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Practically everyone in this nation has heard the stories of our military coming home with PTSD, or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Actually depending on your age you may know it as Post Traumatic Shock Disorder or Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. The name changes from year to year, but unfortunately, the symptoms do not.

My husband served in Beirut, Lebanon in 1983 when the Marine Barracks was bombed killing 241 servicemen, many were his friends. The day he came home on the ship after that horrible event, I could see it in his eyes. The man I married was gone, left behind in Beirut, in the rubble where the bombing took place. His body was with me, but yet his soul was lost in between our own life and what had happened in Beirut.

25 years later, he is still out there, standing in that same spot in Beirut, waiting for answers he never received.

I had my husband for 3 short years before he was gutted by terrorism, his very soul robbed in the night when that terrorist drove his truck into the front of the Marine Barracks. 3 short years out of 28. I have lived with him hoping that some day, he will return to me. The man I married who was so full of life, hopes and dreams.

The first 10 years after the bombing were the worst, but by no means has it been easy since then. The strength we had to survive life’s little jokes had diminished. We found ourselves falling into a pit of deception towards each other to numb what had happened. To give ourselves an alternate answer as to why we no longer felt the same way within our unity together. Things had changed drastically.

I remember the very first time he went on a 6 month cruise. It was a feeling that is hard to put into words unless you have been through it. Almost any woman who is married to a military man has had to endure time spent alone, waiting for and worrying about her husband, and this is what causes what happened to me.

I found myself finding any reason at all to be mad at him, picking fights over silly things that I would ordinarily not even think twice about. I couldn’t control it. Even though I felt terrible after my explosions towards him, I somehow also felt better.
Then one day I spoke with another wife of a sailor and she explained to me what I was going through, why I was acting the way I did. Apparently it was commonplace for Navy couples to argue alot right before a cruise. It somehow helped them to disjoint themselves from one another, making it easier to leave or be left alone without sorrow or pain. Although it saddened me, it made sense and became a tradition from then on when he went on other cruises.