i love a man in uniform.

i talked with my long distance beau on the phone today. he was describing the big awards ceremony they had with general petraeus and mentioned that a silver medal was given out-a medal, i learned, that is only two notches below the medal of honor. a big deal in the army world. of course i couldn't help but ask what the actions were behind these awards...yet i don't think i was really ready to hear the answers.

among the few unbelievable stories he shared with me was one about a guy i came to know while in tennessee. apparently he ran through a field that had not been cleared of IEDS yet, while under enemy fire, in order to get a medic to a comrade who had been hit (the injured soldier they were trying to save ended up dying).

as andy was telling me these stories, they played out in my head like movie scenes i have witnessed time and time again. this is real, though...this is his life. most of the medals were given out for actions that took place during a 4 day long fight this summer, the battle of bakersfield (as they now call it). i remember the nerve-wracking couple of weeks surrounding that time, when i heard nothing from him and thought that there was no way i could do this. at that point, his leave time at the end of december seemed like an endpoint that was entirely impossible.

i finally heard from him, only to learn that a lot had transpired in those two weeks (including the battle...including the loss of his friend, kyle). now it's hard to hear those stories of that time...to know that i had no idea the amount of strength and courage and perseverance, in the face of such fear & danger, involved in those days...days during which i was trying to distract myself from the silence between us.

this has all reminded me of a book my cousin gave me this year for my birthday, i love a man in uniform: a memoir of love, war, and other battles (the story of a rebel/stripper/writer who finds herself, years later, living as an army wife at west point). i was surprised by how i couldn't put it down. generally i don't think of myself as the "typical" significant other of a soldier, but this book had me reeling: crying, laughing out loud, running into the next room, reading aloud one last section, i promise to andy because it hit so close to home.

i've gone back and re-read all of those parts i highlighted, starred, and underlined twice for emphasis (as if to say to my future self, 'never forget this is exactly how you felt.'). when listening to andy recount the daily stories of their lives over there, that seem like such acts of incredible sacrifice to me, i often wonder simultaneously how i will ever, ever be able to relay this experience to the people we love the most (god knows he doesn't have the time or energy to do that right now). this book does it pretty well, so, in anticipation of my hero coming home, i thought i'd share some of those underlined passages over the next few days. forgive my tunnel-vision with all of this army/war stuff; it's pretty much all that's on my mind as we're about to celebrate christmas without him.

"He was part of a world that I could not-

and likely would not-ever know. 

He would be entering that world again very soon, 

and I'd be shut out. I would know little more

about it than the space it would span on our calendar: 365 days. 

Fifty-two weeks. Twelve months. A year.

A year."

"Fear ballooned out in front of me so big and ominous that humor 

was the only way I could see around it.

I was afraid of so many things-being alone,
not knowing what to do in his absence,

not knowing if he'd be safe. Just not knowing."

"I felt a sting, knowing that while I admire and enjoy the company

of these men so much, with a single set of orders

and a stroke of bad luck I could lose any one of them..."

....