We hear or see news of our military personnel being deployed to some Middle East hot spot or of a unit rotating home from there or from South Korea, perhaps. We see on TV the happy reunions at an airport or seaport. As a veteran of plus 20 years I went through those life transforming episodes. When one is single one family is primarily involved, but if married, then two or three families come into play. You will separate for long months from your spouse, if they cannot go, or your parents. If you can carry your spouse overseas you are fortunate.
My first tour as an enlisted man in the US Air Force began soon after my marriage, a year serving in the Third Bomb Group near Kunsan, Korea. We had been engaged for some time but when we decided to get married the Air Force rudely interrupted our short honeymoon and I was gone for a year. Here is where some marriages in the service don’t last long. However, I was blessed with a wife who loved me but also believed in a lifelong commitment.
Florine and I were fortunate to be able to be together on a three year assignment to Luzon Island in the Philippines. It was a great learning experience for us, I think, and there we got into some mission work among the Filipinos that gave added maturity and purpose to our lives. I see it as a time that decided whether I was to drift through life with little purpose and depth or was we were to dare to test the spiritual realm that ties this life to the eternity that waits for each person.
Another test came when our daughter Amy was about three years old, and I received orders for Vietnam. It was tough to leave such sweet female companions. Florine and Amy remained in a rental house near my folks in Rabun County, Georgia, while my last venture to the Far East occurred. I could easily write a book about that experience. I can say here I had more spiritual and physical depth to help through this separation and the eventful tour among the Central Highlands of Vietnam.
I thought how my flight by chartered jet to Saigon from California was so different from my first voyage to Korea by troop transport ship. The 13 day journey, including a bout with a hurricane, was another episode to my various phases of life. Except being in uniform, the jet flight to Vietnam was similar to civilian travel. Here I will say this last tour overseas was an experience that was close to being my last one, but the Lord has a purpose to be played out in one’s life that we sometimes view with amazement or even awe.
In 22 years of service I was on only three overseas tours. Stateside changes were too frequent, but were still in the good old USA! Korea and Vietnam were surely enough for me, but many of our troops today are deployed multiple times into places of danger and hardships. I am proud of them and believe they are the best in the world. The frequency of deployment and stress takes its toll on them. We must pray for our troops and their families and support them to the fullest. With the mounting problems in the world we need to maintain the most capable and ready military force possible. Let us pray daily for them and also for our leaders, both civilian and military.
