Ambivalence?

I think, due to current events in the Yoke household, my blog's subjects will be less about apple pies and more introspective thoughts. I haven't really announced it from the rooftops, but Ryan is leaving for Iraq in January for a 12 month deployment. We've known about it since we moved to Texas, but it is becoming a reality that is harder and harder to ignore. From him bringing home his combat gear, to his hours getting longer and longer, January seems so far away, but astonishingly close.

So for some quick questions and answers:

Q: Are you (Leah) staying in Texas?
A: Yes I am. I accepted a job in a nearby hospital working as a microbiologist and have begun to make friends. In a sense, it is easier to stay here in Texas with other Army wives around me that understand and are going through the same things, than to be at home where I am the anomaly and no one quite understands what a deployment is like.

Q: How long will Ryan be away?
A: As of right now, regardless of who is president and unless something drastic changes, he will be gone for 12 months, with a short 2ish week break in the middle.

Q: Are you going to go crazy and be alone in Texas all by yourself? (This is typically people's third question after hearing the "Iraq News").
A: No! I know it will be difficult and at times, lonely, but all things work together and I am praying that rather than this being a time for Ryan and I to feel less and less apart, we feel closer in our marriage than ever before, knowing we can get through anything.

Q: Can I come visit you?
A: YEEESSSS!!!!!! I am hoping that anyone and everyone will come visit me. We have a guest room set up just for that and I would love to have people around when Ryan is gone. Although if you want to visit Ryan and I, you have to do it before or after he leaves. :)

I can't think of other questions, but feel free to post them as comments and I will answer them.

And now for some random thoughts that have been stirring in my head...

The Army provides an interesting culture completely unique to itself and something I've never seen in any other work or social environment. On one hand, it is very unifying, encouraging the wives to engage socially with other wives in the unit. There are monthly coffee groups, meetings concerning the husband's deployments and trainings, and other social activities like family days, balls, and baseball games. I've never experienced a place where not only do I know just about all of my husband's co-workers, I also know and socialize consistently with their wives. The wives become a support group for one another, dealing with the stress of long hours, changing schedules, and loneliness of deployment. (Think the TV show Army Wives).
But on the other hand, the Army can be brutal and unweilding. Schedules are constantly changing, from taking a Saturday here or a Sunday there, to the bombshell of 15 months in Iraq, to a 2 am report time when they got home from work at midnight. I sometimes feel like I've become completely hardened to the Army and its way of life. Having lived this lifestyle for 18 years, I find myself thrown back into what I grew up with and at times, having no emotion to it all. When their training increased by a week next month, taking them away from us even longer, I was sad, but in the back of my mind, I had a feeling it would happen. I didn't protest or complain, but rather accepted the news and continued the slow jog of life here in Killeen. If something like that happened in any other part of my life, where something abruptly and rudely changed, I would immediately protest, and probably loudly! Have I become so calloused that I've just melted to the Army and its iron fist? Is it a survival technique?

I've looked online for forums or blogs where other Army wives discuss and grapple with the difficult issues surrounding being married to the a military man, but I haven't found one I really liked, that was easy to navigate and easy to read. So I'm reinventing the wheel and doing it myself. My blog will still contain some snapshops of the "apple pies" of the Yoke life here in Texas, but I think I may also use it to post some of my thoughts about the Army, deployment, or other things pertaining to it. Please, please, please comment with thoughts about what I've said or what you think. I look forward to reading them as I continue to blog, hopefully a little more consistently than I have in the past.

And for those of you who do read my blog, sorry for the horrible, unfocused picture of the apple pie. Now and hopefully from now on, there will be more exciting and engaging things to read!