By Jen Heisel At a homecoming brief recently, every spouse in attendance was asked to sum up the deployment for them in one word. I said this deployment had been empowering. This deployment, my husband’s third and our second together, seemed like a never-ending challenge. Just a few months into the deployment, on a ship with minimal port calls, a Marine lost his life. The internet on the ship was spotty at best. The deployment itself was extended indefinitely(which ended up only being three weeks). In spite of all of that, I felt like I grew more in the eight months than I had at any other point in my…
-
-
Staying Connected During Deployment
By Jen Heisel My husband and I have been together for three-and-a-half years and in that time, he’s been on two deployments, multiple exercises, training across the country, night flights, overnight trips, etc. We had to learn very quickly how to not only make our relationship survive but also thrive, in the midst of time apart.
-
Creating A Community
By Jen Heisel I’m not your typical Marine Corps spouse. I’ve never been through a PCS and have never moved to be with my husband (miraculously, he’s only ever been stationed in San Diego, and we met six months after I moved here). I don’t have kids and I work full-time. I had a life that existed before my husband and one that still exists quite separately from the military. I love my civilian life, my civilian friends, my civilian house in my civilian neighborhood and my civilian job. But this military life is weird. There are no two ways about it. You could go days without hearing from your…