When Secretary of Defense Ash Carter invited me to join his team overseas as the 2015 Military Spouse of the Year, I went hoping to understand my husband’s deployment experience. What I found sitting in the belly of a C-17 — touching memorials, standing where he had stood — was something I didn’t expect: a journey that was about much more than the distance between us.

I didn’t choose the timing or circumstances of the trip — Christmastime, in the midst of our family’s second cross-state move in six months. But it seemed the perfect opportunity for Matt and me to gain a better understanding of each other’s perspectives. While I visited troops at US military installations in Turkey, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Persian Gulf, Matt experienced life on the home front with new eyes — moving our household, preparing for the holidays, and settling our two young sons into their new school.

At each stop, I spoke with military families stationed overseas and deployed troops on the ground, in the air, and at sea. I paid close attention to my own reactions — sensory, emotional, spiritual — and recorded my thoughts each day via video log and social media.

Then fate landed me in the very place that had changed the trajectory of our lives. As I sat in the belly of a C-17 where Matt had said goodbye to the remains of friends and fellow soldiers, as I touched the memorial at FOB Fenty and reflected on my grief as a care team member following the Battle of COP Keating, I realized this journey was about much more than the push-pull of duty away from loved ones.