school.  He emails once a day and calls all the time.  What's to miss?  I probably speak more to him now than when he was home since he'd leave hours before any of us got up in the morning, and come home in time to eat dinner and go to bed before the kids did.  Hard to have any conversations when you have a 5 yr old needing stories before bed, a 12 yr old needing someone to check his English homework and two in between playing Littlest Pet Shop instead of getting pajamas on, brushing teeth, etc...  *sigh*   It isn't that life as a military wife is that difficult--you just have to understand from the get-go that you'll be going it alone most days.  And for a very independent woman like myself (who grew up in the military), this is normal.  I don't know what I'd do with a husband who worked 9-5 and had every weekend off!!