You And I Are Through

My wife and I had been married about 7 years and my son at the time would have been five. Though Id been active duty Army our entire marriage, we had been very fortunate up to this point. We had never been separated for more than a month at a time, when the army would drag my unit out to the woods to play soldier, or out to the warhead bunkers where we would stand a months rotation guarding things that made very big booms when dropped. Well, that luck run out in 1994 when I was sent to Camp Carol Korea for a year. As Korea is still technically a war zone, you are not allowed to take your family with you. My wife and I have always been close and being apart for an entire year was one of the worst things we have ever gone through. Toward the end of that year, the government had decided that the Military was far too large and began offering career soldiers a fairly large amount of money to get out of the service. To say I was torn with indecision would be a huge understatement. I was tired of being away from my family. I was tired of my Son growing up with out his father around. I was tired of being dragged out into the woods for weeks to alternately roast and freeze my butt off. On the other hand, I was proud of my career, and I had 12 years under my belt toward the 20 needed to draw a paycheck and free medical from the Government for the rest of my life. Thats not something you throw away lightly and even now, 14 years later, I can often get sick to my stomach wondering if ...