I arrived in Germany mid October of 1983.  It was very long flight from Eastern Washington, and then to St Louis to catch a Military Airlift Command (MAC) chartered 747 to Frankfurt.  I left Washington at 07:00 one day and arrived in Frankfurt at 09:00 the next. Talk about being beat.  I was scared as well as tired. Here I was for the first time in my life overseas and by myself again.  I was getting use to being by myself somewhat from the training courses I had just been through during the past summer.   As many times in my career I tried to explain this loneliness to Susan she simply did not want to talk about it or didn’t care, at this point in time in my life it is easier to believe that she simply didn’t care.  During this tour and only 4 years into our marriage I was about to learn many things about her that I never knew and to this day will never understand about her.  

            For me I loved being with my family and missed sharing the experiences I was having with the people that I was so close too.  Sure I had friends that I made but it was not the same.  Maybe this will help explain it, I knew that the friends I had in the military were temporary even though I could get closer to them than any other friends I ever knew and we would die for each other we always parted ways at some point in time when we moved to the next duty station.  What ever experiences we had together would forever be locked into our own memories with no one we could share a “War Story” with that could relate in any way to what we were talking about.   Many of you that know me know full well I am full of old “War Stories” that I can get very excited about but the excitement fades because I know I can be pretty boring at times since you simply have no reference point what so ever to what I am saying.  For that I do apologize I do try harder now not to bring up old stories, but alas I am an old soldier and I do live alone my friends from the Army all live very far away and I have no family anymore to share family memories with.  Enough of the depressing thoughts as a soldier I do cope and as a Christian I always have God to talk to and He remembers better than I do and will always listen to me. 

            Shortly before I left Washington my duty station was changed and so was my unit of assignment in Germany.   I was originally scheduled to report to the 26^th Signal Battalion in Heilbron, West Germany and was traded before I got there to the 249^th Engineer Battalion in Karlsruhe, West Germany.   I was not exactly happy about this change, a signal battalion was where I was best trained and suited to be, I had spent my whole time in the Signal Corps and all my training there as well.  The 26^th Signal Battalion was even using all the new Tri-Tac equipment that I did the operational tests for before it was fielded when I was at Fort Huachuca.  Not to mention that a signal officer in a combat battalion only had a survival rate of 25%, not being killed physically but in your career.     Three out of every four signal officers was either relieved of duty or simply resigned.  We were always assigned every officer detail that the commander never wanted to waste a combat officer on and they always wanted more and better equipment than the battalion was authorized to have by it’s Table of Organization and Equipment (TOE) and for some reason always took out their frustration on the men and women assigned to make what they had work to the best of their abilities.   The 249^th was most likely one of the worst offenders in this area in the Army at least the first year I was assigned there.  By the second year we had a new battalion commander that I thought was a very good officer and a very good commander.  He at least was happy that the equipment he had worked and was able to always communicate in every situation the battalion found ourselves in.  The new commander LTC Lynch was a family man as well and tried his best most of the time to take care of families.  The first commander and his S-3 operations officer wanted radios and telephone systems that were reserved for general officer commands, Special Forces and right up to the commander and chief the President himself.  Life was very difficult there but I did survive. 

            I was met at the airport by my sponsor a line company commander that happened to be in Karlsruhe at the time instead of being deployed with the rest of the battalion on their construction mission in Grafenwoehr, West Germany.  For the past two years the entire 18^th Engineer Brigade was responsible for upgrading the training ranges there for the new Abrams Tank and the Bradley Fighting Vehicles.  The old ranges could not challenge the capabilities of either of these new weapon systems. 

            He drove me back to Karlsruhe, and allowed me to quickly report for duty and do minimum processing.  I was scheduled to report to the battalion commander in Grafenwoehr the next morning.  I had to draw my field gear that day and he took me to a local Guest House (a hotel of sorts) 

            I was quickly introduced to my new battalion and my new responsibilities like drinking water from a fire hydrant.    The battalion was in the process of closing down operations for the winter season and returning to Karlsruhe.  My purpose for going there was to familiarize myself with the battalion’s main peace time mission for the coming years and our deployment area. 

            I had to quickly settle in once back in Karlsruhe and get into the swing of being back in the Army once again.  Remember I had left my last Army unit in June of 1981 and from then until October 1983 I was in training and even in a civilian university for 18 months where I had no requirement at all to ever wear a uniform even.  I had to get base housing before I could ever get orders for Susan and the children to come to Germany.  I was some what lucky there.  I got housing in a couple of weeks and they cut the orders for Susan to come just a couple of days before Thanksgiving.   

            I am sure that the trip for Susan by her self with a 4 year old son and a twenty one month old daughter had to be a nightmare with all the things they had to bring with them.  I had to borrow a military vehicle from the motor pool to pick them up in Frankfurt because even though it had been 7 weeks since I had shipped my car from Seattle it was still not in Germany.  It arrived about two weeks after they did and I had to go from southern Germany to the northern port of Bremerhaven.  That was an all night train trip and then had to drive the 300 or so miles back by myself in a country that I was still not use to or the road habits of the drivers yet.   

            In Germany at least in the combat battalions every Thanksgiving dinner was at the mess hall. All officers and their families were required to eat the Thanksgiving dinner at the mess hall.  Not a bad plan actually because it allowed the thousands of single soldiers to have somewhat of a family atmosphere for the holiday. It was an extremely lonely time for all the young single soldiers many away from home for the first times in their lives.  I can tell you too that Susan loved the idea, she never liked cooking much in the first place and hated cooking the holiday dinners, and as much as possible we always spent the holidays with her family somewhere. 

            Duty was particularly time consuming in Germany and the 249^th.  I was at work at least 10 – 12 hours a day.  Life for Susan was getting very hard with me being gone so much. I had tried to prepare her for this over the first few years of being married, but alas my assignment at Fort Huachuca and then off to college was a piece of cake.  I was home almost every single night maybe only being away from home 5 days a year at most prior to Germany.   

            By early spring of 1984 life would get very difficult for all of us, the battalion was deploying once again to Grafenwoehr some 250 miles east of Karlsruhe.  I would soon be gone for 8 months except on the weekends.  My routine was to leave Karlsruhe on Sunday evening around 18:00 and did not come back home until around 21:00 on Friday nights that’s a long time to be left alone with two small children.   This deployment went on from April until the middle to the end of October.   I did manage a few days at home during the summer and even a leave.   We actually went to Paris for our 5^th wedding anniversary, not that I was a ball of energy or a lot of fun but we went.  My days at Graf were very full starting at 05:00 every day and usually went until 22:00 to 23:00 every single night.  I was always pretty exhausted when ever I was home.  It was hard to leave my family every Sunday night, it was very hard between my daughter Angela and I. She was just 3 years old when this deployment happened and she was not happy at all about her daddy being gone all the time.  She would be so mad at me when I got home she would push me away for the first day then I had to pack and go the second day. It was very hard for me to understand why she seemed to hate me all of a sudden.  Susan tried to tell me that Angela cried all week long when I was gone and missed me and it was her way of telling me so when she pushed me away the first day back.  As I look back on this time now with a little more wisdom and experience in life I can see that Susan was doing exactly the same thing to me as well as Angela.  She would treat me exactly the same as Angela did but for some reason I could not put it all together and we always had a hard time communicating feelings with each other.  Susan always wanted things her way and would do very cruel things to me to try and get her way.  She never understood that being deployed was not my choice I was in the army and simply following orders. 

            I was selected for command while in the 249^th at least the Headquarters and Headquarters company.  That was a problem for many of the engineer officers since every officer was required to be a commander in order to be branch qualified for the next promotion to Major.  Many of them thought it wasn’t fair to give this position to a Signal Officer but I did earn it.  Not only did I earn it the new battalion operations officer that summer actually wanted one of the line company commanders relieved from duty and to put me in command of the line company in his place.  I had no clue how to be an engineer, but I did know how to command and get the best out of every one assigned to me and that was the primary duty of a commander in the first place.  My company of clerks, mechanics, medics and radio operators had to bail the line companies out many time with leadership and manpower in order to meet the battalion’s mission requirements.   

            When we returned to Karlsruhe things did not get any easier at home.  I thing for one Susan had gotten use to me being gone during the week.  It was very hard for her to adjust to having a husband at home again most every night again.  The first problem we encountered was dinner time.  As a commanding officer of 142 combat soldiers my duty schedule as far from 8 hours a day. I had to remain on duty and spend time doing paper work and ensuring the safety of the troops many time well after normal dinner times.  Susan gave me her second rule of our marriage at this time.  She simply stated if I could not make it home for dinner when she and children ate then not to expect any food when I did make it home.  True to her word if I came home late there would be nothing in the house to eat at all and I mean nothing. Even if there had been left over she would throw them out and make me either go hungry or try to find something for my self to cook and eat.  Nothing was left for me at all.   Her first rule or rebellion at being a military wife was when she refused to have anything at all to do with cleaning my uniforms anymore.  So now 5 years into our marriage I am washing and pressing my own uniforms, cooking my own meals not only for breakfast but now for dinner too if I did my duty and stayed at work past 17:00.   

            Our sex life at this time I think was pretty normal we were having intimate relations at least a couple of times a week.  She would often get mad at me and make me go a week or two with out acknowledging that could be part of the reason why she was still not pregnant.    We both wanted to have more children, but remember now after the problem she had after Angela’s birth it was very hard since only one of her fallopian tubes was working at all so that meant only every other month did she actually ovulate.  None of this helped much at all. 

            By the summer of 1985 and the end of my first command I managed not only survive my assignment with a combat battalion I actually got a command out of it.  I soon learned that they did more harm to my career than I ever imagined.  You see officers are ranked in order with the other officers in a battalion and the only way top officers could be recognized by a promotion board back in DC was by these rank orders on your efficiency report.   A man I had once considered my best friend while in the engineers was the battalion S-1 (personnel) officer had convinced the battalion commander before my command selection to use me to balance out his rating scheme to make the line officers look better he had ranked me very low in order of officers in the battalion.  His written report was glowing but that meant very little compared to the stick man diagrams on the back of the OER’s   I had been screwed in the worst way by a man I thought was my friend.

I had managed a transfer now to a Signal Brigade the 160^th Signal Brigade across town in Karlsruhe actually only a mile from where we lived.   I was assigned as the Brigade S-4 the responsible for all maintenance, supply, and finance responsibilities for the entire brigade.  It was normally a major’s position so it was very good for me as only a captain to have the position.     

Susan had been neglecting her Army reserve obligation ever since we moved to Germany never even telling the reserve where she was.   They had started to track her down by this time and sending many threatening letters to her to either report for duty or face a tour of active duty or worse a bad conduct discharge.  Many military spouses were members of the reserve and there were many positions available in Germany for her to full fill at least the 2 weeks a year duty requirements.  However Susan wanted no part of it anymore and assumed in time this issue would go away. 

She was happy teaching Lamaze classes the first couple of years we were there.  It kept her busy while I was gone and she really enjoyed teaching them as well and seeing the babies all her students had them.   That summer I learned Susan’s third rule for a wife and that was she stopped teaching the classes that summer.  We really needed the money so I asked her why she was no longer teaching, she told me in no uncertain terms that when she started teaching them the idea was for her to make money for her self not the family.  Providing for the family was my sole responsibility and every time she got money it always went towards the family needs.  So she saw no point in teaching or helping out with the expenses.  It never slowed her down on spending only stopped her from ever contributing to the income ever again. 

I managed a two week leave during the transition period between the 249^th and the 160^th and Susan and I packed up the kids and spent two weeks in Italy on leave.   Susan got pregnant during this time with our 3^rd and final child, to this day I am not really sure she understood it was easier to get pregnant when you were intimate with your husband every night than to be mad and refuse this connection for weeks at a time.  At any rate we were both happy. 

Horror struck just three months into Susan’s pregnancy, she started to spot blood and we were both terrified that we would loose yet another baby and this was very hard on us both since it had taken so long for her to get pregnant again.  She went to the doctor and they sent her to the military hospital in Heidelberg about 45 miles from Karlsruhe.  They discovered that the baby was resting against all her scare tissue from the screw up with her D&C in 1982.  The baby was tearing through her womb.  They forced Susan to stay in the hospital for the next four weeks.  Talk about a new learning experience for me.  All of a sudden I was alone with the two children, but I still had a full time job with no one home to help me out either making the money or with the children.   I was very lucky in that the deputy brigade commander LTC (P) John Beaver and the brigade commander COL Joe Murray were both very caring men with families of their own.  They not only realized my problem but would order me to stay at home and take care of my family first.  My S-4 shop had became the most efficient organization in the brigade after I arrived and since I lived so close when they needed me they’d call or simply would bring papers over for me to sign.   You see, as the finance controller I was the only one in the brigade authorized to spend money, not even the commander could spend money on his own it required my review and signature for every expenditure.  I would go to work at best 4 hours a day during this time.  I did all the cleaning, washing and cooking for the kids, worked my job, and at the same time would drive the 45 miles each way at least 6 times a week to spend a few hours with Susan.  Being 45 miles from our home none of her friends could go to visit her very often because of their own jobs and responsibilities to their families. She was the only officer’s wife in the battalion not working.  Another thing that Susan would not grow up and accept, because she simply did not want to work or accept that we would always be behind everyone else with out a second income. 

After four weeks at the hospital the doctors allowed Susan to come home once again but only if she promised to stay in bed or on her back with no exceptions except to get up to go the bathroom or to shower.  So even after she got home I still was needed at home to make sure she was not up and running after the children.  During this time I became the project director for my first Top Secret Code Word project.  My office was responsible for all the IT and telecommunications equipment and build out for the new Top Secret combat command post for the Commanding General of all US Forces in Europe.  This was a real challenge for me since the command center was quite a ways from home and I needed to be home most of the time.  I can’t go into much detail here since that command center is still active to this day.   

I was now taking care of Susan and the children every day. Things went pretty well until early January of 1986.   Between the holidays and the baby getting bigger and Susan getting more a more defiant of the doctor’s requirement to stay in bed she started to spot again.  By the second week of January Susan was back in the hospital again.  Now it was more serious than ever.  The baby made her home right on the scare tissue and the doctors were afraid that she could tear through her womb  and both Susan and the baby would be dead in less than 5 minutes if that happened if they were not in a hospital prepared around the clock to deal with that kind of emergency.   This lasted until February on the 21^st they did a C-section and delivered our second daughter Sara Michelle.  She was beautiful and I was so relieved at this finally being over.  Every second of every day I was scared to death of loosing Susan any minute during this pregnancy and being left alone with the children for the rest of my life.  I never wanted another woman in my life and would never remarry if I lost her.   Susan’s next decision I think was very hard for her and very hard on our marriage as well.  The doctor’s and I convinced her she needed to have her tubes tied during the C-section.  It was far too dangerous for her to ever attempt to have another child and my worry and argument was it would not be fair to our current children to loose their mother or fair to me to loose her.  We all ready had 3 wonderful and beautiful children and loosing her was not worth the risk to try for 4.   

Susan and Sara came home a few days after she was born and Susan wasted little time getting back on her feet again and taking care of all the children.  My job as the S-4 was soon to change as well.  The brigade commander liked me very much and said I was one of the best young officers he had ever seen.  He wanted me to take command of one of the line companies in Stuttgart about 50 miles east of where we were living in Karlsruhe.  It was the largest signal company at the time in Germany with the largest support area as well some 45,000 square kilometers with 350 full time military and civilian employees.   

Col Murray wanted me to take command there and fix many operational problems that the company was having as well as supply and maintenance problems.  I had no idea how bad the problems were until I reported for duty in April to start the change of command inventory required for every new company commander in the Army.  I had many problems when I reported for duty at the 52d Signal Battalion.  First of all they did not like the idea that I was selected by the brigade commander, choosing company commanders is normally done by the battalion commander.  Second I was the senior logistics officer in the brigade with my position as the brigade S-4.    I was met with a lot of hate and discontent.  There were several other officers in the battalion that not only wanted that command they needed it to become branch qualified.  I had all ready had my required command and they resented the fact that I was given a second command before they could get their first.   

The company’s supply problems were the worst I had ever seen or heard about in the Army even to this day.  The out going company commander had never conducted his change of command inventory as required and never once even signed a single hand receipt.  As a separate company the 589^th Signal Company had it’s own Property Book Officer (PBO)  he too had not done his job at reporting the problem to the battalion commander, he feared for his career since he would be reporting on the man that wrote his reviews.  The outgoing commander never once went with me during the entire 6 weeks it took me to conduct the inventory; millions of dollars of property was unaccounted for.   I had another major problem as well, the battalion commander was not much help, if he reported the problem to the brigade commander it could mean a bad review for him as well, not to mention he was scheduled to replace LTC (P) Beaver soon after I took command of the 589^th.  I was stuck between a rock and a hard place and more or less forced to take command of a company that had no property control what so ever.   I always had a very hard time sticking up for myself in my life if it meant taking someone else down first.  I bit my lip and was sure I could fix the problems as long as I dedicated myself to it.  There was not only millions of dollars of missing property but there was likewise millions of dollars of excess and unauthorized equipment too.   In retrospect now of course I know I should have reported the problem to the brigade commander he knew there was a serious problem from the negative Inspector General’s report received earlier that year.  That was why he sent me there in the first place from out side the battalion.  If I had reported the problems I could have ruined the career of the current company commander and seriously damaged the career of the current battalion commander as well.  Col Murray use to try and teach me not to take responsibility for things that were clearly not my fault but I never learned that lesson and to this day even the reason I am where I am is that I don’t really know how to fight for myself.  He’d  tell me that some day John, if you don’t learn how to blow your own horn the day will come that someone will turn your horn into a funnel and stuff you full of BS. Well COL Murray you were absolutely correct.  Even the most senior shrink that I have been forced to see in the last four years stated the same facts in her report to the courts I don’t know when or how to defend myself even when I am innocent.

The 589^th was not only a disaster in supply and maintenance it was a disaster in operations as well.  We were responsible for over 150,000 military member’s computer and telecommunications support and we were a good 6-8 weeks behind on every single work order through out the command.   

I decided my first responsibility was to the Army to fix the operational problem.  I had to relieve several sergeants and I required my soldiers to work 6 day weeks 14 hour days for the first 3 months of command there.  At the end of 3 months it no longer took 6-8 weeks to get a telephone installed or moved it was done with in a matter of hours and always the same day the work order came in.   Our reputation through out the command and the 26 military Kaserns we serviced sky-rocketed.   

Life at home was nearly not at all.  I found myself working 7 days a week now 14-16 hour days trying to keep up with the command.  I had 3 brand new second lieutenants to help but I spent more time trying to train them than they being of much help.  My one senior 1^st Lieutenant was a nightmare, he was caught having sex with two of his enlisted females and he was married, not to mention he spent more time telling me about his prior service as an E-6 than acting like a man soon to make Captain.  Susan was very frustrated.  My office was only about a ½ block from our home but I was never there.  I was required to be on the road every week inspecting and conducting operations trough out my 45,000 square mile command and the 26 Kaserns I serviced.   We tried towards the end of the summer to take a vacation to Switzerland but about half way through Sara got very sick.  We tried our best to sneak back to Stuttgart to take her to the doctor but some how the battalion commander got word that I was back in town.  The battalion was in the middle of a surprise IG inspection and was failing across the board.  They had not been to my company yet but were scheduled to start the very next day.  The battalion commander cancelled my leave and ordered me to report for duty.  He told me I had the best company in Germany and I was needed to save the battalion he could not afford for all his companies to fail the inspection.   When I told Susan our leave had been cancelled it broke her heart and tears streamed down her face.  I was very hurt because the whole family had missed me that year and the first time I had any time with them was now cut short and there was not a single thing I could do about it. 

My company was ready for the IG.  I had always set very high standards for my soldiers, explaining that I wanted them to be ready for any inspection 24 hours a day, and did not believe in round the clock GI parties only to get ready for inspections.  They were to be ready all the time.  In time they knew the routine and there was never a time we could not pass any inspection at any time with out any extra preparation.   As any commander knows, once they are use to a single standard maintaining it is easy. 

The company passed with flying colors, supply was still a mess, however the major the IG sent down spent a lot of time telling about my predecessor and how full of BS he was and how far I had brought the company.  He did manage to show me some of the hiding places the previous commander had used to hide supplies and showed me that problem was still there even though my supply officer and PBO was still in my company.  That again was that senior 1^st lieutenant.   

There was one major problem after another in the 589^th and we came a very long way in the 18 months I was the commander.  After the first year I got a little time to be with my family.  The summer of 1987 was also our last summer in Germany.  I managed to swing a three week leave and we went up to Denmark and worked our way down to Italy during that 3 weeks trying to bond again as a family.  We had a blast driving and camping the whole time a week in Denmark, a few days in Switzerland, and a week in Italy.   

When the summer ended it was time to sell our VW camper bus I bought just a week before Sara was born and ship our car back to the states.  I had been hand selected by the Army and the Department of Defense for my next assignment in the United States, to report to Sacramento, California for yet another command position this time in one only a hand full of commands designated for majors.   All I was told was that the company’s mission was Top Secret and I would find out when I reported exactly what the duties and the mission was to be.  After a review of my records along with several other signal majors and captains I was selected and approved for the position by the Chief of Staff of the Army himself.  

It was a mixed blessing to leave Germany at the time, but I was sure we’d be back in 3 to 4 years getting ready for a battalion command of my own.  Little did I know what lied ahead for me for the remaining years I was to be in the Army    My family had grown by one while we were in Germany but I learned many things about Susan while we were there.  Our last year in Germany Susan was finally given a General Discharge from the Army Reserve for non performance of duty and failure to report.   I learned that she would use her body and deny me contact with her for weeks at a time and never once would discuss what was wrong, only getting mad at me and telling me all wanted from her was sex.  How quickly she forgot that I was there for her and the children when she was sick for weeks and months at a time.  She would forever only remember when I was not there and would tell me repeatedly throughout our marriage that I only worked so hard to get away from them not because I had too.  She would never accept my greater responsibilities to the Army and the nation as a commanding officer, even later when I was assigned as the Commanding Officer of the Special Missions Unit at the White House fully responsible for the Presidents life and ability to communicate with the world during any crisis from terrorist attacks to all out WW III. 

I feel compelled to summarize the tour in Germany and few more things that I did not write about during the tour.  Susan by the time we left Germany was not only very mad at the Army and the time it took me away from her she was taking it all out on me.  She was watching me advance in my career while she had totally abandoned her military obligations.  She was very upset about not being able to have more children and had started to blame and punish me for that as well.  My work schedule at the 589^th was the most demanding that I had ever experienced.  I was not in like the majority of Army units that spent most of their time working normal work days and training schedules training for war.  The 589^th was responsible for 24 hour a day 7 day a week support for telecommunication, computers, mail rooms, and all other IT support for some 150,000 soldiers.  

Things had gotten a little better by the summer of 1987 as far as my schedule was concerned but still I received calls at the rate of 3 a night and was called to work multiple times each month.  I was getting home at least by 20:00 every evening but by this time Susan had given up on me.  She would not only dispose of all food for me to eat but 9 times out of ten would be in bed by the time I got home if for no other reason than to punish me for working so late.  Her accusations about my work schedule designed to avoid our family were increasing by now.   Our sex life had deteriorated dramatically now.  We were intimate about 2 to 3 times a month now and we were still in our early 30’s.   She started her self to act and dress like a woman in her 50’s.   Our nights out now were only for official dinners and never for just ourselves or with the family.  She had no problem leaving the children during the day to attend a function that would include factory shopping but when it came to the other officer wife functions she no longer would go and going out alone with me was out of the question because the children needed her.  

It was during this duty assignment I learned even more how much Susan hated the Army and how she was trying to cope with my responsibilities and the time required away from home for me.  I had a 2^nd Lieutenant working for me that was older than most.  He got his commission when he was 28 and was a southern boy.  He had been married 10 years when he came to work at the 589^th; he had a very pretty southern wife as well.   He had a lot to learn about being an officer but he tired to do the right thing and worked as hard as he could.  I had a hard time getting him to simply open up and try to trust me and learn about the Army first hand and not what he had been taught in ROTC and on television.  What I mean is he was trying too hard to always be politically correct and always say the right thing.  Personally I was far more interested in the truth than hearing what he thought I wanted to hear.  I think I finally got through to him in the end.  What I learned about Susan and this couple was for the first time she actually tried to play the commanders wife and provide counsel and guidance to this Lieutenants wife’s.  However in reality she should have paid attention to what this wife was still doing after 10 years of marriage.  We had been married for just 8 years by the time we met this couple.   Yet after 10 years of marriage when this lieutenant had to work late his wife still got out of bed no matter what time he got home and would cook him a fresh dinner, not just heat  up left over food but cook him what ever he wanted.  She was washing and ironing his uniforms, and even shined his boots.  Personally I thought that shining his boots was overboard.   Susan however, repeatedly tried to tell her how to train her husband to leave work in a time to spend time with her and the family.  She would spend hours with her trying to tell her to treat him the way she did to me.  Telling her that if she cooked food for him if he came home at 22:00 or even 00:00 he’d never learn to come home on time.   Susan never would accept that being an officer with the responsibilities that we had required us to work many long hours.  This lieutenant’s platoon was deployed in the farthest areas of the company.  He had many twenty-four hour a day telecommunications centers he was required to supervise and under my command I required all officers including myself to see what went on around the clock not just when it was convenient to us.  The bottom line is an officer could never know what was happening or if orders and policies were being followed if he always set at his desk and just read reports.  Many of you understand this now after reading about the many problems in the prisons in Iraq.  A commander that fails to spend time physically going through his command at all times will fail to be in a position to see problems and correct them. Personally I feel a commander is responsible for his soldier’s mission behavior 24 hours a day, not just 9-5.   

It would secretly break my heart to hear how good this man’s wife was to him and how she tried so hard to support his career.  Susan on the other hand tried so hard to train me to do her will as she pleased not the mission I was given.  Don’t get me wrong, don’t you for one minute think I enjoyed working 16-18 hour days 7 days a week, it was just my responsibility as the commander.   When given a command it is not your choice it is your responsibility to command and supervise your command.  It would hurt me for her to bring up my lack of time at home with her and the children in front of the children when she would tell me in front of them I was only working so I would not have to spend time at home with them.  This went on always until the time we finally separated.  Never once contributing to the family income but always complaining about the lack of money and things for her and the children.  When we separated I was personally making well over six figures but it simply was not enough for her. 

When we left Germany I was finally out of all debt.  My car had been paid off as well as the credit cards finally.  The last few months in Germany the Mark had risen in value to the point that we were getting a cost of living allowance of about $300.00 extra month.  With that we pretty much stopped going out on the economy and stayed on base allowing us to really save money and pay off the bills.  

At the official farewell dinner the battalion gave for me the battalion commander announced that the 589^th would be split into two or three units.   I was the only man able to keep up with the size of the 589^th as it was and the mission area we had.  He also apologized to Susan for not doing it much sooner but the final decision had rested with the commanding general of the 5^th Signal Command.   What that meant was that the number of officers would double and the missions cut in half allowing my successors some time off.  I was very burnt out by now just nearly dead tired and I was only 31 years old.   

Throughout my command time at the 589^th my stomach was a major problem.   Going to sick call was no help at all, I saw a different doctor every single time I would go and the treatment program was stuck on phase one just antacids or counseling for stress.  I did go to the Army counseling centers on a regular basis to help keep in perspective.  I tried to stop at one time, but the head doctor was so impressed that a company commander would voluntarily go to counseling and the impact that was having on his service.  He would tell me it was good for a captain to legitimize his service and when I tried to stop he threatened me by telling me he’d report me to the battalion commander as a problem and have my security clearance pulled.   Of course that would have been the kiss of death.  After that I despised going to counseling and usually would not even see the doctor because he knew how angry I was.  I would go for the appointments but if we talked at all it was about nothing and normally he’d not show up. 

Susan and I had started to distant ourselves from each other.  I was getting afraid of her and started to disengage from normal affection not wanting to get hurt and that only made her distant herself more from me as well.  She resented my career and the time I spent working very much but at the same time would not talk about it all with me.  The 589^th Signal Company was the first job that really started a divide between us.