It has been 3 years since my husband was honorably discharged from the United States Army. Though 3 years have passed, I can still remember the feel of his ACU’s, shopping at the PX, getting the news of 24 hour staff duty and the endless amounts of equipment packed into his rucksack. Sometimes I have moments when I feel as if I am still in the military world and that eventually he will get called for duty but thankfully he made the decision to come home forever.

As many other Americans, I have a loved one who has served. My husband, Zachary Hayes, first joined the United Sates Army in 2007 at the age of 19. He served over 6 years as a Fire Support Specialist (13F), ending his military career as a sergeant in 2013. Over the course of those 6 plus years he has accomplished many strides to include getting his airborne wings, being top of his class in the JFO Course and being top of his class during WLC. I have had the honor of attending each of his promotions starting from private first class to sergeant.

In 2010, Zach was called for duty to serve one year in Iraq. Up until this point we had been very fortunate to have not been called up. But that’s the thing with being enlisted; you never know when your time will come. I always try to imagine what it was like for my husband to be on the other side of the world not knowing what tomorrow will bring. The fear he experienced and the loneliness he must have felt. How does one get through not just one day but 365 days of this? He once described his tour as being like the movie “Ground Hog Day”. He had the same rotation every day. He’d see the same faces, the same open desert, the same CHU’s (housing units-pronounced “chews”) and eat the same food at the chow hall. Read more…