Inspiring Women SUMMER 2020

3. You move from day to day doing the same thing. Can I tell you a secret? Deployment is just a
whole lot of monotony. And if you don’t consciously make it monotony, you’ll burn out pretty
fast. You’re forced to adopt an operational routine: sleep, watch, brief, flight, gym, repeat.
Sometimes you pick up a new skill and sometimes you just watch a whole lot of TV. One day
blends into the next and time seems to lose meaning. You’re focused on the situation at hand.
Sound familiar?
4. Disease spreads like wildfire. It happens every deployment. There is always “the bug” that goes
around. Typically it’s nothing more serious than a norovirus, incapacitating its host for about 48
hours. Handrails, doorknobs, and coffee pot handles are just swimming with disease, which is
cause for much hand washing and sanitizing. And trust me, never ever touch your face.
But as soon as I feel like I’m getting into the deployment-quarantine rhythm, something changes
and my head slips underwater. The trauma of what we are collectively experiencing is much
deeper than what can be cured with routines and patience which in fact only minimize the daily
frustrations we feel.
Deployments, of course, have
definite end dates. You know
that someday it will end. You
know that you’ll be home by
summer, or that the holidays
will be spent with family. Yes,
of course, sometimes they get
extended and plans need to
be changed. But during
COVID-19 quarantine, we find
ourselves on indefinite
lockdown with an indefinite
end date. The isolation orders
set by state and country
leaders are, in fact, arbitrary.
Because this crisis will not
actually end in two weeks. It
won’t end in two months.
Heck, it probably won’t even
end in two years. Our lives are
being changed forever, and not having an endpoint to look to can play tricks with the mind.
In a way, we are all deployed at this moment and we don’t know what the world will look like
when it’s all over. Whenever “over” is, what will be the new normal? When will my kids be able to
go back to school? What will their classes be like? What will traveling through an airport be like?
Will all of my friends and family still be around to hug? The uncertainty is maddening.
Right now, we are being asked to sacrifice our time and freedom in service not to our country
but rather to humanity as a whole. As a US veteran, I want to wholeheartedly (and not a bit
ironically) thank you for your service. Not only to the brilliant healthcare workers who are putting
their lives on the line each day, but to everyone who is staying home out of their sense of duty to
their fellow humans. We will get through this together.
Mary Stange is from Florida. After college she was commissioned into the US Navy as an aviator
to fly the EA-6B Prowler and completed two deployments on the USS Carl Vinson. After her
service concluded, Mary’s family joined the US State Department's Foreign Service, completing
tours in Yerevan, Armenia and Bogotá, Colombia with her two small children, Max and Amelia.
They are currently in transition to move to their third post in Nicosia, Cyprus. Mary is a member of
the American Women’s Club of Bogotá.
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