My father was telling me a story recently that seemed to me to have such relevance to the time and distance that separates military couples when one or both are deployed. My father was telling me about a brief conversation he had with David McCullough, the author of numerous biographies and narrative histories during which my father asked him what, in writing the biography of John Adams, struck him as a particularly dramatic difference between then and now. He said that in those days, if someone lived in America and went to Europe, leaving family behind, there were obviously no phones, no internet or email, no way to communicate other than by letter. So if your spouse were in New York and wanted to inform you that you child was ill, she could write to you. And you might receive the letter one or two months later by which time your child might have long been well, or might have died. So you get the letter and write back, which takes another one or two months. So you wife receives your letter and presuming your child has long been well, she has long been on to dealing with other matters. Time and distance. It seems that with military couples, there are times when as much as you want to be together, as much as you want to be there for each other, circumstances dictate that you can't. Now the military makes a huge effort to keep spouses and family members in touch via phone and email but now, as then, it seems that time and distance can be one of the hardships of military service when it comes to married couples.