These Women

These women.
These women we call Military Wives and Mothers.
Assigned to a tour of duty fought in the comfort of their living room.Hunkered down behind the dining room table.
Their Hum-Vee is the SUV that sits in the driveway that holds a badge of honor stickered to the bottom left glass on the tailgate.
It reads "Proud Mother of a US Marine".
They carefully navigate mortars in the garden and dig trenches where they lay bricks in a row to protect their tender plants.
But do not mistake tenderness for weakness!  For they have true grit.These women.
These women we call Military Wives and Mothers.
They do their tour.
It begins with love.
Her tour started in romance found in fatigues laying on the floor and dogtags draped on the dresser. She sent you off to work and you will be home in 180 days.
Her tour started with the conception of a child she raised for 18 years and handed over reluctantly to let a drill sergeant do the rest of the raising.
She sent you off not to see the world, but to see the Earth.
Now together these women have joined the US Armed Forces too.
The day she loved you.
That's when her tour started.
She doesn't do the push ups and endless mile runs.
She isn't dressed in blues or bouncing quarters off her cot.
She isn't assembling her firearm and eating as fast as she can at her meals.
But these women.
These women we call Military Wives and Mothers.
They are soldiars.
They process the fear and excitement like a new recruit.
They lean on the shoulders of their men and whisper words of strength and I love you's.
They remember to pray each night and write each day.
They aren't the drill sergeant,  but they are part of the drill.
They are in the rain as you chuckle to yourself how, if she were here, she'd make you wear a coat.
 They are on the line screaming in your ear to stay safe.
They are in your bunk telling you that all is well at home because they are taking care of their assigned duties.
They feel anguish,  pride, have nerves of steel and stand tall.
 They don't quit even though every day they're exhausted and empty and lost without you.
And they wave our flag with as much honor as you present in your salute.
They know, like you, that you may come home. Or that you may not.The sacrifice they make is this...These women.
These women we call military wives and mothers.
They sacrifice their peace of mind, their heart and soul, their "baby" -while you sacrifice your all for us. This all in the name of your love of country.  You give. She gives. And we salute both.

Christine Kimball
Written-July 8, 2013

Thanking our military and first responders 🇺🇸