For those of you who don’t know, my hubby is a Marine. Just this past year, he deployed for 8 months-ish. In that 8 months, I made some really great friends–friends that knew exactly what it was like to be away from their favorite guy, whether that was dad, boyfriend, or hubby. They were my deployment buddies and will be friends for life. These are some of my deployment buddies, Jack and Grace, and shortly before homecoming, we spent a morning at the beach capturing their patriotism for years to come. These kids, and all the kids that go through deployments and all that comes with them, are my American heroes.