Stories from the Home Front: One Spouse’s Take on a Navy Deployment
Last week, Jeff shared what deployment is like from a service member’s perspective.
I wanted to share a little bit of what it’s been like (for me!) to experience a Navy cruise from the “home front.”
April 2004
I was 23 years old, living and working in San Diego when I met my husband, Nick, at a small concert in North County. We started dating soon after and, not-so-long story short, we were engaged by August.
It was a whirlwind.
Within a few days of our engagement, with his F/A-18C training complete, Nick had orders to his first squadron in Lemoore, California. He packed up, checked in, and found out they’d be deploying in a few weeks.
The news shocked us.
Deployment? We’d talked about deployments (kind of). I’d seen them portrayed in movies, but neither of us had ever actually been through one.
What felt impossible became the norm.
Over the next 17 years, we would go through five deployments, ranging in length from 6 months to nearly 11 months.
Anticipation
Many Navy folks say the “worst” part of deployment is the training leading up to it, known as “work ups.”
This year-long cycle means long hours, time on the aircraft carrier, time away in Key West, training in Fallon, you name it.
While the squadrons and the ship prepare to deploy, the families scramble to keep up with an unpredictable schedule.
You think your spouse is coming home on Tuesday afternoon in time for a kiddo’s baseball game, but something breaks and they’re delayed a day. It’s not the end of the world, but constant schedule changes are inconvenient and annoying.
The anticipation is brutal.
The stress of knowing you’re about to endure a long separation looms over every conversation, every interaction, and it intensifies as the “moment” nears.
For me, that’s the hardest part.
It’s not the loneliest, but it’s the most searing. The nights leading up to deployment can be excruciating. I find myself not wanting to go to sleep because I don’t want tomorrow to come.
As painful as “goodbye” is, it brings relief.
You can finally start the clock, put the training behind you, and begin running the race you’ve anticipated for months.
A New Normal
Deployment shifts your world at home so dramatically overnight.
Your person just… vanishes.
The responsibilities of house and home, family and work always snapped me into the present.
I never had much time to wallow when Nick left (save for that first deployment - I was a mess and I’m grateful for an understanding roommate who let me park my mattress on her bedroom floor for two weeks).
There’s kind of an urban legend among military spouses that says everything breaks or goes wrong as soon as deployment starts.
We’ve had our fair share of that over the years, including an ambulance ride and emergency room visit for our little guy the week after Nick left on his last deployment.
Cars break down, pets fall ill, air conditioning units break, and it’s all on you to figure it out. There’s a lot of pressure associated with making quick decisions without the input of your partner, but it’s necessary.
We learn to rely on our military family for support, and we gain confidence in our ability to “run the show” in our spouse’s absence.
A Navy deployment comes with the added bonus of limited contact: spotty email, delayed phone connections, and a few Facetime calls from port, battling terrible wifi and the noisy backgrounds of their fellow aviators “cutting loose.”
The crummy communication on deployment challenges even the strongest relationships. Emails start out with lots of detail but become pretty rote on both sides of the ocean.
And so, you learn to live without their presence.
You adapt and find ways to have fun and stay busy and productive. There’s always a gaping, spouse-shaped hole, but it recedes into the background as you adjust to this new normal.
Friends and Neighbors
Every deployment, I learned to rely on the kindness of friends.
Thanksgiving weekend 2020, I returned home to find our roof lined with Christmas lights. My friend (Jeff!) put them up while I was out of town, and they lit the way as the boys and I tackled that holiday season without Nick.
Courtney, Jeff, Lacy, Erik, and others threw me a small, pandemic-style 40th birthday “gathering” that year.
Neighbors entertained the kids if I needed to work.
Family hosted holidays and let us put our feet up while they did the heavy lifting.
I learned over the years through practice what I’d heard back in 2004.
The night Nick checked into that first squadron, I got a call from one of the senior officer’s spouses.
She said to keep her number handy, because no one would understand what I was going through like her and the other spouses who would be experiencing the same things at the same time.
I was skeptical (I didn’t know these people after all), but she was right.
That first cruise got extended once, by 6 weeks. This last cruise was extended five times, by several months.
In those awful moments, when it feels like the world is caving in on you, you need friends who “get it,” people who won’t offer to cheer you up, but simply take you in, hand you a glass of wine, and let you feel kind of sad.
And then when it’s time, they pick you up, dust you off, and invite you to stay for dinner.
Homecoming
Nothing beats homecoming: the joy, the excitement, the primping and preening and preparation that go into welcoming home a squadron begins the process of obscuring the hardship of the previous year.
We paint signs and post them around the base. We buy new dresses and get haircuts and shave our legs and wonder what the hell we’ve been doing for ten months:
Why is that light still out?
Why is the garage still a mess?
Why didn’t I finish that elaborate and thoughtful craft project?!
I cry every time we catch a glimpse of the ship or see those jets overhead. They’re home. We did it.
We hug our friends and squeeze our kids and feel immense joy that they’re back - safe and sound. Nothing else matters in that moment. It’s just sweet relief.
At our last homecoming, after nearly 11 months without Nick in our home, I remember feeling not just happy but proud.
We’d conquered Everest.
The spouses and kids in that squadron may not have served a deployment overseas, but we’d been through something significant and served our country in our own way.
There wouldn’t be any ribbons or awards or plaques for us, but deployment changes the people who serve on the home front.
It shapes your character and empowers you to climb mountains. It pushes the boundaries of your commitment to a relationship you can’t readily see, and challenges you to rise to an occasion you didn’t necessarily choose.
And when it’s finally over, the celebration and the accomplishment belong to all of you.
As a spouse, I never wanted to hear “You knew what you were getting into.” No, I actually had no idea.
But that doesn’t mean I’d change a thing.
I’m grateful to have served all those deployments at home alongside these other remarkable people - my friends, fellow spouses, and our kids.
And though I’d never elect to go through another deployment, I know we’d rise to the occasion, and be changed and challenged for the better.