As I near the ending of my husband's first deployment tragedy hits. He lost one of his very close friends, a guy he refers to as his brother. I was given a red alert call informing me of the loss in his platoon. Then went on to tell me my soldier was ok. After I hung up I cried my eyes out. To get a call and have them say Mrs. Dunham this is a red alert call there was a KIA. My heart utterly stopped and I felt my world crashing around me. It was one of the worst experiences of my life. Then today when I was finally able to talk to him again he was so drawn into himself. That's not my husband. Then when I finally got him to open up he ranged from so many emotion. Anger, hate, pain, suffering. He is so messed up over this. As he talked to me my heart just repeatedly broke. Telling me how he kept asking himself why he couldn't of taken the guys place... Also told me the password to his labtop that there was a letter on it in case something happened to him. This all hit me so hard. It was stuff I never in a million years wanted to hear. Even worse than the talk about his will before he deployed. This of course isn't the first loss of a good friend for him over this. I believe because the guy was so close to being done and just recently had a little boy weighed heavily on my husband. I know going in to this line of work that tragedies would happen. Hearts would break, families would be ripped apart. and lives would never be the same. I guess deep down I pushed all that aside because I was afraid to think that there was a chance it would be my life that changed. In the end though this kind of work changes everyones lives involved.

Update

So it's been awhile since I wrote on here. I am now almost 5 months into the deployment. In total of him being gone is going on 10 months. Out of that 10 months I've seen him a total of just under 4 weeks. Everday finding the strength to get out of bed is as hard as it was the first day he left. I have run into plenty of problems in that time and it has tripped me up more than I can handle sometimes. I ran into problems with my fanbelt breaking on my car. Soon after my battery went because of the damage the fanbelt did. I have dealt with the flu in 2 out of 3 of my girls while having it myself. I have went through my first christmas alone since David and I have been together. I have been and still am going through sleep deprivation and stress induced lack of appetite. A teething toddler and 2 siblings who fight over everything. All this and I have no fallen flat on myself yet. Biggest miracle......

My husband come home for his R & R for 2 weeks. We did an early Christmas for our girls. I was taken out to Olive Garden for the first time ever. Long long drive, cold and snowy yet I still rocked out a skirt and stilletto heels. We had so much fun and I made sure to take plenty of pictures. The girls couldn't of been happier. I held my tears when I first seen him and through the entire two weeks until he was saying goodbye. I broke like a rock to a pain of glass. All those weeks of being alone and worrying about whether he is safe or not just came rushing at me. I was not ready to give him back yet I knew that I couldn't keep him. I tried so hard to be strong but sometimes the tears wash away the dirt that blocking your vision. I know he is doing this to make the world a better place and to give the girls a better life yet I stil can't help but be broken.

Christmas came within just over a week of him leaving. I was dreading having to go through the motions of pretending that I was happy the holidays were here. I spent Christmas eve at my parents house. The girls were giddy with joy to open more presents, eat and hang out with their Aunt (my 4 year old sister) Christmas Day we went to my Aunt's house. Again the girls got to play with other kids in the family and open more presents. They were having just the greastest time. I had to leave the room and ended up breaking down crying at the front door. It just got the best of me... I knew it was killing David not to be there to see them be able to enjoy their holiday. When he left to go back you could see it in his eyes and hear it in his voice.

He tells me that I do great at holding down the household. That if he was in my situation he would never be able to do it but he doesn't see how often I teeter on that breaking point. Now that the new year has hit I will be working on moving down to Kentucky by the end of Autumn's school year. That adds a whole new level of stress to my life. I have never been outside of the New York and Pennsylvania states. At least not without a family member with me basically holding my hand because I was just a kid going on vaction. But to pick up and move from the only area I've ever known with 3 kids. It is by far the scariest thing Im going to have to do this year. Hopefully all goes according and I have some hair left by time it's over. I've only been driving about 2 1/2 years. Only drove on one interstate and never used a map before. Look out Kentucky is all I can say lol.