Courage after Fire: Coping Stategies for Returning Soldiers and Their Families Book

This book was a good read. I should have probably read it sooner but it's possible it was more useful once we hit rock bottom (6 months post deployment). Everyone prepares you, tells you it's going to be hard, tells you it won't be bad until you're through the honeymoon period, tells you have no idea what you're in for. They're all right. The pain before the deployment and during the deployment is nothing compared to post deployment. You're thrown back together and expected to be so happy, so thankful and when you're not you can't help but feel like you're failing.

Your solider is like a person on a sinking boat in the middle of the lake who doesn't know how to swim and you yourself can't swim and rescue them but you have to watch as they suffer. The good for me with this book was realizing while we're in this personal hell right now it could be a lot worse. Sometimes it is easy to lose that perspective when you're in the middle of the post deployment hell of trying to heal and readjust. What really breaks my heart is how many other families are out there in sinking boats just like us.

I read this book and took a lot of good from it. Keep yourself healthy, take care of your kids, support the solider, provide a peaceful supportive environment even when they're trying like crazy to thwart you and burn it down, exercise, eat right, see a therapist on your own to talk about the ridiculous amount of weight crushing you from housing a solider who has returned from a combat zone while trying to run your household and hide from the kids what is going on. My solider fell into the Anger category. The more you hold it together the more they will try to undermine it unknowingly while processing their feelings. Go into this knowing that is what is going on and it will aide you in keeping a level head and being able to carry on with your job as wife, mother, employee, person who keeps the world on it's axis while being the support they need.

I can't tell you enough how important it is to go to therapy yourself. You need to stay mentally healthy so you can be the rock while they get healthy. You need to keep everything together so they can carry on the important work they need to do mentally and physically. The better you do this the less likely they will be to break down at work, break down at home, go through the worst stages in the lowest places.

No one can tell you what it's going to be like afterward, it's something you have to go through. You don't want them to anyways, you might never make it through the deployment if you knew. Just know we're all out there doing the same thing. Most people probably won't get it. Cling to those who do and confide in them, lean on them, and thank them.

After you're done reading this book make your solider read it. If you think a time comes when they need to read it again make them read it again. If a time comes you need one of the resources in the back of the book use those resources, they're there for you to use, it's the purpose of their existence.

Good Luck.