There was a day when my husband went to work in camouflage and big ‘ol black boots.

He left long before the sun came up.  And didn’t get home until it had gone down.

“Work” wasn’t a place back then.  It was a lifestyle.

A lifestyle that required not a brief case, but a gun.

I can’t say for sure–because he’s spared me the details thank heavens–but I think he may have had to use it once or twice.  In a desert on the other side of the world.

Our first Christmas together wasn’t actually our first Christmas together.

Because I was at home, here in one desert, while he was in another one entirely.

While he was away I had the most horrible, realistic dreams.  And they were always the same.  I wasn’t plagued by bloody scenes of a world I’d never laid eyes on.  It wasn’t roadside bombs or grenades or blown up convoys that interrupted my sleep.  Probably because I had no concept of those things.  The images that deluged my unconscious were of that which I knew.  Or knew of at least.

More than once I was startled awake and physically got up to go to the front door because I was 100% convinced I’d heard the doorbell.

More than once I cried on the floor of my living room in the middle of the night.  Mostly because I was relieved that the doorbell I’d so clearly heard had been nothing more than a cruel trick of my dreams.

Oh I hated those months.

That lifestyle.

And I lived it for just an itty bitty fraction of time.

Nothing in comparison to so many others.

Others who lived it for many years before we did.  Who are living it still.

Others who still go to work with a flag on their shoulder and a their last name embroidered on their chest pocket.

Others who say goodbye to their baby sons and daughters and husbands and wives for far longer than anybody should ever have to.

Others who do it graciously.  Dutifully.  Proudly even.

They serve us all.

They serve for different reasons.

They serve in different ways.  {Including some who don’t wear a uniform at all but wear instead the many hats of a spouse who is left at home}.

I’m remembering those people today.

Praying for them.

Honoring their sacrifices.

Thanking them for standing for us.

Whether it’s here.  Or thousands of miles from here.

Thank you.

*I stole borrowed the title of this post from Toby Keith’s American Soldier song.  So sue me.*