Front Office Description

Military Home Front: Fitness a byproduct of soldiers' dangerous profession

Sometimes, I forget just how dangerous my husband's profession is.

Just the nature of his job description should be enough to keep me awake on any given night: Jumps out of perfectly good airplanes and helicopters; shoots automatic weapons on a regular basis; subject to deploy at a moment's notice to war zones across the globe.

Not the stuff of sweet dreams, I must admit. Still, I was caught off guard when meeting with a life insurance agent one recent evening. He mentioned that my husband's profession could affect his eligibility in the underwriting process.

This, of course, has nothing to do with his health. If anyone tried to guess how old Wade is, he would surely undershoot by at least a decade.

Aside from the sprinkling of salt and pepper throughout his closely cropped hair, he is the picture of youth. He runs a couple of miles every morning before any of our neighbors have their first cup of coffee, and he gets more yard work done on a Saturday morning than most landscaping crews can accomplish in a day.

The man is fit, my brain screams silently as Mr. Insurance suggests issues of age, health and lifestyle will be weighed by the underwriters of our policy.

That's one of the upsides to this military way of life - fitness is a byproduct of the profession.

I was reminded of this earlier this summer when our family visited the pool, where so many middle-aged bodies were squeezed into swimsuits designed for much younger physiques. Most of the other parents lay like beached whales on their lounge chairs sipping cold beverages and eating greasy snacks. Wade dove into the pool and splashed and played with our kids like one of the boys. No inner tubes around his trim waist, inflatable or otherwise.

So, what's the downside of Wade's profession?

He might live Army Strong for the rest of his life, but that life is full of higher-than-average risk factors, like the previously mentioned tendency to jump out of aircraft midflight. That's really what Mr. Insurance was talking about.

I am, of course, well aware of the dangers associated with Wade's job; after all, he did just spend a year in Afghanistan. But I prefer to remain blissfully unaware of this fact. That's why I was momentarily taken aback by the suggestion that my husband, strong and fit and invincible to me, could ever be otherwise.

Just last week, the boys and I tagged along with Wade to St. Mere Eglise Drop Zone so they could watch their dad thumb his nose at the Grim Reaper yet again. I have held my breath through many jumps over the years, straining to see the chutes start to pop out of the plane, looking like deflated balloons before finally righting themselves into buoyant mushrooms.

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