Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Deployment Question #25--The old fashioned letter

Do you write your husband when he is deployed?

Only email?

Just wait for phone calls?

IM?

My husband is usually not in a great location, so our internet time and phone time is very limited, maybe once every week or two for about ten minutes.

I do write letters, but not as often as I should because I always choose deployments as a time to make major life changes, you know, like have a baby or change careers.

This time, I might actually be able to keep up with letters. 

Does your husband write back?  

Gunner is pretty good about writing, sometimes.  Maybe once he reads this post, he will realize how important those letters are to me.  Nothing can change my day like a letter.  Sure emails are great, and a lot of time if I have a question it is time sensitive and I need a reply.  But nothing replaces that letter.

My friend Peggy came up with a solution for the kids that works well too.  She sends Gunner pre-addressed postcards to mail back to the kids.  He tears out three, writes a short note, and then sends them off courtesy of free mail.  I collect them on the other end and hand them out once they all arrive so no one is left out.  

They carry them around, tuck them into their books as bookmarks, hang them on their wall, or just read them over and over and over.  Emails don't have the same effect on them.

So how many letters do you write?  (I will probably be lucky to do one every week or two, seriously, no major changes, yet, but there are still three kiddos to take care of!)

Will he write back?

How do you handle correspondence with the kids?

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

My hubster wasn't in the greatest of places when he deployed last. I tried to write him old fashioned letters (harder to do than it was when he was in boot camp for some reason!) but they would take forever to get to him, or they would be filled with stuff that I had already mentioned. Kinda sad. And he didn't send anything back because they couldn't send mail, that really sucked! I would have loved to get a card or something on my birthday or our anniversary, or just because. But whatever!

I might just have to steal that postcard idea from you for our daughter, she would flip if daddy sent her mail from there!

Anonymous said...

I only heard from my husband every 7 or so days and for only 15 minutes at a time.

We wrote letters. Sometimes I wrote him every day, sometimes once a week, it depended on what was going on in my life. He did not write as often to me. I think I only got four or five letters from him in the whole deployment. And he never responded to my emails because he only got enough time at the internet center to read his email, not respond.

Towards the end of the deployment, he moved bases and was able to get internet in his room. We were able to skype (but not often because the connection wasn't great) and we were able to use an internet phone to talk more often.

It was really kind of tough to communicate regularly.

Anonymous said...

I wrote my husband a lot while he was deployed. There is something sweet about receieving a handwritten note. It really is a lost art.

Then on the days we couldn't talk because he was on a mission or phones were down he could still be up to dat of what we all were up to.

It is neat to see how to through email, phone, and a letter how we express ourselves differently in each respect.

It meant a lot to me when he wrote me. I could re-read those letters again and again. It encouraged me and when I was having a rough day it reminded me of how much he loved me.

Have a great day!

Unknown said...

I just know with every separation (we haven't had the big D yet) I write every day. I would mail off two days at a time and he always wrote back although I would get his every 12 days or so. I don't have kiddies but those post cards are such a great idea!

Andrea@Sgt and Mrs Hub said...

I went to Target and I bought a ton of bright pink envelopes and wrote a little love note every day. Just one or two lines. He got razzed by the guys about getting letters in bright pink envelopes but he told me he loved it. He always could tell when he got mail :) When I realized that he was sometimes getting them in groups instead of separately on a consistent basis, I started dated the envelope.

I wrote him longer letters once in awhile and he wrote back once in awhile. But I know for a fact that getting those little love letters were the bright spot in his day.

As for the kids, he wrote them post cards and letters quite frequently. And since we were working our way through the alphabet each week, he would send them a little gift that corresponded with that weeks letter. It seemed to keep them connected on a day to day level because they could tell he was paying attention to what was going on in their everyday life.

-Andrea

Andrea@Sgt and Mrs Hub said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
"Gypsy at Heart" said...

When I was a kid and my military dad was deployed, I treasured every letter from him. There were not many and they all said pretty much the same thing, but to know he was thinking of me meant the world to me. We didn't have the instant communications you do now and he was never in an area where phones were available, handwritten letters were special. I still have those letters, tied up with ribbon, resting in my box of treasures.

Wiley said...

I'm pretty lucky in that DM is in a place where he can (and does) call me almost every day. But I still write a lengthy letter to him every week. I love writing letters, it's a way for me to process things and I feel like I communicate better in a letter sometimes.
But DM has only written me back once. It makes me sad and frustrated and I have begged him to write more, but he's just not a writer. He sometimes answers my emails but again, more often than not, I feel like I'm writing into the ether.

Still, I know he enjoys the letters, even if he says he doesn't get a chance to read them sometimes.