I feel that I’ve been really lucky to have Erik working in battalion full of guys who married great ladies. I truly look forward to all the gatherings that someone, somewhere along the line affectionately termed “mandatory fun”, because I really value the friendships that I’ve built with the ladies of the BN and I love to be around them. I don’t know what I’d do without some of the ladies I’ve met and the friendships I’ve made. Like I said, I’ve been really lucky.
Now it’s my experience that the period of transition that deployment brings doesn’t really end when the deployment is over. After you’ve welcome back your loved one, you have to start saying goodbye to others that you love. People leave the Army, they move, you move, and there you are saying goodbye again.
Now it’s true, the Army is a surprisingly small entity and chances are we’ll cross paths again, but that doesn’t make goodbye any easier. And have I ever told you how much I hate saying goodbye? I’d sooner just leave unannounced. As you may know, I’m a crier.
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Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes. ~Henry David Thoreau
