Yummy Apples

This weekend I went to my mom's without hubby for our local po-dunk festival. I bought yummy apples and met up with old friends. It was a lot of fun. I went down Friday night to a friends house where a lot of people were gathered. There I caught up with about 75% of the people my age from that area I can stand to talk to, let alone care to catch up with. Saturday I went to the festival and after being there about 3 minutes met up with one of my moms’ friends and her daughter. I walked with them for a little bit then ran into an old high school boyfriend (we are still friends, it ended dramatically, but what high school relationship doesn’t, we have both grown up and realized that as adults we can/should be friends still/again) for the sake of ease and to protect the innocent I will call him Drago. I stopped to catch up with him and we talked for a few minutes when some other friends we used to run around with came up. I walked around with all of them for pretty much the rest of the day. I was amazed at the friends from high school who had served in the military who were telling me not to let Hubby join the navy. Drago--Spent the past 4 years in Afghanistan and Iraq w/ the army--Said that he knows I'm strong willed and can handle it but that if we are going to do this I need to make sure that hubby & I are both doing everything we can to cover our own Asses b/c he saw more than one person get royally screwed for stupid stuff that has nothing to do with the military. JU & EU--Married, I knew him (J) but was good friends with her (E)--he was in the Marines and is now a prison guard or something at the state prison near where I grew up--E just simply said please don't do it. I had already been told by another friend whose husband is in the Navy stationed in CA that she hates it and gave me her reasons why, but I am far more independent than her and most of her hates are things I would probably love but that was when we were first just throwing the idea around not since we've made up our minds to commit. After seeing Drago and JU my heart reaches out to all of the military wives with "broken" husbands. I have no doubt in my mind that PTS is real and I never doubted it but after this weekend I'm realizing that it is far worse than I imagined. When I saw JU and EU last year my father had just died so I wasn't very observant to the people around me, however JU had been discharged less than a month prior to me seeing them. Looking back I realize that both of them looked pretty ragged. I noticed this b/c when we walked away Drago said something about how rough JU looked this weekend, so I thought back to last year and realized that yeah, he looks really rough (like he hasn't slept in a month) but that EU looked a lot better. Last year she looked like she was constantly on edge and worn ragged. This year her eyes were aged but she looked well rested and healthy. To me that was a sign that he was doing better, otherwise she would still look just a bad as before. This conversation led to one about Drago and how he was handling being "back from the Middle East. He said that on Friday he saw dental picks at one of the booths and got very excited because they are apparently perfect for cleaning weapons so he bought a handful, then realized that he no longer needs them. I pointed out that he can at least send them to friends which he thought was a good idea. It seems like Drago is handling himself well, but I know that what he saw changed him. I couldn't imagine how hard it has been for EU since JU came home, Just talking to Drago made me almost want to cry but to have the man you love and are married to come home and have to live every day knowing that he isn't ok would kill me. After all of the conversations I had this weekend with people who have known me for a long time I am even more sure that Hubby and I are doing the right thing. I think if he were considering the Army or Marines they would have successfully talked me out of it, however knowing that he is going to be gone, and having the security of knowing that it is normal for him to be gone, not having to worry about him being on a battlefield somewhere...I know it isn't going to be easy but I'm the lucky one. My husband will be gone, but I know that going into this I don't have to worry about war, I'm the lucky one and I can't imagine how much harder it would be to be EU right now....