Singin' Waimanalo Blues

Ever have an almost perfect day?

I'm not talking about a perfect day - there are lots of those. I'm not talking about the kind of day where everything was fantastic, right up until cousin Jimmy puked in the punchbowl - those happen with alarming regularity. The kind of day I'm talking about is the day where everything works beautifully, and everyone has a fantastic time, and the whole thing would be absolutely perfect, except for some little nagging detail in the background, sitting not quite entirely out of sight.

That was yesterday.

Our little clan headed out to Bellows Air Force Base for a party yesterday. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this particular Defense Department facility, it sits right on Waimanalo Bay, on the Windward Coast of Oahu. Waimanalo Bay is one of those places that photographs just can't capture. It's lined by an absolutely beautiful white sand beach, and backed by the green wall of the Ko'olau Pali. In the five years that we've lived in Hawai'i, we've been out there dozens of times, and it's always been beautiful there. Yesterday was no exception. It was raining inland, and the Pali were shrouded by mists, but it was mostly sunny on the beach, and it was so clear over the ocean that Molokai was clearly visible on the horizon.

The party was fantastic. There were games for the kids - of all ages. Someone had brought a small PA system and a bunch of CDs, and the music was well-chosen for a beach party. There was plenty of good food, good drink, and good company. The waves on the beach were great - high enough for halfway-decent bodysurfing, but small enough for the little ones to get into the water. The picnic pavilion where the party was set up was all of about 50 feet from the water, making it nice and easy to jump in and out.

Despite all of this, the crowd at the party just didn't seem to be having as much fun as you might expect. Things were just a bit more subdued than usual. The games didn't attract that much attention, not all the food got eaten, and the drinkers were downright quiet. There was an eight hundred pound gorilla sitting in the corner, and everyone knew it.

The party was being thrown by the 2nd Battalion of the 25th Aviation Regiment, US Army, and it was the farewell bash for the unit. There were lots of families there, and every single one of them will shortly be split up for the next year - if all goes well. If all doesn't go well, some of the separations could be for much, much longer. We all know that, and we all did our damndest to ignore it for the day. Nobody talked about deployment much - the only real public mention came during the commander's remarks opening the thing, when he said that he was looking forward to seeing everyone back in about a year for the welcome home party.

But everyone knew that deployment is rapidly approaching. For most of us, it's not the first. In fact, for the families of most of the unit's officers, including our family, this will be the second prolonged deployment in three years - the unit was in Afghanistan from April of 2004 until April of 05. For some of the more senior pilots and crew chiefs, this will be their third or fourth yearlong deployment since 2001. The deployment thing is getting pretty old, pretty fast. The gorilla in the corner has become familiar, but it's not welcome.

Unfortunately, it's not likely to go away anytime soon. The Army is not a large institution today, particularly considering what is being demanded from it. The administration has repeatedly declined to expand the force, mostly due to financial considerations - heaven forbid, after all, that they give up their record as the only administration to cut taxes during a time of war. The Army is going to stay small, and the chances of the deployment tempo decreasing don't look all that great, at least from where I'm sitting. That means, of course, that the same people are going to keep getting sent out over and over again.

Welcome to my family's world. My wife is a career officer, and still owes the Army the better part of a decade in compensation for her undergraduate and medical education. She's missed our son's birthday due to training or deployment for the last two years, and will miss it again when he turns seven in a few weeks. This is family life in the Army of One. I'll be writing more about it in the coming weeks and months.