Input Desired

So, another person has written a complaining letter about one of Michelle's articles. Like the girl doesn't have enough problems on her hands with a job, a 6 month old, and a husband deployed. I am planning on sending in my own letter in support of Michelle. I mostly just changed what I wrote about her articles back in August, but I updated it and changed it to 350 words or less (that is really not very long at all!) I just want input, so I don't sound whiney or dumb or whatever. So, here it is:

When my husband and I were planning our family, we knew that he was going to miss a year of that baby’s life. We knew that in 2005, he would be deploying to Iraq. For that year, we were prepared. He left when our baby daughter was 7 weeks old. When we were given the news in July that he would not be coming home as expected, we were devastated. While trying to find the positive side of this extension, we truly struggled. There were days where I could only count my grievances and all the moments that had been stolen from us. God had not abandoned us, though, and sent me friends that have helped me remember the blessings in my life.

A couple of times since the extension, someone has complained about Michelle’s articles. There is a war in Iraq. Not a single military member or their spouse needs to be reminded of that. For those of us whose husbands are deployed we can hardly think of anything else. Our empty houses remind us constantly. More than others, we know that all soldiers are not coming back. We've been to their memorial services and cried with their families. We lie awake at night, worrying about our husbands, praying that they will come home safely. Sometimes Michelle does write about things that are trivial. Because, in order to survive, we can't always think about the war in Iraq. Sometimes, we just miss our husbands. Sometimes, we just want someone else to hold the crying baby. And, sometimes we want a hand to hold while watching TV or another person to help finish off the chocolate chip cookies.

As we are going on fourteen plus months in this deployment, thank you, Michelle, for writing your articles. Thank you for reminding everyone how we can help others in the military community. Thank you for making me cry as you wrote about the same things I am going through. But, most of all, thank you for making me laugh. I needed that.