He’s Only On Loan

If I could travel back in time and tell my newlywed self something, it would be this: “He’s only on loan.”

Like any new bride, I was fiercely jealous of the time I had to spend with Big Sarge. After we took a week-long honeymoon, it was back to the military for both of us. Big Sarge had what you would call “regular Army” hours—up early for PT, work until 1700, come home. I had what you would call “Army cook” hours. Sometimes I’d have to be in the dining facility at 0430 and I’d work until 1400. Other days I’d go in for regular PT hours, then report to work at 1000 to get off work at 2000.

I knew we would spend the night together, and that’s about as much as I could count on. I found myself looking forward to the day I would get pulled out of the dining facility to start deployment preparations, because at least then Big Sarge and I would be on the same schedule.

After our deployment to Iraq (another story in itself), after the post-deployment stuff was done, we found ourselves in our previously mentioned schedules again.

It was a little more difficult that time around, since we only had the one car. Throw in random pregnancy appointments, and it’s a wonder we saw each other at all!

But once my time in the military was up, and I was staying at home all day, the concept of “he’s only on loan” would have really come in handy. Back in those halcyon days of our youth, the worst I had to deal with was the occasional CQ duty or annual Joint Logistics Over The Shore, which would take Big Sarge TDY for a week or so.

How naive I was! I just closed my eyes to the knowledge that the more time you have in the military, the more time the military requires of you.

These days, Big Sarge leaves the house at 0530. He usually gets home at 1900. On “family days,” he gets home at 1700. While he doesn’t have to pull CQ anymore, he does have to field phone calls from the MP station at 3 a.m. After we get done seeing a movie, he turns on his phone to at least 10 text messages. “I need to take care of this” is his mantra.

And I love him for it.

Big Sarge wants to make his soldiers the best soldiers, and if loaning him and his time to the military is what it takes, then that’s what I’ll do. Sometimes I just wish that it didn’t feel like he’s on loan to me instead of the military.

This time won’t last forever, I know. One day Big Sarge will retire, and I’ll be shoving him out of the house because he needs to do something besides hang out with me. But until that day comes, I’m going to claim all the time I can get with him.

Hold all my calls.

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Retired Blogger

Retired Blogger

Army Wife Network is blessed with many military spouses who share their journey through writing in our Experience blog category. As we PCS in our military journey, bloggers too sometimes move on. Their content and contributions are still valued and resourceful. Those posts are reassigned under "Retired Bloggers" in order to allow them to remain available as content for our AWN fans.

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