The Difficulties of Deployment
Just when things are going well, life has a way of throwing a curve ball. Until August, 2005, things operated smoothly, if not predictably. I had two jobs, one as a radiologic technologist at a local hospital, and another as an instructor of radiologic technology. I took classes through distance learning and I fulfilled my obligation in the National Guard of one weekend a month. I had been married for a couple of years and my wife and I had just recently given birth to a beautiful child. Although my responsibilities were many and my schedule quite full, I was comfortable in a routine that afforded me certain guarantees. I knew that I was able to watch over my family, interact with my family, and meet financial obligations easily. On August 10, 2005, the curve ball was thrown. I had just received my official deployment orders to serve eighteen months in Kosovo. August eighteenth was my first day of deployment. Since that date, deployment proved to be difficult to observe changes in my family, to receive or give support from or to my family, and to work out financial arrangements.
As just mentioned, I was unable to observe changes in my family. Being that I was many miles from my wife and daughter, it seems only logical that this would be a problem. They changed so rapidly that I could hardly keep up with the changes. My wife, Sonya, was on a diet and did magnificently well. She lost thirty pounds, which she did with ease. My daughter, C.J., who was four months old at the time of deployment, learned to crawl and eat on her own. This was quite a challenge due to complications from an open heart surgery and an abdominal surgery that occurred when she was about six months old. Recovery from the surgeries slowed her development considerably and she had to relearn what she had lost. She surpassed any expectations that I had of her. I was never able to show them how immensely proud of them I was. I wanted so much, in...