Soldier's Wife, Crazy Life

National Guard

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?

 

What I Have Learned About Having A Husband In The National Guard

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What I Have Learned About Having A Husband In The National Guard


We are now three months into Guard life. So far that hasn’t meant too much as Ben has only had a couple of drills. However, I have learned some things I didn’t know. There were a few things I assumed about the Guard that I found out worked a little differently than I thought they would. I also almost titled this post, “What I Have Learned About Having A Husband In The National Guard: Part One” because I know that I will learn even more as the months go on.

So here goes:

1) How much you get paid. I assumed that every time Ben had drill, he would get paid the amount that is stated on some of the pay calculators. This is not true. They get paid by the amount of drill periods they complete. Each period is 4 hours. So if he works for 8 hours he would get two drill periods worth of pay. This is of course less than the full amount of pay we were thinking it would be.

2) How long they are gone on a monthly basis. When I used to hear people talk about drill weekends, I thought that meant they left Friday and you saw them again Sunday. Now I am sure this probably happens but it hasn’t been our experience so far. He has had two one day drills. As I look at the upcoming calendar I see a mix of different types of “drill weekends.” I really didn’t realize it would be like that. And even the first day he was gone I assumed he would walk in the door at 11pm that night. That didn’t happen although I am sure it could in the future. 

3) That drill can be cancelled. This hasn’t happened to us yet but I have been hearing that it has been happening in other states. I knew it had happened during the shutdown but I didn’t know it can sometimes happen during this time of year for budget reasons.

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4) How often they go. Once again, when I heard that, “Once a month” phrase, I thought it would be once a month exactly. That they would go the 1st weekend of every month. But,that is not true either. It is all over the place. Sometimes we have a few weeks in-between and other times it is a lot longer. It just depends on when the drill is scheduled for.

5) That I would slip right back into Army Wife Mode when he leaves. This is the weirdest thing for me. Even though I know he is only gone one-two days, I feel different on those days then I do during the rest of the month. Why? My husband is off doing something with the Army. It isn’t so much that I am sad or upset, I don’t exactly feel that way, it is more that I am reminded of times past. Of when he used to go away while he was active duty. It is probably because during the rest of the month, he is not in Army mode. He grows out his hair, I don’t see his uniform, we don’t deal with units or any of that. Then he gets ready for drill each month and it is reminder to me that he is still serving his country in this way. So I am sure the back and forth of it will take some getting used to.

 

Is your spouse in the Guard or the Reserves? What has surprised you about it? What about Active duty life? What did you assume before you became a Military spouse?

Thoughts On My Last Week As An Active Duty Army Spouse

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Eight days. That is all we have left as an active duty family. The day after we will officially be a National Guard family. Talk about a change.

It seems weird. We have been waiting for this day for a while now and here it is just a week away.

I think back on the last 8.5 years and everything we have been through.

20120413-IMG_7430We started this journey in November 2005 when I dropped Ben off at the recruiting office in Lexington, Kentucky. We had one little 13 month old boy and no idea what we were getting ourselves into. It seems so strange thinking about life back then. We had been married a little over three years at that time and we knew life was going to seriously change. We were just not sure how.

We knew that it would take a while for Daniel and I to join Ben in Germany. We had no idea it would take 4.5 months and too many tears to get over there. Joining the Military right before Thanksgiving is not the best plan.

Once we made it over there, we were in for quite the adventure. Not only did we have to figure out what Military life was like (it was all new to me) but we had to figure out how to live in Germany. On top of all that I was pregnant.

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Within a few months of getting to Germany we were getting ready to say goodbye to Ben for his first deployment. We assumed it would be a year. In the end it was 15 months and very difficult for us. Luckily there was an amazing support system of Military spouses and somehow we made it through. During those 15 months I really learned what it meant to be an Army wife. I knew how hard it was to be away from my husband. I knew how hard it was to be the only parent in the house. I gave birth without my husband next to me and somehow figured out how to be Mom and Dad to two very small children for a very long time.

It was then I thought things would get easier. That deployments would be easier. That because I made it through that, I could make it through anything. In some ways this is very true. Had I started my life as an Army wife with a more simple and shorter deployment, would I have had the strength to get through others? It is hard to say. It is hard to know if that 15 month deployment wore me down too much or made me stronger. I might not ever know.

After that deployment we ended up moving from Schweinfurt to Graf in Germany. That was such a nice change. It was then I learned that not all Military housing is the same. He didn’t change rank, we just moved and they totally upgraded us. We went from a 3rd floor stairwell apartment into a brand new 4 bedroom duplex. And even though it was a duplex, it didn’t feel like it. We hardly heard our neighbors.

At pretty much the 365 day mark after Ben got back from his deployment, he left again. He was going to Iraq a second time. This deployment ended up being 11 months. It also made it so we had to stay in Germany a little longer. This was frustrating because as amazing as Germany was, we were ready to go back to the US.

Once he was home we went on one final trip. A Mediterranean Cruise. We never would have been able to go on this trip and I am so glad we did it. We got to see 7 countries on this trip too.

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We moved back to the US in March of 2010 heading straight to Ft. Campbell on the KY/TN border. We decided we did not want to live on post here and found a rental. Ben got into his unit and I got pregnant with our 3rd child. Then we heard the news that his unit would be deploying at the end of that summer. Since he had just returned in November, he was able to stay back until at least then. I was due December 1st and it kept going back and forth as far as when he would leave. He ended up not going anywhere until February which gave us 15 months in between deployments.

When he returned from that 5.5 month deployment, we bought a house in Clarksville, Tennessee. At the time we didn’t know what our future would be with the Military but we knew we would be here until 2014 and we knew there was a good chance we could stay longer than that. Deciding whether to buy a house when you are in the Military can be a hard choice but we decided it was the best one for us.

It was in the time between our 3rd deployment and 4th that we decided it was time for Active Duty Army life to end for us. There were several different reasons for this. I honestly didn’t think we would have a 4th deployment. It kept going back and forth. At one point he was pulled from the list because he was getting out. Then, with two weeks to go, he was told he was deploying after all.

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This crushed me. I am not sure if it was because I thought we were done with deployments, if I had just done too much in too short amount of time or if I was just tired with everything and it was the last thing I wanted to deal with. I don’t know but that 4th deployment was my hardest. Don’t get me wrong, they were all hard but the last one was pretty brutal on me emotionally.

Somehow time passed and we got through it. He came home a week before Christmas.

Since then we have been preparing for ETSing from the Army. He isn’t retiring. He isn’t getting medically discharged, he is just ETSing.

As I look at the past and the future, I know the last 8.5 years have changed me in a lot of ways. Somethings are easier for me to deal with and others are harder.

I am not sure what the National Guard life will be like. I am going into it without that many expectations. It will be so different from what we have been through the last 8.5 years but at the same time we will still be apart of the Army family. It will be a change and hopefully for the better.

 

 

 

From Active Duty To National Guard

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Joining the national guardLast week we made a change to our plans. Ben enlisted in the National Guard. People have asked us if this was planned and that is a hard question to answer.

Before Ben’s last deployment we had talked about it. We knew it would help with health insurance and just allowing us some extra security. However, as the last deployment started I just felt like I couldn’t stand the thought of another deployment.

We decided against it but both of us still wondered if maybe it was the way to go. I just kept coming back to the deployment thing. Lately I had been thinking about it more but I didn’t say anything to Ben. It was just in the back of my mind.

Last week, Ben called me from work to ask if it would be worth joining under certain circumstances. I told him I wasn’t sure but it did sound like it would help with a lot of what we were trying to figure out in our post Army future.

We made the decision to go for it. At first it felt surreal. The last couple of months I have been saying goodbye to army life. From the commissary to the PX to the ease of getting on post. I was worried about healthcare and losing Tricare. I was getting ready to call around to get our new healthcare set up.

He has his first drill in July. We will get new ids. We will still be able to go on post. Living in a Military town, that will be nice.

It is funny how things can change in one day.

 

Any of my readers National Guard spouses?