c Frontline
“No! We are not going above the clouds.” ! “Is the air thinner below the clouds?” ! “No.”!
“Why not?”! AAAAARGGHHHH! Silent screaming.! “I know, why don’t you ask Daddy these questions, when we get off,” I politely, patiently and calmly suggested. …
…Seamlessly executed and exhilarating. It was great. A real treat and something for which we are truly grateful. Thank you so much RAF Odiham.
Do women watch war films? October 8, 2010: … I feel like I have been embedded with the RAF for the last 10 years. An anthropological observer, trying to understand and navigate the plethora of unwritten codes of conduct and expectation. Up until last year, when Hagar was deployed, I would bury my head in the sand, crack open the wine, count up to the middle and down again until he came home, whilst avoiding the news as much as possible. I didn’t even want to look at the war. In the 12 years we have been together he has been to Northern Ireland, Sierra Leone, Bosnia, Iraq (approx 4 times) and Afghanistan (approx 4 times) – although, to be honest, I lose count.
The tempo of ops for all the Chinook guys and gals is high. In fact, Hagar was awarded a Mention-In-Despatches after one deployment for some darring-do. It was difficult to know what to say, how to support him because his ‘away journey’ was one I could never understand. There wasn’t a break for either of us. It’s hard to explain it. The bouncing apart and coming back together, with profound life changing experiences happening in an unknown country, with ramifications, and meanings, that aren’t everyday dinner conversations, are hard to put into words, and so, often, he didn’t. He just brooded and found his own way back to us, whilst I watched, and waited in the eaves of his darkness, for the unravelling to occur.
In September 2008, I began researching, and writing, a battlefield memoir about the role of the Chinooks, in Afghanistan, and in the British Armed Forces. Suddenly, I was forced to confront head-on a subject matter that I had been purposefully ignoring. ..
The cost of a wife December 15, 2010: If I died Hagar couldn’t deploy. He would have to stop flying. We have two kids. He would be responsible for them.
www.raf-ff.org.uk
Clare Macnaughton, a modern military mother, has gone to print with her first book about the life, reflections and rants of a military wife. No holds barred, it is sometimes funny, sometimes sad and sometimes crazy, the book is described as a literary, light snack.
My mum died in 1974. I was 2 years old. My dad hadn’t insured her. He had insured himself to the hilt in case of his own death so that she wouldn’t go without but he had under-valued the impact of her role in the advent of her death. We have talked about this since.
It wasn’t a malicious act. Maybe it was a reflection of the attitude at the time. Her death was unexpected. It was sudden and tragic. He was left solely in charge of me. He had to sacrifice his blossoming career to raise me…
Not so long ago, I was having a cuppa with a milly wife, whose husband had deployed for six months and she said to me something along the lines of, ‘my other half doesn’t mind if I don’t work because it would cost £24,000 in childcare if I wasn’t around.’ I nearly choked on my brew! And the rest! …
...The taxpayer has invested well over £3 million pounds to keep Hagar operational and current so that he can deliver his role at the sharpest end of the pointiest bit of the conflict. Once you are a father you have responsibilities to your children that are solely yours and the mother of your children. It shouldn’t be underestimated the value of the role the supporting parent gives to the Service to enable the serving parents to deploy and fight for their country.
I can only say what I see in my own home but Hagar loves his job. He wants to deploy and he wants to serve his country. It’s not for me to stop him and I support him without complaining (I truly do!) But, honestly, I do think the partners are paid lip service to by the military…
Hagar doesn’t even see half the stuff that gets done in our house. In fact, he once made the mistake of arguing that he did 50% of the domestic chores. ‘Interesting!’ I thought.! ‘I know’ I said, ‘I have an idea. You write down a list of all the jobs that need to be done and then put a percentage next to it indicating how the jobs are divvied up.’
Hagar was feeling pretty bullish at this point. He was fairly confident that he was going to prove his point and the status quo that he was aiming for would return. But alas, it was not to be so because the reality was when he formed the list he omitted at least 50% of the jobs because he didn’t even know that those jobs were being done in the first place!...
Has Hagar gone? [To Afghanistan] July 2, 2011: Hasn’t he? Maybe he has. Maybe he hasn’t. The exact timings don’t matter. What matters is how we all feel. How does he feel? How do I feel? How do the kids feel? Everyone has their way of handling their life and we have ours. Hagar and I have always agreed that there will be no big goodbyes. Just business as usual. To us this is business as usual.
From my perspective, I have one life and I want to live it to the full. I can’t waste energy I can’t spare on things I can’t control. I can’t control what happens in Afghanistan and I can’t worry about what I can’t control. ‘Que sera sera’, sang Doris Day. Hagar knows his onions. He will be the best he can be. He knows what is at stake. He said to his guys; ‘success to me is that we come back with as many as we go out with’.
What do I think? I want him to be vigilant at all times. To come home again. It is tiring though being strong, putting your head down, digging in and pushing through – again and again and again and again and again. I can’t sit still, rocking under the table waiting for him to come home. We all have a life to live. A life to celebrate, so, I think I am just going to work, dance and drink through it and keep my kids smiling. I’ll tell them that daddy is at work and when they say; “I miss daddy.” I’ll smile and say, “I miss daddy too.“
We don’t make a big thing of it to the kids, Daddy is away. They don’t know where he has gone or what he is doing. This is just normal. Daddy’s here sometimes and sometimes he’s not; that’s just the way it is.
Away is just away. My kids deserve a childhood free of anxiety wherever possible. I believe that my job is to protect them from the reality of war and give them a carefree childhood full of love and possibilities. They will have adulthood to contend with eventually…
A Modern Military Mother – Tales from the Domestic Frontline Warning: The book contains bad language and adult humour.
Clare’s book is available from Amazon UK kindle Price £2.58, Amazon UK Paperback Price £3.75
ClareMacnaughton.com
Envoy Summer 2013 17
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