I never thought I'd be in this position.  I never thought I'd be the soldier's girlfriend left behind, left sending care packages and awaiting letters (or more likely these days, emails) while my man hunts crafty bad guys on the other side of the world.

For one thing, I'm not really into this girlfriend-as-puppy-dog, yellow-ribbons-on-my-car, my-soldier-is-better-than-your-civilian thing.  I would love my boyfriend regardless of the job he had (although when he talks about becoming a cop after getting out of the Army, I voice my strong dissent in language worthy of Cops).  While I recognize that the Army has undoubtedly helped shape him into the mature, conscientious, aware man he is today (as to opposed to many of the overgrown boys I dated before we met), most times I wish he had a job that allowed him to stay safe and be here with me. 

I also disagree with the war in Iraq (although many soldiers do, too), so I've had to deal with my cognitive dissonance about that.  It helps that I'm honest with Boyfriend and that he is with me, too.  He's told me about some shady goings-on that he witnessed during his first deployment; but he also describes his work there, which directly impacted the Iraqis and made their lives safer.   In some ways, this tempers my anger over the war, the money we've spent on it, and what I believe to be the injustice of our invasion. 

Most importantly, I'm usually the adventurous one.  At 18, I moved 1,000 miles away from home to university in a city where I knew no one.  At 24, I moved to a second-world country because I'd always wanted to live abroad and I found a job that made my dream possible.  At 27, I moved back to the States for love, and when that went belly-up, a year later I moved to another new city a 1,000 miles away from home (but this time I knew one person there--ONE).   So the fact that Boyfriend gets to do cool war stuff while I sit here and grade essays and clean the cat litter...well, it rankles me a bit.  (Of course, I concentrate on the "cool war stuff" and not on the imminent danger...) 

I want to be the one having crazy adventures, dammit!  I do not want to be Penelope, awaiting her Odysseus. (Yes, this is exactly the kind of allusion a high school English teacher makes...however, I have to credit the brilliant Lily Burana, wife of an Army major, for it.)  Alas, here I am eight time zones away from my love, and I have an entire year left to contemplate all of this.  Boyfriend Odysseus (not his real name, of course) just left on Tuesday.

I've decided to start this blog for several reasons.  Number one, to keep me sane and to help me deal with the emotional fall-out from Odysseus's deployment.  Like many writers, I deal with emotional turmoils by writing out my feelings.  I have a great social network (I truly am very fortunate) and a great family (Mom, Dad, Bro and Sis, all live far away) who have never have dealt with anything like this but are being as supportive as possible.  And Odysseus himself has a high EQ and has made this as easy on me as possible.  Despite all this support, I am wired to write out my problems (although I can talk about them too, but it's not my perferred method of coping)...so here I am.

Open Salon is a natural choice for my blog.  I'm a raging liberal (as is Odysseus...one of the first things that attracted us to each other) and I don't think that the "raging liberal, highly educated Army girlfriend with the a-typical, liberal Army officer boyfriend" viewpoint has been properly aired in our wars following 9-11. 

On the Conservative side, there is a lot of head-in-sand, blind patriotism that borders on fascism.  Conservatives also seem to stupidly think that they have the military vote locked down and that all military are Glenn Beck followers...trust me, this is changing, especially in the officer corps. 

On the other side, which includes many of the people I grew up with (including my own family), there is the happy ignorance of not having your life personally affected by these wars.  I know many Liberals who oppose the wars in theory but don't do much about it.  I also know many people (both Conservative and Liberal) who don't live in a military community, don't know anyone fighting (except now they do), and so who cares how long the wars last?

A little bit about me and Odysseus.  I'm in my 30s, I have a graduate degree, I grew up in suburban Illinois and went to college on a partial academic scholarship to a major private research university in the south.  As I mentioned earlier, I lived abroad for several years.  Currently I am a public school teacher, but I have worked in the private sector, both in education and in business (mostly finance.)  A lot of my political opinions have been informed by the inequities I see regarding our society's support of the corporate world, the military, and public education.  I think that this country has some f*cked up priorities.

Odysseus is in his late 20s (yes, he's about 5 years younger than me), grew up an Army brat and moved around until his dad retired and they settled in Alabama (but the most abnormal-for-Alabama town).  He did Army ROTC and graduated from an SEC school with a degree in political science.  A lot of his political opinions are informed by growing up around privileged Republican frat boys who've had everything handed to them, and now he works with enlisted soldiers who are trying their damnedest to "pull themselves up by their bootstraps" when the system is already skewed. 

I am really proud of the job Odysseus has, despite some of my misgivings about the war at large.  I know that what he is doing is important.  What he is doing is making a difference.  If he didn't go, someone else would have to.  And this is my mantra for the upcoming year.