I would like to introduce my wife, Tamara Stath Hagerman, whom I have asked to share her perspective with all of you. It is important to remember that those who serve within the special operations community are a unique and special type of person, but the women of our lives are also exceptional and deserving of respect. These strong and brave women are exposed to a life that is very different and difficult, yet they serve their country and families tirelessly and unselfishly. These are the women of the Navy SEALs. – Chris Hagerman

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“The best thing that ever happened to me was him. The worst thing that ever happened to me was him.”

These were my thoughts as I watched him walk away. Walk away from our eleven-day-old daughter, and walk away from me and the life we had built over the last two years.

What the hell was I thinking when I married this man? I was not prepared to be a single mom, nor was I prepared to be the sole caretaker to our home and our life. So much had happened in the past twelve months. I was completely unprepared for what life would hold for me for the next six months while he was deployed. What does this mean? My husband is gone for the next six months?

First Training Trip

Looking back at our first deployment, and how long spouses are at war or on deployment now, I can easily tell my prior self to cry a river. In fact, I am in so many ways blessed by my husband’s current presence in our lives, but I’d like to tell the story of what it’s like to be a SEAL wife. It’s my own perspective, for better or worse…

For the uninitiated, the worst part of a deployment is not actually the deployment itself. It’s the hundreds of training trips that lead up to the deployment that actually wreak havoc on the heart and mind of a military spouse.

Training trips are small teases. A loving spouse who has been accustomed to a steady life of crazy, but local hours, begins the downward spiral to deployment through a series of trips. They become a series of good-byes in a precursor to the Big Good Bye. Each trip is its own small version of hell because a newly-married, pregnant wife mourns the absence of her husband as if he were leaving forever. Every trip shows her what life will be like for the six-month deployment.