I've heard my share of adults say childish things, but you must be competing for a new record. A husband can be replaced?? How about a father? Can that be replaced. Do you have any idea how many of those "army wives" must sit down with their children and rattle the shattered pieces of her heart to explain why they don't have a daddy anymore? You are clueless.

How dare you imply that any military family is expendable. You haven't known everything about a mother's suffering until you've watched your youngest child squeel with joy and run to a stranger in the parking lot that just happens to be wearing the same uniform. You've obviously never tried to comfort that crushed child either.

You see, Donna, that wasn't that child's father(who by the way left last Thanksgiving at 3am). It was a stranger. That baby's father is in Kuwait, Korea, Bosnia, Kosovo, Japan, or in who knows what other shithole or nightmare you aren't allowed to hear about yet. While you read this he is guarding a mass gravesite in subzero sleet, entering his 40th hour without sleep on a mountain patrol, inhaling scorching dust laced with parasites, or losing a battle with severe fever on a frozen flightline cause there's not enough men like him to go around anymore. He is honoring an oath to defend freedom. He is defending his homeland from monsters that would rape, kill, and burn all that he loves. And so shall he remain for as long as there is air in his corrupted lungs. He's been writing letters home appologizing about silly things that happened five years ago. He sent home a will. He won't say why he's terrified or what he saw, but that baby's mom doesn't need to know details. She KNOWS.

And yet she never misses a step. She wipes away the baby's tears and her own with tired fingers that have gotten way too used to doing so. She picks up the pieces for that baby and puts everything back together the best way she can. It might be broken, but she makes it work anyway. In just a few moments she becomes more of a mother than many women will be in a lifetime.

That is an Army wife. That is an Air Force wife. That is a Marine wife. That is a Navy wife.

She will never recieve a medal for her courage. She will never be called a hero for her valor. No walls will ever be built for her sacrifices.

All she asked for was that her husband be allowed to watch their children grow. The most she wished for was have him hold her just once more before he got on that plane.

All she can do is send pictures. The most she will get is a crumpled letter with muddy fingerprints. At the worst she will get a flag to put with those letters that she may have to read to those babys one day.

Still, she never even flinches.

Why is that? Maybe it's because she mends the cracks in her heart by caring for other people. Maybe she allows no other option. Maybe her and her husband are cut from the same stone: relentless and determined to overcome.

Maybe she's just made of something you're not.

Don't mess with our military wives. They handle bigger problems than you every single day.

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