As I write this, I’m in Norfolk, Va., home of Naval Station Norfolk and close neighbor to several other U.S. military installations. Naval Station Norfolk alone is the world’s largest naval base, a fact that hit home yet again yesterday as I visited a location in an area I rarely go. Driving directions, maps, and wrong turns are common for almost all of us who attempt to go anywhere outside of our ordinary locations on bases of this size.
Many parts of a Navy base are functional and industrial in nature, but what I increasingly find meaningful is noticing the people, specifically, sailors coming from or going out to sea in the service of our nation.
I’ve been an officer in the U.S. Navy now for more than two decades, but I still stand in awe of sailors and their families when ships deploy or come home—not because I wonder how they do it but because I know what it takes. When I was here in January, it was the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford, coming home with thousands of sailors after an eight-month deployment. I happened to be on the base an hour or so after the ship—which at about 1,100 feet in length and 100,000 tons in displacement is the largest warship ever constructed—pulled into port.
I deliberately drove nearby and saw exactly what I expected but never tire of seeing: young sailors in their dress uniforms carrying bouquets of flowers, reunited families with signs and holding hands walking down the pier, strollers carrying babies who were perhaps meeting their fathers for the first time.
Although from a different homecoming (this is from USS Washington’s return in December 2023), here’s a photo of what one of the best parts of that looks like:
In the Navy, just as often as homecomings are the departures. Regardless of (yet responsive to) what’s happening in the world, the U.S. Navy continually sends its ships to sea in a planned rotation. As such, these comings and goings are just part of Navy life. But that doesn’t make them easy, particularly for those sailors who have families and children at home. These departing sailors in my experience generally aren’t too worried about how they’ll manage while they’re at sea or abroad; their hearts and minds are often focused on the well-being of those they’re leaving behind.
I thought about this quite a bit recently after talking with an officer who will be leaving soon for an uncertain amount of time. I’ve been in the Navy Reserve for most of my Navy service by now, so most of my time away from home is in relatively short bursts here and there. But my conversation made me think back to the time the Navy sent me to Afghanistan for a year, a nontraditional Navy deployment with a start date that coincided with my wife being 7.5 months pregnant with our third child.
When I think back to how my wife and I prepared for that deployment, there’s one big idea that sticks in my mind, one thing that seemed to help us immensely. It’s not something that necessarily made everything easier, but it’s something that helped us have the hope, confidence, and strength to press forward. It’s a relatively simple idea, and it’s this:
Thousands of people have done this. You can too.
Armed with that idea and the mental image it produced in our imagination, we gained strength and did something we never imagined we’d have to do as a family. We figured out how to explain what was going on to our children; we created little ways in which we could stay connected. My wife built and used a tremendous network of helpers comprised of family and friends.
We communicated as best we could. We marked the days and the milestones. I was able to return for two weeks around the middle of my year, which was a wonderful opportunity to reconnect with my family (and meet our third child). But that too was hard because I had to then turn around and go back to a warzone for several more months.
My true homecoming came after almost 400 days since I first left. I then had to get used to family life again, but we figured that out too, just like thousands of other people have done as well.
Strength Through Stories
We underestimate the power of other’s stories to our own detriment. Just like the knowledge and specific examples of many other families who have navigated military deployments, myriad other tough parts of life come with their own analogous stories and examples. I’m certainly not the only person who has had to leave a family behind and deploy with the military. I’m certainly not the only person who has had to deal with tragedy.
The story of life itself is one of struggle and survival. And yet that story isn’t one that should dishearten us.
In fact, the idea that we aren’t alone in our trials is wonderful news. Even if we face some sort of particularly rare hardship, it’s unlikely that no one else has faced it too or at least something similar. And the fact that people can and do navigate such adversity successfully should give us comfort. It should—and can—give us strength.
Remember the Homecoming
In addition to finding strength in the stories of others, I find strength in the idea of the homecoming. Be it an actual homecoming of a ship returning to port or The Big Homecoming in terms of the trajectory we imagine for our lives, there’s value in clinging tightly, with white knuckles and firm resolve, to our hope in the end of the story. Even if the end of our story is one that still includes considerable pain and hardship, we can hold on to the hope that maybe we will have borne that hardship in a way that will have given others strength, vicariously.
In the film adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s book The Two Towers, one particularly often-mentioned scene depicts a seemingly hopeless scenario in which the main character, Frodo, says to his friend amid the devastation, “I can’t do this, Sam.” Sam replies,
I know. It’s all wrong. By rights we shouldn’t even be here. But we are. It’s like in the great stories Mr. Frodo, the ones that really mattered.
Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn’t want to know the end, because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something. Even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now.
Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back only they didn’t. Because they were holding on to something.
Through his tears, Frodo asks, “What are we holding on to, Sam?”
Sam answers, “That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for.”
Thanks! I love the quote from The Lord of the Rings! And the idea of homecoming.