Soldier's Wife, Crazy Life

Deployment

What I Miss About Active Duty Life

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What I Miss About Active Duty Life

What I Miss About Active Duty Life

It’s been almost 8 months since my husband ended his Active Duty Army life. We haven’t moved away from Ft. Campbell so we are still surrounded by the Military and since he is in the National Guard we still experience some of that life. We still have Army stuff in our house, we can shop at the Commissary and I go on post several times a week with no issues. However, there are a few things I do miss about life as an active duty Army family. If your spouse has gotten out of the Military, you might miss these as well.

1) On post Housing- We didn’t live on post during all of our time as an active duty family but we did for a few years and a part of me misses it. I liked how everything was close by, how my husband could come home for work, how it made things a little easier when it came to where we lived and the bills we had to pay. When you live off post you do get a little more freedom and it is quieter but you also give up more of the convenience of it. With my husband no longer being active duty, living on post isn’t an option anymore. That chapter is forever closed.

2) Healthcare– Now that we are a Guard family, our healthcare is a little bit different. We still get Tricare, just a different type. After almost 9 years of Tricare Prime, it was hard to get that first bill for a doctor’s appointment. At the same time, I am thankful for the healthcare I do have because I know it could be a lot worse. I am thankful that we were able to be on Tricare Prime when I was pregnant, having babies, taking them to doctor’s appointments every few months and needing the ABA services that we received. I think it would be a lot harder to do that now, with the insurance we now have.

3) Upcoming PCS– Although we are technically free to move away from this area whenever we want, we can’t do so until we have a plan that will work. Sometime I think about PCSing out of here. Of having the Army come, pack us up and take us on our next journey. Of researching the next post. Of asking questions about what it is like there and what services they offer. It will never be like that again for us. Sometimes I miss when that was possible. I see friends heading off to new places and part of me wishes we were too.

I know once we move away from here I will miss even more about Army life. I will miss all my Army wife friends. The ladies that know what it is like to do it all alone for months at a time. The other women that get how beautiful a homecoming is or how hard waiting for orders can be. The friends that get the frustration that comes with waiting for promotions, days with no communication with your husband and having to explain to your child why Daddy isn’t going to be home for a while. I will miss all of that so much. I am thankful that I haven’t had to give all of that up quite yet.

I am sure that when the time comes to say goodbye to the Army once and for all, it will be quite emotional. I am thankful that we are doing it this way. Saying goodbye to some of Military life without having to shut the door on it completely. I know that day will come and it will be bittersweet.

What about you? What do you think you will miss about Military life? What do you miss if your spouse has gotten out?

 

The Difficulties of Solo Parenting

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I have heard it said that Military wives or any wife whose husband has to go away for work should not call themselves a single mom. I agree with this. We are not single moms. We do however go through periods of time as a solo parent. It could be weeks or it could be months or even a year or longer.

Being a solo parent means you are responsible for everything in the house having to do with the kids from day-to-day to the big decisions. This might depend on where your husband might be at the moment and how often he can talk to you.

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It means being mom AND dad for a period of time. It means not as many breaks.

It means doing it all for a temporary amount of time.

People tell us that they don’t know how we do it. How we get through the solo parenting times. How we can fill the role of mom and dad.

It’s not something that I would ever consider easy. It is the hardest part of deployments for me personally. It drains you, it puts you into survival mode. It makes you handle parenting a little differently than you might otherwise handle it.

There is the day-to-day. If you have a baby, everything from the feeding a to the diapers is all you. No one to hold them when you need a 5 min break, no one to change that diaper when you have had enough for the day. It’s hard!

With toddlers and preschoolers you are always moving. You are the one planning their days and figuring out bedtime. You make all the meals and tear your hair out trying to figure out what to feed them sometimes. It’s hard!

When you have school aged kids you are the one doing all the school stuff. You are the one taking them to scouts, soccer and church programs. You are the one telling them it will be okay and that daddy will be home soon. It’s hard!

Parenting is hard for everyone, Military families or civilian ones. 

It’s tough to take care of little kids day in and day out. Adding in solo parenting just makes it even more stressful. Not having that other set of parenting hands can take it toll.

I really think having a good support group and being able to change your perspective a little can really go a long way during these periods of time. Knowing you always have another mom or friend to call and hang with when you need it can be like medicine to the soul.

Realizing that your solo parenting days are limited is also a way to help you get through it. Don’t get me wrong, some days are harder than others. Some days no matter what you tell yourself you are going to feel pretty bad about the situation. However, some days, that simple reminder that there is an end date to the madness can help you at least get through until bedtime.

I always used to tell myself that this just time that separated us from life without my husband and life where I had my husband home.

Just days on a calendar I needed to get through.

If you are in the mist of solo parenting, know that you are not alone. Know that it won’t last forever and know that you can get through it too. It’s a frustrating part of Military life but one you can endure with support from those around you and the knowledge that there is an end date in your future.

How do you handle periods of solo parenting?

 

 

The Deployment That Never Goes Away

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The Deployment That Never Goes Away

The Deployment That Never Goes Away

It’s been almost 7 years since that awful 15-month deployment ended. It still touches me in different ways. You hear about those in the military never forgetting about the deployments. And this is true. But the spouse, she or he never forgets either.

A Military spouse is never going to forget how hard it was to let their spouse go, how lonely the nights were or how happy they were when they finally came home.

We’ve been through several other deployments since then. However, the 15-month deployment was the one that sticks with me the most. It was a hard deployment and not just because it was so long. We lost a lot of men, especially compared to the rest of our deployments. It seemed like every week we heard the news that another soldier had lost his life. Three of my friends lost their husbands during that deployment.

It probably didn’t help that we were overseas away from family. I was one of the lucky ones and my mom was able to come visit for two months and my dad for about three weeks. My brother was even able to visit for a week. Not everyone was so lucky. A lot of extra loneliness that deployment.

The day before Thanksgiving 2007, I went to pick up my husband. Finally, the deployment was over. Peace. At least temporarily. It was over. The deployment that would never end was finally over.

That deployment shaped me into who I am today.  Who I became as a parent. Who I became as a wife. Who I am as a person.

I went 11 months without seeing my husband. My little boy was three weeks old when daddy said goodbye during R&R, he didn’t see his daddy again until he was 11 months old. I can hardly talk about this without breaking into tears. It is something that seems so unreal and seems so impossible. How did we even get through that? How did we go that long without seeing each other? How did we make it through…?

I don’t really know.

We just kept going. We just didn’t give up. We couldn’t give up. We had no choice but to stay and get through it.

I don’t think I will ever forget what that was like. I don’t think anything could ever be exactly like that. I think that we will always be affected by that in some way. I had friends that lost their husband during the deployment. I have friends that lost their husband since that deployment.  I think it changed everyone.

When I hear that the Military is going “back” to Iraq, I think of that deployment. I think of the families and the men and women that will have to go back over there. I think of everything that happened and I hope and pray that deployments will not be like that again.

I know that the Military will go to war. It’s expected. I just wish there was some way to make it a little bit easier. Someway to make it so that it wasn’t so gut-wrenching. Little things that would make it a little bit easier. Such as giving people plenty of time to regroup and spend time with family. To get back to some kind of normal before they have to deploy again, before they even have to think about deploying again.

Because you never forget the deployments.

Whether you were the one deployed or the one who stayed home. You never forget them. They stay with you forever. The smallest thing can remind you of them. Can take you right back.

So even though our 15-month deployment was in 2007. Even though it was years ago. Even though my husband deployed since then. It is the one that I always think about. It is the one that will stay with me forever.

Is there a deployment that hit you harder than the others?

How To Stick To OPSEC When You Are A Military Spouse

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OPSEC

There has been a lot of talk about Isis and blogging and PERSEC and OPSEC and what we military spouse bloggers need to do about it.

Some of us have decided to keep on blogging like normal. We are not too worried about it and although we are safe with our personal information, we don’t think that we need to stop blogging like we have been.

PERSEC and OPSEC are very important for all military spouses, not just us bloggers. If you have a spouse in the military, you have to be very aware of what you post on social media. There are certain things you can’t say like the return date of your loved one or how many days you have left and other information like that. You also can’t talk about the day they’re going to leave until after the fact.

Different bloggers have different comfort levels when it comes to what they share with the public.  Some don’t want anyone to know that they are a military spouse and that is totally fine.  Others have a blog that centers on the fact that they are a military spouse and Military life is a huge part of their lives.

It really just depends on your comfort level.  This is the decision to tell you that my husband is in the military. It is the decision to tell you where we live, although not the exact address of course. It is also the decision to tell you when my husband is deployed or if he deploys. I know for myself since I blog about military issues, especially deployment, that there would be no way to carry on my blog the way that it is without letting you know that my husband was deployed. It’s kind of one of those things.

When I have spoken about deployments, I have tried to keep it more general. I am not going to tell you the day that he’s going to leave. I am not going to tell you the day that he gets home. I might say he is going to be deploying rather soon. I might say that he will be home rather soon and that we are at the end of the deployment. I really don’t even want to know about his mission or where he is until he is home with me so sometimes I don’t even know what he is doing or where he is exactly.

OPSEC

OPSEC comes into play when you’re talking about dates, locations and all of that. If you are a non-blogging military spouse, the most you have to really worry about is Facebook although it is not a good idea to talk about the dates openly in public either.

For the military spouse blogger, it is even more important since more people are reading what we are writing. If I were to write on my blog that my husband is getting home in 10 days that would not be good in that would be a big violation of OPSEC. There have been cases of groups of soldiers being delayed because of people breaking OPSEC.  Think about how frustrating that would be if you’re waiting for your husband and you find out that the only reason that they are getting delayed is because somebody talked about it on Facebook. It happens.

So, if you are a blogger, what are you supposed to do when you want to write about the deployment? When you want to share your feelings about the night before he leaves or the day before he gets home?

What I have done about this is I write about these things when they happen but I did not publish them until after-the-fact. This way, I can share with my readers my feelings on those days but I’m not breaking any OPSEC rules.  When you do get to read them, it has already happened and it is no longer an issue.

I don’t want to live in fear. I want to be safe but not fearful and that includes my blog. I don’t want to break any OPSEC rules.  I’m not going to tell you things that you don’t need to know. However, I am going to share that my husband is in the military as that has been a huge part of my life and a huge part of this blog.

I do encourage bloggers to only post what they feel they are comfortable with. If they don’t want to share that their spouse is deployed or even in the military, that is okay. Not everyone blogs the same way.

 

How do you decide what you’re going to share on your blog? If you are not a blogger how do you decide what to share on social media?

Bye To Schweinfurt, Germany

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Bye To Schweinfurt, Germany

In March of 2006, my oldest son Daniel and I flew to Germany to join my husband at his first duty station. Daniel was just 18 months old and we had been waiting to join him for the past 4.5 months. It would have been longer but we decided to buy our own tickets and head over once the Command Sponsorship was done. They sent us our No fee passports about 6 weeks later.

I remember when we flew in. I didn’t know what to expect. I had never been to Europe before, I hadn’t even been out of the US unless you could mission trips to Mexico. We were tired and so ready to be back with Ben.download (17)

 

Ben met me at the airport and we took the train to Schweinfurt, our first duty station. I remember sitting there watching all the business people on their cell phones thinking, this is a lot like America. In some ways Germany is like America, in other ways it is completely different as I would soon learn.

We got back to our apartment which was a third floor stairwell apartment. We lived on Askren Manor which was the main housing area there. People also lived off post in government leased housing or in private housing. There was also a small section of housing on another part of the post.

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The next day Ben had to work all day. I was suffering from jet lag and rather confused. I wanted to go exploring but I was a little scared to. I didn’t even know I could have walked to the Commissary. I felt silly about that.

Time passed. We got our household goods. We got our driver’s licences and Ben got orders for his first deployment. I also found out I was pregnant with Drew. I got pregnant the day we got there. This was right around the time that I started making some friends. Our FRG had a dinner a few weeks or maybe it was months before the deployment. I went and got to meet some of the other wives which was a very good thing. During the deployment we met for coffee on Mondays and did a lot of fun things together.

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The deployment was long, 15 months. During that time I never left Schweinfurt other than going on a retreat to Garmich. I had Drew during the deployment and my family was able to come visit. My mom came for two months which was amazing. I got to experience two different hospitals. The first is where I gave birth to Drew and the second was where we spent almost a week when he came down with RSV at two months old.

Ben eventually came home and we spent a month in California with our families. I will always remember that trip and how nice that time was. We headed back to Germany the first week of January and I really didn’t want to go. I was kinda in a slump. I was annoyed that there was already talks of them deploying again. I didn’t like my apartment and I felt like if he did deploy then I would just go home.

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But then one morning I woke up to the news that some of the brigade was moving to Grafenwoehr, two hours away. I told Ben I really want to go. We were able to. In May of 2008 we moved to a small village about 30 minutes from post called Erbendorf.

Anyway, Schweinfurt is now closed. The closing ceremony was last week. When I was there I remember hearing it would eventually happen but not for years and years. And now that time has come. It makes sense for the Army to close some of the posts in Germany. We don’t need them like we did in the past. So I get it. But it is weird to think that it will be closed and will be given back to the Germans. It is weird to think that little city will not have an US Army presence anymore. It is strange to think that if we ever go back and visit, it will be very different.

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Although we moved to Graf and I was so happy about that, I will always have a place in my heart for Schweinfurt. It is where I learned to be an Army wife. It is where I figured out the Commissary, had our first experience with Military schools, found PWOC, made friends, figured out how to get through a deployment. It is where I learned about German culture, Euro and how my US life is just one way to live in this great big world of ours. It opened my eyes to things I never would have thought about before. It is also where I learned to be a Mom. Daniel was only 18 months old when we got there. In the two years that we were there he changed a lot. I think back to those years and Schweinfurt is a huge part of it.

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Have you ever been to Schweinfurt? When were you there? Have yu ever visited Germany?

On Coffee Cups, Puppy Dogs and Wars

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On Coffee Cups, Puppy Dogs and Wars

I am sure most of you have seen the video going around about President Obama saluting a Marine with a coffee cup in his hand. You might have seen the response to that of a photo of President Bush saluting with a dog in his hand. You have probably read a lot of the comments going around about how he shouldn’t have done that, how rude it was and how we can really tell what one President thinks based on what they do with something in their hand.

I could go on and on about what I think about all that.

However, I just think it boils down to if you like President or not. You know how when you don’t like someone, everything they do annoys you? That happens with political figures too. They can’t do anything right, ever. Even if they do something a previous President did, doesn’t matter, it is worse when they did it.

The thing is, we are all human and we all make mistakes. When you are in the public eye, every mistake can be blown up and turned into a story. Remember when Dan Quayle misspelled potato?

Sigh…The fact is our country is STILL AT WAR!american-flags

Yes we are. People are still deploying. Military families are still having to say goodbye to their loved ones. It’s not over yet and probably won’t be for a while.

I would never want to be in a political office. Never. I would never want to have that over me. To have to be in charge of something that important. I can’t even imagine. I can’t even imagine what would it be like to have to make decisions about war, terrorists and what the best thing to do is. To have that on your mind 24/7? I can’t even imagine.

As a Military spouse, I am not sure what the future holds for us. Will my husband have to deploy again? I just don’t know. It is always in the back of my mind as is the case with other Military families. It is always something we think about. When we watch the news, we are reminded. There is no getting away from it.

So we can sit and debate saluting with coffee cups vs dogs but at the end of the day, that really doesn’t matter. What matters is that we do live in a country where people are willing to stand up for what is right. That we do have a Military that will go where they need to go and do what they need to do. That there are families out there that live this each and every day.

It is also important to remember that Military spouses make up a range of different types of beliefs. From political to religious to if we even want to have children or not. We are not all the same but what we do have in common is the love for our spouse and our country and the freedom we all hold so dear.

 

 

 

Believe in Heroes And The Wounded Warriors Project

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Our country has been at war for many years. Many Soldiers, Sailors, Marines, Airmen and members of the Coast Guard have spent time overseas fighting for our country. Many of them have gone back for a 2nd, 3rd, 4th or even 5th time. Some even more than that. Each time they return their family members can breathe a sigh of relief but homecoming doesn’t always mean everything is just as it was when they left. From minor injuries to life changing ones to PTSD, our Wounded Warriors need the support of the American people. Even more so now that so many of them have come home.

Did you know that you can support Wounded Warriors thorough grocery shopping? The Believe in Heroes project allows you to do just that. It was started in 2010 in collaboration with Acosta Sales & Marketing. They wanted to give back to those who have made sacrifices and helped protect our country. The campaign has generated $16 million for WWP to date and has helped enable the expansion of its critical veteran programs that now directly serve more than 40,000 injured service members.

Beginning September 7, 2014 and running through Veterans Day, November 11, 2014, Believe in Heroes calls on Americans to show their support and appreciation for our service members and newest generation of veterans in a simple everyday way — grocery shopping. Each participating brand and retailer will help raise funds and awareness for WWP through the Believe in Heroes campaign.

You can go ahead and get your coupons here!  These will be available through November 30th or while supplies last.

If your family is on a budget like we are, you will find these coupons really helpful. They can help you save a little here and a little there but overtime that adds up. The best part is, using them will help the very people who have sacrificed to keep our country safe.

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The Believe in Heroes campaign is important to me as a Military Spouse. I like knowing that there are ways to give back to those that have given so much. It makes me happy to see American people and companies finding new and interesting ways to help give back. It shows that even though a Military career can be a hard one, knowing that the American people support you can go a long way. It encourages the service members  with what they have to do each day to protect the country.

  • Here is how you can help the Believe in Heroes® campaign:
    • Downloading over $25 in coupon savings by visiting http://goo.gl/X5dn6w.
    • Sharing social media posts on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
    • Purchasing Believe in Heroes® merchandise in stores or online at http://goo.gl/X5dn6w.

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I’m participating in the 2014 Believe in Heroes® blogger campaign and received compensation as part of the program.