Two weeks and five days after our wedding, my husband was sent on his first Air Force deployment.

In the days leading up to his departure, I cried like a baby who could not be comforted.

"Please don't go," I begged over and over, knowing full well that nothing I could say could make him stay. "I need you. I can't do this without you."

With tears in his eyes, J.B. did his best to soothe me. "You are so much stronger than you think," he said. "You will get through this. Even though I will be far away, we will get through this together. I promise."

The night before he left, we barely slept. Instead we stayed awake holding each other tight. I feared what might happen if I let go. In the morning one of his Air Force buddies drove us down to base; neither J.B. nor I trusted that I would be able to safely drive home while crying. I wore my biggest, darkest sunglasses to hide my puffy, red eyes.

Click here to read how Pamela dealt with J.B.'s deployment.

This overseas deployment would be the first in series of 60-day rotations (two months on, two months off) that would continue for the next four or five years.

Returning to our eerily quiet apartment later that morning, I curled up on the couch and cried myself to sleep. I didn't want to think about how alone I already felt. In the afternoon I made plans to see a movie with a friend, because I needed to get out of the apartment and needed some company.

That first night without J.B. was miserable. Before falling asleep on his side of the bed, I started writing him this letter, which I never finished and never sent:

I can't believe you're on your way as I write this. Dropping you off at base this morning was one of the hardest things I ever had to do. Thank goodness you had the right mind to ask C to drive. If I didn't have him trying to engage me in conversation, I would have bawled all the way home.

I don't want my sadness to make what you have to do even more difficult, though I imagine it does. There's already a huge void in my life because you're not here. I'm lonely without you. The apartment is too quiet. The mess we made while packing you up is unruly. I don't want to fall asleep without you next to me.

I cry because I'm scared for your safety and for mine. My rational mind tells me that you are going to be safe, but what happens if there is an emergency or an accident out there? What if there is an emergency or an accident here and something happens to me? How will you find out? How will I get through it without you? As my husband, you are my primary support system now. How will I manage with you gone?

The next morning I woke up at 5:15 am, the exact time that J.B. and I had finally fallen asleep the previous night. I had a 7:15 am flight to New Jersey, where I was spending the weekend cocooned in the warmth and love of my family. My grandmother was going to return to Omaha with me the following week and stay a few days so I wouldn't be alone and couldn't dwell on the fact, that, for the foreseeable future, I was a single newlywed.