Military Deployment, Probably Not What You Think it Would Be

Before I had ever set out on my first Naval deployment my career had been nothing but a cake walk. There was never anything hard about it. While I was on shore duty I would come to work do my job and go home, as simple as that. There was no such thing as a duty day, a man-overboard, or a general quarters drill. For my first four and a half years in the Navy it was the easiest job a man could have. I could not believe that I was getting paid for this. Of course, all good things come to an end. My easy, fun, good job did on JAN 4th 2006.

I will never forget going to the ship on the night of JAN3rd 2006. That was the hardest night of my life. I stayed up late with my pregnant wife assuring things would be alright, my kids not quite sure why I had to go on deployment for six months. To be honest, I was asking myself the same exact question. That night would be the last time that I would see them for 187 days.

During the six months I pondered why do we do what we do? Why would someone want to be gone for six months and miss your oldest daughter turn 7, your at the time youngest daughter turn 2, and miss your wife's birthday? Who would want to miss his son be born to be out to sea for a week of turning cricles? Who wants to miss your wedding annversary or yor fourth chld's birth? The answer is nobody in their right mind would want to miss all of these things. Nobody wants to leave behind their family to go half way across the world. Those of us in uniform do not do this job because we want to be gone. We do this job so are families will continue to be safe. We do not do this job for the money. I wonder from paycheck to paycheck if we will make until the first or the fifteenth. We do this job for the love of our country and for the love of our fellow man. We do this job because we care about our freedom; freedom for ourselves and others.

I have seen many times that people in the military get blamed for everything bad that happens in this crazy world we live in. We get blamed for wars, bombings, terrorist attacks and the list goes on and on. Pleople can blame us if the want to but they should remeber that without us they might not have the freedom to stay home and complain!! Give the guys in uniform a break!! We have enough to endure without the criticism of our fellow man.