River City

There's this thing in the world of military deployments. It's called River City. No, it's not a place. It's a term. A word used for an event that seems to be happening all too much for my taste this deployment.

River City means that all communication to the outside world is cut... for half a day.. a day.. a few days.. a week. It depends. Depends on the situation. Communication is cut to the outside world because a military person in the near vicinity has died and they don't want the family to find out through a random email or phone call. Instead, they wait until the family has been informed officially through the military and then communication goes back up and River City comes to an end.

During Michael's past deployments River City occurred once or twice. Nothing too horrendous. But, that was Iraq. Now that he's in Afghanistan? He goes into River City at least every other week if not weekly.

Last night, after being in River City for 2 days, he finally got the chance to call me. I asked him why they go into River City so much. He said because people keep dying. I said they need to stop dying.

Of course, I said that because I don't want to be out of communication with my husband for a week at a time. I don't want to wonder for days on end what the heck is going on and why I haven't heard from him. I'm being selfish though. Instead, I should be thanking my lucky stars that I'm not the one getting the official call from the military with the worst news imaginable.

I am counting my lucky stars that my husband has the desk job, not the going out into towns and doing dangerous things job. Believe me, though. I know he's not totally safe. I mean, I only need to be reminded of this fact every single time his communication goes down. He's in a dangerous place. But to be totally honest with you? My brain is physically unable to even GO THERE. This is why when he goes into River City I get annoyed and angry that another person has died and caused me to lose communication with my husband.

This is selfish of me, yes I know. But more than selfishness, it is survival pure and simple.