We're not in Georgia anymore.

I'll tell you, in the week these deployment orders have come out, anyone who's ever been on Ft. Stewart at a time like this must appreciate that assignment on a whole new level. We sure do. Those orders don't affect us since Thak is getting out so soon, but the craziness around them has affected the entire brigade. I've never seen anything like it in my life, and I know more about deployments than I want to, so that's saying something.

First of all, I have no idea why they're starting the meetings and briefings so early here. The deployment is still most of a year away. Honestly, if this were Ft. Stewart, we barely got that much time between deployments, so the guys would have literally just gotten back from one, and received orders just before that for the next. We NEVER started all this BS until a few weeks before they left. I just can't understand why some of the commanders here are dragging this thing out for so long. The ONLY reason anyone should even think about a deployment that is this far away is if they are considering trying for a baby. If that were the case, they would need to figure out if they're ok with birthing alone should the date move up, or they not conceive immediately. Beyond that, there is NO reason to even let a deployment this far away into your life. It's an eternity in Army time. Why ruin a year over it? The deployment itself already pretty sufficiently ruins a year. Why let it have two? That's just sadistic.

I am also really unimpressed with the wives in general. I have never seen such an uninformed group in my life. I honestly believe that every wife should know what unit her husband is in, and should always ascertain where information came from before passing it along. If every one of them would do these two things, life would be a lot better around here. It seems like they all know what company their husband is in, and what brigade, but they don't know what battalion, and since most deployment-related things are handled on the battalion level, you can imagine how much this jams up the works. Me and a couple other staff wives from various battalions were told yesterday at a coffee that we needed to "get off our high horse" because we insisted that these wives who were traveling the post insisting that EVERYONE in the entire brigade had to go to a meeting that evening tell us where they heard that, and what battalion their husbands were in. Being that our husbands are on staff for their respective battalions, we would know about things like that long before the masses would if they affected our battalions, and since we didn't, obviously, it was battalion level for THEIR battalion only. There are six battalions within this brigade. Their response to our request for complete and correct information was very rude. It's not ok to be like that, and it's dumb to act that way toward staff wives in the first place since our husbands are the ones who advise the top levels of command when they make all the decisions for the unit, but even more important than that, rumors are death during deployments, and all of us who are a bit seasoned really want to nip that in the bud because we see how much trouble it can cause. It is not malicious, and we made it very clear that we knew it wasn't, but as they say, "the most dangerous thing in the world is a little bit of knowledge", so we were just trying to let them know that they are working with an incomplete understanding, and need to learn a few pertinent facts before telling others (especially when "others" are married to people who plan things like this meeting) that they are wrong.

I also find it strange how most wives in this brigade seem to be expecting some sympathetic response to the orders. I'm sorry (really, I'm not), but every one of their husbands was a wartime enlistee. If you join the Army in wartime, on some level, you want this. If you go along with your husband joining the Army in wartime, on some level, you want this, too. If you marry a soldier during wartime, you probably don't want this, but at some point, you accept it to some degree as part and parcel. I HATE the phrase "you knew what you were getting into" because it's bullshit since NOBODY EVER knows the full extent of anything before they do it, but they're not even doing this yet. The orders have just been cut in the Pentagon. There aren't even paper orders printed up here yet. If some wife said to me a month into the deployment, "Geez, Anna, this is a lot harder than I thought it would be." I would say, "I hear that!" because I know more about that than I want to. Just flipping out over orders, though? That's not something I'm used to. Honestly, Thak and I never had a single day without orders over our heads until we arrived here. The unit he went to right after our wedding, had orders cut just a couple days before we got married, and from that day forward, he was either deployed or on orders until he was promoted out of his slot and we managed to get an exception to policy, and get orders out of a fenced unit, and come here. Even then, he was on orders for what would have been his 4th tour in Iraq. After living under orders constantly for five years of our lives, we just don't know what to do with people who flip out over orders, and want sympathy just because they're going to have to back up that oath of enlistment they (or their husband) took. If we had that mentality, we'd have lost our minds years ago, so we really cannot understand why anyone would choose to be like that, and we really have no sympathy for people just because they got orders.

What's more, I find it strange that so many seem to think it's wrong that they or their husband is deploying. How is it wrong? This is a whole brigade of fresh soldiers. Most have never deployed. Those who have, have been home for years since their last one. They are going to relieve a brigade from 10th Mountain, which is one of the most frequently deployed units in the entire Army. They have been managing Afghanistan from day one, and there are guys in some of these units with 5 or 6 tours. It is quite possibly the most poetically just thing I have ever seen in my life that Uncle Sam is replacing these overused, overstressed, overworked soldiers with the freshest ones he has. If anyone has to deploy, let it be these guys!

I really wish that this post was more like Ft. Stewart. If there are a few tips I can give to the wives who are freaking out over this deployment already, they would be these:

1) Forget about it for now. It's eons away.
2) While your husband is in the field in a few months, find a pin-up (or boudoir) photographer to shoot you. It is good luck to give him a picture book for his rucksack. (Everyone I know who had one has come home alive. It was a Ft. Stewart tradition. Plus, what guy wouldn't love it?!)
3) Remember that it's "uppity" staff wives like me who know what we're doing. You might want to be nice, because when you need help, it won't be your peers in a position to give it to you. It will be people like me (although maybe not actually me).
4) Trust your gut on your FRG. If they seem good, be involved. If they seem shady, run. You don't have to have any interaction with them. I did two tours with none.
5) Take everything said in a briefing with a grain of salt. 9 times out of 10, the command only tells a small part of the story to the masses.
6) A certain battalion that rhymes with "boo-dive", your commander talks too much. Tune that guy out. There is such a thing as too much information too soon. It's almost like he's trying to freak you out.
7) They can't make anything mandatory for dependents.
8) Keep your chain of command updated with any situations that could affect your ability and availability to train. (Having a baby due at field time is something like that. No, your husband won't get out of going to the field, but they can make a plan to get him back fast when you go into labor. Trust that your commander will do that for you, but insist that he does.)
9) Be realistic. Almost nobody's family situation is enough to leave them home.
10) At the same time, consider the source of every piece of information you hear or see. The closer that source is to the command suite, the better the information.


I had no idea deployment prep could be this spastic, but again, this post proves to us that anything is possible. I'm so glad it doesn't affect us this time. I want no part of this madness. Obviously, we have a tangential part of it since we're still here, but beyond that, the more I see, I'm just really glad it's not us.