Last 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?
My husband and I have been having this same talk lately. Who knows where we will end up.
I’m a Guardsman’s wife… with that said, deployments won’t be going away anytime soon. For guardsmen, they deploy every 4 years, so it’s slightly more predictable, but the downside is that you’re at the disposal of the state now. What that means is that if there’s a wild fire or something severe enough for the governor to declare a state of emergency, don’t expect him to be home to help you sort things out, this is the National Guard’s time to shine, and he is almost guaranteed to be called onto temporary active duty (usually for less than 30 days). Also, it’s important to have another source of income since you won’t be getting that nice BAH or BAS anymore until he goes title 10 for his deployment! He’ll be in the field, or stuck at the armory all weekend once a month, and he’ll also have schools he can potentially be sent to for usually around 2 weeks, but it’s really not that big of a deal. Drill weekend I end up looking forward to a lot of times because it’s my time to myself, or if I want to do some kind of get together with my friends, that’s when it’s ideal. I know you have kids, so this might be slightly different for you, but maybe it can be worked into your budget that one night on drill weekend, you get a baby sitter and go have girls’ night!
In the Guard, you’ll find it harder to get support for the things you need. For example, something that might seem simple to you, like driving over to the FRG leader’s house for coffee, might become next to impossible considering she could live up to 300 or so miles away.
Anyway, that’s just some food for thought. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to contact me!
I am a National Guard’s wife!
Wow! I hope and pray that will be a nice transition for your family!
calories burned jumping jacks