Love it and know the feeling all to well. I met my daughter for the first time when she was 4 months old. I left for Kuwait Jan 2003, she was born March 2003, I came home from Iraq June 2003.

I will forever feel a sense of loss for not being home for her at the very beginning. She's grown into a brilliant and strong young woman, so she did alright without me for a bit.

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The secret of a long life is you try not to shorten it.
-Nobody

While family separation is a fact of life in all service branches, it's particularly acute in the naval service, meaning the Navy and Marine Corps combat team. I salute our Sailors and Marines who understand this reality and yet stick it out for deployment after deployment.

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

As a parent, it hurts my heart for the parents who leave their young children to serve our country. I really get torn up when I see a photo of a mother in uniform leaving her young children.

I grew up in an Air Force family. My Mom didn't take well to the extended absences of my Dad, especially since she had three small kids. They divorced when I was 9. It was especially hard on me because my Dad and I were close in spite of the absences.

Like you, I appreciate what many of our servicemen and women go through to serve. My brother did three tours in Iraq and Afghanistan as convoy security. He now has a serious case of PTSD.

Greg

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If you are a Canuck that engages in gratuitous bashing of the US, you are probably on my Iggy List. So, save your self a bunch of typing a response unless you also feel the need to gratuitously bash me. If so, have fun.
"Don't underestimate Joe's ability to f___ things up" - Barack Obama, 2020

God bless every single one of them. Whenever I start getting crotchety -- as all old vets do on occasion -- about things life throws at me, I remind myself of these men and women who leave their children and spouses behind to go and keep the rest of us safe.

That's my "STFU AND QUIT COMPLAINING, YOU UNGRATEFUL BASTARD!!" moment.

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

Man, it sure is dusty in here...

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Travis Rassat
Vector Cycle Works
Noblesville, IN
BikeFit Instructor | FMS | F.I.S.T. | IBFI
Toughman Triathlon Series Ambassador

Great picture of the kid.

I know. That's what caught my eye. They say all babies are happy, but this one was definitely on top of the world at that moment in time. Great to see. :-)

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

I hope he's being well taken care of by our VA. He has the prayers of my wife and I backing him up, for what it's worth.

I've got a battle buddy here, locally. He's "ate up," as we say. I count myself blessed every single day that I'm not dealing with the issues he and your brother are dealing with.

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

Hey, a lowly ET3... that was me back in about '91-93. Except we waited to try and start our fam for a couple more years until just before I got out, hoping to time it so that the expense of pre-natal care & delivery was covered but then we wouldn't have to face what they just did.

Of course, we 'failed' (er, didn't succeed?) until just after I got out, so that belongs in some other thread about gov't subsidized health care...

Hahahahaha! Believe it or not, but I was once a "lowly" HM3 way back in the day (13/14 years before you ascended to that exalted rank. :-) Don't know anything about a fam, because I was a single E4, E5 (that was the BEST paygrade to be single at, LOL!), E6 and E7 (and then single O1E, etc.). Good times, noodle salad.

But I used to see the faces of my shipmates and my Marines (as a Navy Doc privileged to serve with the Marine Corps) on those deployments and on holidays when they had to stand the watch, or miss this or that important milestones in their kids' lives and you could see how it tore many of them up. God bless all of them, is all I'll say.

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."