The Toughest Job Associated With The Corp

We use titles to define ourselves every day: wife, daughter, sister, employee, bartender, friend, etc…

The title that I use the most often and has the biggest impact on my life is Marine Corp Wife.

You can’t drive around a Marine Corp base for very long without seeing a car with a sticker stating “Marine Wife, toughest job in the Corp”. This sticker really bothers my husband, and I get why it does. We’re not IN the Corp. We didn’t go to boot camp, we don’t put on the cammies every day, and we don’t go into combat zones.

So in respect to him, I will change it to “Marine Wife, the toughest job associated with the Corp”.

I’m a woman of action, if there is a problem; I actively work to solve it. If stuck in a traffic jam, I would rather get off and take back streets to my destination rather than sit there waiting. Yeah, it probably increases the time it takes me to get there, but at least I’m feeling like I’m doing something.

Maybe that’s why sitting at home while my husband is in a combat zone is so hard for me. The waiting kills me. The fact that there is absolutely nothing I can do to make sure he comes home safe to me drives me crazy. I hate inaction. I hate feeling helpless.

But there isn’t anything I can do. I have to trust him and trust his training and I have to wait.

During that time, I hate the doorbell. I want to rip it out of its little hole beside the door and smash it with a hammer. Why would hate a simple little tool in life, you might ask? My friend Mikey’s husband is a CPA, when she hears the doorbell; she thinks it’s the UPS guy making a delivery of fun Stampin Up products! My friend Laurie’s husband is in construction. When she hears the doorbell, she thinks that it’s the neighborhood kids wanting her little girl to come out and play.

While Dave is deployed, every time I hear the doorbell, I freeze. My blood runs cold in my veins and the very first thought that races through my mind is “something’s happened”. I think, this is it, this is the time that I’m going to walk to the door and there will be two people in uniform standing there with grim faces telling me that my life has been changed forever. The walk from where I was standing to the front door may only be yards, but every single time my doorbell rings, it feels like an eternity until I look through that peephole and see a neighbor or the UPS guy, or whoever it is this time.

Think about that.

No seriously, stop and think about it. For seven months, every single waking moment of the day you wonder if the person you love more than anyone, your best friend and soul-mate, you wonder if he is safe and coming home to you.

I did this twice in 2003 and 2004. He was gone for seven months, home for six, and then gone for another seven. I joked to him that I needed a year off.

I should have been careful what I wished for.

In four or five weeks, he’s leaving again. I will have to stand in a cold parking lot, shivering, smelling the fumes from two or three big buses, and watch him leave again. I have to do this with my head up, shoulders back, and a smile on my face. I do this because that is my job.

He is going to have so much on his mind over there; keeping himself safe, watching over his young Marines, completing his mission; I want him to focus on the things that are important. My job is to stay here and keep the home fires burning. My job is to make sure he doesn’t have to worry about anything here. My job is to make sure that the last time he looks at my face before he leaves, he sees a smile and a strong confident woman that he doesn’t have to worry about.

That’s my job and it sucks!