My Hero

My husband is my hero.

Most of the time we do day in and day out stuff and I don't really sit down to think about it. However, I've seen him do some things that just amaze me.

I remember being at church one Sunday morning and they asked the veterans and members of the armed forces to stand so they could honor them. This was most likely around Veteran's Day or 4th of July or something. I nudged him to stand, after all, he HAS been serving active duty for over 19 years. He refused to do it, absolutely refused. I joked like I was going to push him up. He adamantly shook his head no.

When we left, I asked him why he didn't want to stand and wasn't he proud of the job he's done because I know I am! He said to me, "Honey, I don't do my job for glory or honor. I do it because I know it's the right thing to do." Those two simple sentences blew me away.

It reminds me of the Toby Keith song American Soldier. (Ok, mine's an airman, but still.) The lyrics say:

I'm just trying to be a father,
Raise a daughter and a son,
Be a lover to their mother,
Everything to everyone.
Up and at 'em bright and early,
I'm all business in my suit,
Yeah, I'm dressed for success from my head down to my boots,
I don't do it for money, there's still bills that I can't pay,
I don't do it for the glory, I just do it anyway,
Providing for our future's my responsibility,
Yeah I'm real good under pressure, being all that I can be,
And I can't call in sick on Mondays when the weekends been too strong,
I just work straight through the holidays,
And sometimes all night long.
You can bet that I stand ready when the wolf growls at the door,
Hey, I'm solid, hey I'm steady, hey I'm true down to the core,
And I will always do my duty, no matter what the price,
I've counted up the cost, I know the sacrafice,
Oh, and I don't want to die for you,
But if dyin's asked of me,
I'll bear that cross with an honor,
'Cause freedom don't come free.
I'm an american soldier, an american,
Beside my brothers and my sisters I will proudly take a stand,
When liberty's in jeopardy I will always do what's right,
I'm out here on the front lines, sleep in peace tonight.
American soldier, I'm an American,
An American,
An American Soldier

My husband is my hero.

My husband gets up at 5am every morning and sometimes doesn't come home until after 7pm at night. On Saturdays, he gets the boys going and helps them do chores around the house on Saturday and REFUSES to let me help out because he knows that's a work day for me. Sometimes he has to go out to base on Saturdays too, but he still makes sure all the chores are done before he goes.

Every once in awhile the base has exercises and my husband may work a night shirt or he may work a day shift. When he works night shifts, he switches to nights in one day and works 12 hour shifts all night long. He then comes home and tries to still be a good dad and a good husband. Then he has one day to turn his sleeping schedule around to report back to work at normal time a day later. I tell him it amazes me because I don't think I could do it! We're getting too old for that!

He has supported my every dream. When we first met, I was going to school for pre-veterinary medicine. He supported that dream for me until we found out we couldn't get moved off of this base. We were trying to get closer to a school that offered a DVM degree. So he told me to take the rest of the semester of school off and decide what my second dream would be. I didn't even hesitate when I told him I'd love to open an LNS. He told me to start with fabrics first and see how that went.

One day this weekend, he turned to me and said, "Honey, you make me look good at work." I said, "Why? I don't do anything!" He said, "EXACTLY!" LOL But he went on to explain that some spouses have a difficult time with deployments or start making trouble for their husbands and that I allow him to do his job and I'M the reason he gets his stripes. How about that for a compliment?

My husband is my hero!