We asked spouses to share their deployment curse stories. Here are some of the best. Share yours in the comments!
Abbie Bruno Patterson: LOL–Well, it wasn’t a “deployment” (but at the time, for us it was.) My husband left for his 2 week Reserve duty. Literally within HOURS of him leaving our dog died. Not only did I have to figure out what to do with her corpse, in the middle of the night, with 2 sleeping kids in the house, in the middle of the winter but I had to explain it to them the following morning too. Good times.
Christy Lighthouse: Our house was shot through last summer during my husband’s deployment. It went through 2 walls, our desk, and stopped in a plastic office supply box.
Cyndia Rios-Myers: Both of our Jeeps had been vandalized at our old apartment complex while my husband was deployed. The management didn’t care. The folks at Navy Legal said that I had no case. I had to find a new house (with an attached garage) and pack us out of our apartment and hire a moving company in a few week’s time. It was nuts.
Marlena Jones: Had our minivan stolen not once but TWICE during his first deployment. Second deployment our washer started leaking for no reason at all and I locked both sets of keys in the car one hectic looooong morning. On the third one now and nothing…yet.
Natasha Harris: Not my favorite but my dog died because she developed a rare form of cancer a week before he left…the brakes went out in my suburban twice (first time was in the driveway the morning after I picked him up from the airport for R&R,) and the second time I WAS driving. Boy, did the repair shop get an earful!
Jada Wilcken: These are not the worst things that could happen, but my daughter’s hamster died, our trampoline flew out of our yard and into some small trees in the field behind the house, then I sprained my ankle all during the third week of deployment.
Jenny Andraca: As soon as he left the States, the furnace stopped working. It was October so it had started to get cold already. One of our cars needed a new clutch, the other broke down. And during the time he was gone we had an earthquake, flood, and a tornado. We live in Massachusetts and don’t normally have any of those!
Rochelle Tornabene: We were stationed in Hawaii and a Tsunami was suppose to hit the islands. My husband left two weeks prior! I was freaking out and called my dad to wake him up because I didn’t know what to do! Luckily, it missed us!
Tiffany Googin: Last deployment: Nov. 2010 – within hours of dropping him off, our then 4 yr old daughter had an allergic reaction to walnuts; by December my Memaw was diagnosed with stage 4 non-Hodgkins; I had an unexpected major surgery in Jan 2011; our middle son got very sick with bronchitis (which is serious because of his health issues), my Memaw passed away Jan 21, 2012 & I had to drive 7 hours away 2 weeks after surgery for the funeral. I only had “help ” from my MIL for the first week. I was in the ER the NIGHT of my Memaw’s funeral with our daughter– thought it was just her asthma. Made it back home & the next day she was admitted to the hospital with pneumonia. All the while, our 2 youngest have serious chronic medical issues & already required being in the hospital every 2 weeks for infusions. Did I mention I was actually working fulltime?? A door came off in the kitchen, the sliding glass door came off in the kid’s bath & a shelf fell in our daughter’s closet! Tire went flat & had to be changed on my hubby’s truck. I couldn’t make this up if I tried! Definitely smiling when his plane finally landed!!! Made if through, cause that’s what Mil Spouses do!! That was our 7th deployment… And we’re already preparing for the next!
Nicole Carroll: One deployment had a Norway rat make a nest under my hood, we have a huge detached garage and live back in the woods. Ended up having to get it towed, and wanted to start sobbing when the repair shop said the rat had caused over $1000 in electrical damage. Luckily, I was able to text my hubby and he was able to calm me down and had me call the insurance company to find out it was covered and I only ended up paying about half of it. This last one my kids got into a argument over the webcam which resulted in one storming out of the room and slamming her finger in the door, gashing it open. Sitting in the ER while my 8 year old got 3 stitches and was wailing she now had a zombie finger was not my idea of fun. That was topped off with getting a snake in my house and having my fridge kick the bucket. Shopping for a new fridge by yourself is not fun.