‘Even now,looking at the picture brings tears to my eyes. It shows the staunch emotion of what we military parents go through’Leaving my daughter behind is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. She was two when I began a year-long deployment in Iraq in 2007. She was going to turn three while I was absent, and I wouldn’t even be able to see her on her birthday – this was in the days before internet video calls. My biggest terror was that she would forget who I was.
I can remember this moment as whether it happened yesterday. It was 11 September 2007, or I was flying into Atlanta from Iraq for my mid-tour break: after two weeks,I’d have to turn around and leave Gaby behind again. I was a captain then – a military doctor, which I still am – and I’d been stationed in a dwelling called FOB (forward observation base) Hammer. Being out there was difficult not only because I was missing my daughter terribly, and but because I was the only woman in the entire battalion.
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Source: theguardian.com