September 3 2002

I wanted to share this beautiful, heartwarming letter, as people look close to home and support our military people during this time of remembrance.

Part of this letter is to all military dependants, but the last half is directed to his own wife. I felt it was all beautiful enough to share, and with his permission, you can read it now for yourselves!

"To those military "Dependants" out there, Thank You! You work and Sacrifice every bit as much as our Active Duty Men and Women do in my opinion. Without that strength, sacrifice, and very real heroism we wouldn't have the peace and security we have today.

It occurs to me that, in some respects, you act as a face for the faceless. A real, tangible person for whom the individual sacrifice of somebody on active duty is made worthwhile. Sometimes those sacrifices would be too much to ask for the nameless, faceless, and often uncaring mob. You are our un-elected representative, doing a job you didn't want, for an unthankful people, under frequently impossible circumstances! I don't know if that thought increases or detracts from your burdens. I hope it may give you some added sense of purpose and appreciation to sustain you.

Let me step out of the faceless mob for a moment to say thank you. Thank you for giving us a face and for representing us. Thank you for being there to support the people we should be supporting. Thank you for inspiring the ones you love to protect us. I know it's tough, I wish there were more I could do but say take heart and know that some of us recognize and appreciate you. :-)

- a personal note, able to be skipped if you wish -

My wife, Lady Niamh, spent 14 years in the Military. She spent eight years on Active Duty as an A.G.E. Mechanic in the Air Force. She got out as a Staff Sergeant (E-5), got a job, and settled happily into being a civilian. A few years later she met me, and willingly (foolishly ;-) agreed to be my wife. We got married at the end of my Air Force Technical School training as I was being sent to Kadena AFB in Okinawa, Japan.

For the next six years Niamh saw the other half of the Military as she raised our son at home and became a "dependant". We were overseas for the entire time I was in the Air Force. I was never sent to anyplace as frightening as Kosovo or Afghanistan, but I was TDY during some bad times. She was always there, doing her best in difficult situations. I know she often felt alone and depressed, cut off from the life she wanted and the friends she'd made at home. Still she was there for me to come home to and her love often sustained me when I went through tough times of my own. She has told me that being a "dependent" was in a lot of ways much harder then being Active Duty.

Saturday was our 12th Wedding Anniversary, and if I may, I'd like to publicly say to her Thank You and I Love You! Debbie you are a wonderful Wife and excellent Mother. You can be a tough, cantankerous, stubborn SOB sometimes, a nd I love you for that. You also can be such a shy and private person that trying to look into your heart is like looking inside a flower just before it blooms. That heart though is made of gold and I love you for that to. You are, in my eyes, a Dame. I don't know where I'd be without you!"

- Bran

Thanks Bran, for allowing me to share this in my journal!

Blessed Be!