Gone two out of the next three years???!!!

I am blogging this because writing about it helps me grasp my fingers around it and squeeze....

Friday night we were driving home from a wedding reception in Bountiful. As is quite the norm our conversation turned to Hero's military career and the fact that he will be leaving for a year next spring/summer. I knew that was coming, it is a fact of life that I have just accepted. In fact he really should be winding up a one year remote tour in Greenland this July. However, this career broadening program has enabled our family to stay complete for two precious years. Not to say that we are incomplete when he is gone, but there is a huge hole when he is away. I knew a remote was coming, it is just a fact of the life of a military wife. You accept it, handle it, live through it, and move on.

Let me give my non-military friends a little back ground. When military personnel decides who will serve a remote tour and when they have set a criteria they try to follow, (As with all things in the military there are waivers to get around the criteria.) they first "rack and stack" the personnel by their particular rank and career field. Then they decide how far back they go for a previous "short tour" return date. A military member gets short tour credit once a deployment or remote tour has reached 6 months and one day. Hero has been in the Air Force since July 1998, and by the grace of God has yet to serve a short tour. He came close the last time he was deployed, if his journey home from Iraq last time he was deployed would have taken a few more days he would have gotten a short tour credit. So since he has not served a short tour yet, his return date is the date of his enlistment, July 1998. When he looked at the short tour information as we were preparing to move from Alaska they were looking at Captains with a return date of 2000 or older, and since they couldn't fill the all the slots with those available they were even sending those with a return date of 2003. That is why he was originally supposed to go to Greenland.

Now this career broadening program is an AWESOME thing for his career. However, since he was "hot" for a remote before, he is "scorching" now. We KNOW with great certainty that he will be leaving for a one year remote tour spring/summer 2010, and we have also been told not to be surprised if it is to the sandbox. (I think Hero is privately hoping for Afghanistan because he has already done Kuwait and Iraq, I am still holding out for Greenland.)

Okay, now back to our conversation Friday night. Hero informs me that I shouldn't be surprised if he is gone two of the three next years. Imagine my shock! I had accepted one, but two??!!! (I know it could be much worse, but I don't even allow myself to go there.) Once I picked my jaw up off my lap and brushed away the tears that were starting to form, I asked Hero to explain. His theory....he is smoking hot for a remote tour as a Captain. Sometime during that year he is gone or shortly after he returns he should be putting on Major(yippee!!). In his career field, Majors are in even more demand for remote tours. Right now they are sending Majors that have a return date of 2003 or earlier and already have one (or none) short tour credit, and are having a hard time filling those slots. Hero speculates that by the time he returns the situation will be even worse. He thinks this will happen; he will return in spring/summer of 2011. We will move on to our next duty station. Because he will be "untouchable" for six months after he returns from his short tour he won't leave again immediately. (Remember my friends I did mention that there is a waiver for EVERYTHING in the military. While Hero swears he has not heard of them sending anyone back on a short tour before those six months were up, I will believe it when I see it.) However, he feels strongly that shortly after those six months are up he will be sent yet again on a year long short tour. Sigh

Guess we'll just cross that bridge when we get there....but since that seed has been planted in my mind I can't seem to shake it.