E-mail is a beautiful thing

I've been getting regular e-mails from The Hubster - this is a wonderful thing.... sometimes they are just one liners, but I worry when I don't get them.

Ah, the life of a Navy wife - I have already talked about our phone and such... now some about e-mail. We love to get them from our service members. It can make your whole day. It is even better when we can trade them back and forth almost like a chat. Those instances are rare - so rare that when they do happen, no matter when, we do not leave our computers until it is done.... even if the house is on fire. We want, no, we need that contact.

I am old enough that I remember no e-mail. I remember no satellite phones. I remember going through my buddies pregnancy and attending the birth as the "acting father" because her hubby had been out to sea since her 2nd month. He got back when the baby was almost two weeks old. The only things we could send were family grams.... one letter or punctuation mark per square and not very many squares.... we, needless to say, did not use spaces, ever. There would be phone calls during port calls but this was also the Cold War so the port calls were few and far between. There was so little communication between military coupes then....

I giggle now.... so many of these new "baby Navy wives" just don't get it. So the ship is RIver City or your sailor is busy so you don't get e-mail for a few days... they freak out. Really. They get angry and hurt and upset.... some of them send off mean e-mails, sad e-mails, "don't you love me anymore" e-mails.... really?!? He is working. He is working hard. Depending on what kind of ship he is on his schedule might be 6's - six hours on, six off. And in that six he has to shower, sleep, take care of any other tasks like getting a haircut, and probably has training as well. He is tired and working hard. If he doesn't have access to a computer that is set up for e-mail then he has to go use one of the ones in the library - and he isn't the only guy trying to get on there.

So, e-mail is a beautiful thing. And, if your sailor has time to send you a fairly long chatty one it is even better. But I take the one liners too - and love them just as much. It might just say "tired... heading to bed" but it tells me he thought about me, and that is a beautiful thing.