Soldier's Wife, Crazy Life

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5 Things to Know About Being a National Guard Spouse

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It’s been nine years since I became a National Guard spouse when my husband went from the active duty military to the National Guard. Nine years of drills, annual training, and all things National Guard. Unlike many National Guard families, we live near a military post, Fort Campbell. He was stationed here when he was active duty and we stayed. We definitely live in a military town, and have access to many of the same things active duty military have.

We can and do shop at the Commissary, attend events on post, and many people we meet are associated with the military. They are either other military spouses, military brats, or veterans. Most people around me know a little bit about the military lifestyle, which I know isn’t always the case when you are in the National Guard or the Reserves.

Service members in the National Guard serve in the military, however, their day-to-day lives can look a little different. If your spouse serves in the National Guard, they will most likely also work a civilian job. As a National Guard family, the military is around, but not necessarily on a daily basis like you might find if you were an active duty family.

If your service member is thinking about joining the National Guard or the Reserves after active duty or thinking of joining to start their military career, I hope you are able to find this post helpful.

Sometimes the military is in your face

There are times when the military is going to be in your face. The Guard does deploy, and they also go away to train. AT or Annual Training is the “two weeks a year” part of the deal. Although sometimes AT is longer than two weeks. For us, it has been anywhere from 2-4 weeks.

Sometimes my living room is filled with camo as my husband sorts his gear for a drill weekend or other types of training. Sometimes we are waiting on military orders. Sometimes this life feels similar to when he was active duty. The key word here is sometimes.

Sometimes we are a lot more civilian

There are times when we are a lot more like a civilian family. While drill weekend is once a month, sometimes there can be six weeks in between drill weekends. This means that we don’t think as much about the military as other times. Life is pretty much him going to his civilian job, and not much going on with the military, even though the military is always still in the back of our minds. Every year seems to be a big mix of both military and non military seasons.

The news isn’t your friend

The news could mean activation. The National Guard could get called to help with a hurricane, tornado, or other natural disaster. They could get called to help with any type of unrest or anytime they are needed. This can be with very little notice and you will have to change your plans. This is one of the hardest parts of Guard life for me. Activation doesn’t happen too often but I always have it in the back of my mind, especially when planning vacations or other important events.

Create your own drill weekend fun

Creating drill weekend fun is good for you. I never love when my husband is gone. I am pretty sure drill weekend always falls on the most inconvenient weekend of the month, but I also enjoy creating traditions while he is away. I will order my favorite food one night or binge a specific show I only watch when he is gone.

You can and should enjoy that time as much as you can, instead of just dreading the times they will be away. Use those weekends or trainings to work on yourself, and make memories with friends or your kids. This will make your life as a National Guard spouse a bit easier.

National Guard spouses do get some benefits

Us National Guard and Reserves spouses do qualify for some of the same benefits active duty spouses do. When looking at spouse programs, finding out that we can’t qualify for something is frustrating. Our spouses serve too. However, some programs do include us. Here are a few of them:

  • MyCAA provides military spouses with up to $4,000 in financial aid to pursue a license, certification, or associate’s degree. MyCAA is available to National Guard and Reservist spouses when their service members are on Title 10 orders. MyCAA is for spouses whose service members have ranks between E-1 through E-6, W-1 through W-2, and O-1 through O-3.
  • Tutor.com is a free online tutoring website to include college and professional subjects, available 24/7.
  • Most military discounts that offer the discount to spouses include National Guard spouses, such as the amazing Disneyland military discount.
  • Hire Heroes USA provides free job search assistance to US military members, veterans, and their spouses.
  • Blue Star Families and Military OneSource are also available to us.

Not everyone’s experiences as a National Guard spouse will be the same. Some service members train more than others. But joining the National Guard or Reserves can be a good career move for some service members.

There is No Minimum Amount of Time to Miss Your Spouse

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There is No Minimum Amount of Time to Miss Your Spouse

The longest deployment my husband went through was 15 months. The shortest was 5.5 months. And then we had a few in-between.

The 15-month deployment was long, and we lost a lot of men. That part of the deployment was so hard to deal with, and I am thankful that wasn’t quite the case in any of the deployments that followed that one.

I was so thankful to hear when the Army went down to 9 months for most deployments. I know that some do deploy for longer, but to hear that the 12 months (or longer) wasn’t the standard anymore was a relief.

I do know some spouses prefer a longer deployment vs a bunch of shorter ones. They can get into deployment mode and ride it out verses always going back and forth between their spouse at home and then being gone again. Spouses of special forces service members might have their spouse coming and going all year long, that is just the way their job works.

Within the military as a whole, there are many different deployment patterns, where some branches have longer deployments than others. Some service members also deploy more than others. There isn’t just one standard amount of time a military member will deploy.

If my husband does have to deploy, I would prefer he go for a shorter amount of time. Longer deployments can affect you in ways shorter deployments might not. And deploying over a year brings up other challenges.

But…

That doesn’t mean that shorter deployments are easy, or that there is a minimum amount of time your spouse has to be gone before you are allowed to miss them.

That doesn’t mean that there is a minimum amount of time your spouse has to be gone before you are allowed to be sad about them being away from you.

That doesn’t mean that there is a minimum amount of time for your spouse to be deployed before you are allowed to ask for help or to find support.

The truth is, deployments affect us all in different ways. One military spouse might be having a difficult time with the idea that her spouse is in a war zone, while another might be struggling with solo parenting or the loneliness that comes with being the only person in the home.

The truth is, a three-month deployment for one person could be just as difficult as a six-month deployment to someone else. How a military spouse views and even handles a deployment depends on so many factors.

There is no minimum amount of time to miss your spouse. You just do.

Whether they are gone for a two-week training over AT while in the National Guard, or an extended 15-month deployment while active duty.

Whether they are gone for a three-month school in the Air Force, or a six-month deployment to Africa with the Army.

Whether you are apart for a year while you PCS back to the US early, or you are apart for six weeks waiting to PCS to Germany to join your spouse, literally just waiting on paperwork.

We need to remember this when talking with other spouses. We need to remember what it was like when our spouse first left for basic, or when they left for their first deployment. We have all been through it and we can help each other out.

If you are currently going through a year-long deployment and hear a spouse complain about a three-month deployment, of course, you are going to want to say something. You might wonder why they think it is so hard when you have so much longer to go then they do. But the truth is, a deployment is a deployment and while a three-month deployment may look easy to someone going through a year-long deployment, the deployment is anything but easy.

So even though it can be hard to do sometimes, trust me, I have been there, we should try to put ourselves in other military spouse’s shoes. None of this is easy, and we all might need a little help every now and then. Try to remember what it was like the very first time you had to say goodbye to your spouse and send them overseas.

Compassion goes a long way in our military community. Being aware that others might be struggling is important. Do what you can to help other spouses instead of playing the “who has it worse” game. Our community will be stronger for it.

If you are currently going through a deployment and struggling a bit, you have come to the right place. Check out my blog posts on deployments, or any other part of military life. You can also join my Facebook group or connect with me on social media. You are not alone and you got this!

17 Quotes For This Fourth Of July

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17 Quotes For This Fourth Of July

It’s the 4th of July! A time to celebrate America’s freedom. A time for family and friends and BBQs and fireworks. This mid-summer celebration of our country’s birthday also can have a lot of emotion to it.

During the 4th of July, we think about our freedoms, where our country has been, and what to look towards in the future.

17 Quotes For This Fourth Of July

Here are 17 quotes all about the 4th of July and freedom:

“Great difficulties may be surmounted by patience and perseverance.”- Abigail Adams

“With freedom, books, flowers, and the moon, who could not be happy?” – Oscar Wilde

“Where liberty dwells, there is my country.” – Benjamin Franklin

“Freedom is not won on the battlefields. The chance for freedom is won there. The final battle is won or lost in our hearts and minds.” –Helen Gahagan Douglas

17 Quotes For This Fourth Of July

“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams”- Eleanor Roosevelt

“Then join hand in hand, brave Americans all! By uniting we stand, by dividing we fall.” – John Dickinson

“Freedom is the open window through which pours the sunlight of the human spirit and human dignity.” – Herbert Hoover

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” – Declaration of Independence

17 Quotes For This Fourth Of July

“Our glorious diversity — our diversities of faiths and colors and creeds — that is not a threat to who we are, it makes us who we are,” –Michelle Obama

“This nation will remain the land of the free only so long as it is the home of the brave.”- Elmer Davis

“And I’m proud to be an American, where at least I know I’m free. And I won’t forget the men who died, who gave that right to me.” – Lee Greenwood

“Freedom has its life in the hearts, the actions, the spirit of men and so it must be daily earned and refreshed — else like a flower cut from its life-giving roots, it will wither and die.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower

17 Quotes For This Fourth Of July

“In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved.”– Franklin D. Roosevelt

“This, then, is the state of the union: free and restless, growing and full of hope. So it was in the beginning. So it shall always be, while God is willing, and we are strong enough to keep the faith.” – Lyndon B. Johnson

“Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” – Abraham Lincoln

“America was not built on fear. America was built on courage, on imagination and an unbeatable determination to do the job at hand.”- Harry S. Truman

“It is the love of country that has lighted and that keeps glowing the holy fire of patriotism.” – J. Horace McFarland

Great News! EFMP Will Be Standardized Across All Military Branches

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Great News! EFMP Will Be Standardized Across All Military Branches

Have you heard of EFMP? EFMP stands for the Exceptional Family Member Program. This program is an enrollment program that works with different agencies, both military and civilian, to make sure that military families with special needs can receive the support they need at their duty stations. EFMP is the reason you may or may not be able to be stationed in certain locations.

Active duty service members are required to register for EFMP as well as making sure their status stays updated. This is to make sure family members are able to receive the right housing, education, medical care, and personnel services that they need.

Being stationed in a place where you couldn’t receive much-needed therapy can be a problem. While this does sometimes complicate issues when it comes to where a service member needs to go for their career vs where a family can go to get services, EFMP can be a good thing to make sure family members get exactly what they need.

Up until recently, each service branch had its own regulations and guidelines when it comes to EFMP. However, the DoD has made some changes to standardize the EFMP program. This is much needed and should have been done a long time ago.

Who qualifies for EFMP?

Military families who have any emotional, developmental, physical, or intellectual needs that require any special treatments, therapies, education, counseling, or training qualify and need to sign up for EFMP. If you are on OCONUS orders, you will need to go through EFMP screaming. My son and I had to do this before we did a PCS to Germany. At the time we didn’t have any diagnosed special needs and weren’t aware of any, so our doctor filled out a form saying so.

What will the changes in EFMP look like?

According to Gilbert R. Cisneros Jr., Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, “Service members can’t focus on the mission when they have concerns about a family member’s health or education needs. Enrollment in EFMP provides families access to critical services and support, no matter their service branch or location. We will continue our work to enhance EFMP to better serve our military families.”

The DoD Office of Special Needs is enhancing the Exceptional Family Member Program to help improve the experiences of military families in every branch in the following ways:

  • Medical services will coordinate the documentation of the special needs and the family’s enrollment in the EFMP. Identification and enrollment will be standardized.
  • Each branch will use the same criteria when it comes to the assignment process. You will also be told what the reason is if you are declined a location.
  • Family members will be able to connect with resources that can help. EFMP Family Support providers will help with this.
  • There will be guidance and transparency when it comes to disenrollment. The disenrollment process will be standardized.
  • There will be revisions when it comes to respite care, such as a consistent number of hours across the services and covering adult dependents who are eligible for respite care.

You can read more about this on the DoD Press Release page.

Hopefully, these changes will help improve things for EFMP families. Not being able to find the care that you need when you or a family have special needs can be frustrating, especially when trying to balance that with the military lifestyle.

When You Are Feeling Homesick At Your Duty Station

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When You Are Feeling Homesick At Your Duty Station

Have you ever felt homesick at your duty station? As a military spouse, you might be far from home and that isn’t always easy. Being the family member that misses everything is hard. Being the one that can’t go to the baby shower or misses birthdays on a regular basis is difficult to deal with. Being the one without family nearby can be frustrating.

As a military family you could end up in so many amazing places, Hawaii, Germany, Japan…✈️

You might end up on the East Coast when you have never been east of Utah before.

You might end up in South Korea when you never even thought about getting a passport before.

You might end up in Alaska, going through your first snowy winter after growing up in Florida.

Wherever you are stationed, wherever you are currently living, take advantage of the experience. I know that is hard to do sometimes, some places are easier to live than others but blooming where you are stationed is a must. Doing so will make the whole experience a lot easier for you and your entire family. 💐

However…whether you are happy where you are currently living or not, you can feel homesick at your duty station.

There are days when you wish you could hop on a plane, and spend some time with your mom.

When you wish you could meet up with your best friend for lunch.

Or stop by and spend an afternoon with your grandparents.

If you have just moved to a new duty station, you might still feel lost, like you will never find your way or will never make a circle of friends like you had before. You might start to think that if you can only go back home, everything will be okay again.

But as a military spouse, you usually can’t go back home. Maybe your spouse can never be stationed nearby where you grew up. Maybe they can but it just hasn’t happened yet and you are not sure it ever well. Maybe your family has moved away and you know if you did go home, things would never be the same.

As a military spouse, you know that you will be living in different places, and at your core, you know that the best thing to do is learn to love where you live, but that isn’t always easy.

Here are a few things you can do if you are feeling homesick at your duty station:

Connect to your duty station

Are you spending all of your time at home? Get out and explore and check out your new neighborhood. What are you interested in? Look for a group based on that. Find a new playgroup. Or, explore your base or post for fun events. The more time you spend getting to know your new home, the better.

Don’t dwell on the differences

Are you dwelling too much on how different your current home is from where you just came from? Make a list of positives about your current duty station look online if you need ideas. If you spend all of your time thinking about what you don’t have, that will make enjoying what you do have harder to find.

Focus on you

As military spouses, we can get stuck in the day-to-day duties of living this life. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t find ways to focus on yourself. What are your goals? Do you want to go back to school? Find a new job? Have another baby?

Spend some time thinking about how you are spending your days and how you can move forward with your goals. If you are spending time working on yourself, you won’t have as much time feeling sad about where you are living and what you are missing about home. You will be busier and find over time, that you really are loving your new experiences.

You might never get to a place where you never feel homesick again, but you can get to a place where your time at your duty station isn’t going to be the worst thing in the world. It might take time, but it is possible.

Where are you stationed? How have you been able to kick your homesickness and enjoy your current home?

To the Military Spouse That Can’t Do Military Life Anymore

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To the Military Spouse That Can't Do Military Life Anymore

He was gone again. I couldn’t believe it. I had just dropped my husband off for his 4th deployment. Another deployment, but this time, I wasn’t sure how I was going to get through.

Sure, I had done this before. And really, this deployment was only supposed to be six months long, that is less than half of how long some of our deployments had been. Why was I falling apart this time?

I took my then 8, 6 and 2-year-old boys home after saying goodbye. I got them interested in something and then sat on my bed. How was I going to do this? How was I going to get through?

That deployment broke me. Even before it started. My anxiety went through the roof. I wasn’t sure how we would get from where I was at the moment to homecoming. 

I ended up getting some extra help, which was needed. I was able to take that deployment one day at a time. And then, right before Christmas, my husband came home, and the deployment was over.

But I will never forget those six months. I will never forget how hard some of the nights were. I will never forget how broken I felt.

During that deployment, I started to feel like I was not strong enough to be a military spouse. I would look at my friends and other spouses, and I saw strength. A strength I didn’t think I had.

At times I wanted to tell my husband that I was sorry, that I couldn’t do it anymore. That we had given up too much and that I was done. 

I was done with deployments, I was done being the only parent in the house when my kids needed two, I was done with goodbyes, I was done with the hurt, I was done with the pain of being away from my husband.

I hit a wall, and I didn’t want to do military life anymore. I felt like I didn’t have it in me. I felt like everything was too much.

So to the military spouse who can’t do military life anymore, I get it. I have been there, and this is what I can tell you.

Some parts of military life as so frustratingly hard that it will feel like you can’t make it through, but you can.

There will be days you will have to ask for help, even if you don’t want to. The help might be asking a friend to watch your kids so you can get your grocery shopping done. The help might be asking your doctor if you should start to see a counselor. The help might be asking your MOPS friends to pray extra hard for you as you are going through something tough at the moment.

Some parts of military life as exciting. That post-deployment block leave where you get to spend weeks together? I love it. Moving to Hawaii or Germany, or even back to your hometown? Exciting. Making a new friend when you walk into an FRG meeting, a friend who will always now be a part of your life, that’s the best.

There will be times during your life as a military spouse that you will want to throw in the towel. That you will spend hours online looking at houses in your hometown because there is no way your husband can continue to do this. You will think that once that ETS day comes, everything will be better.

But then you watch your spouse see how much he loves being a soldier.

How that it is in his blood. How his dream of joining the military has come true. That finally, after five years of marriage, she has found a career she loves, and you know you have to stand by her.

You see, not everyone is in the military for 20+ years. For some, military life is merely a season. For others, it is a lifetime commitment. You and your spouse will need to talk about what the plan is. You will need to share your worries and struggles.

But military spouse, know this, if the person you married feels they need to be in the military, you will be able to handle whatever comes your way.

I know it might not always seem like it. I know that some days will be a lot harder than others. But trust me, you will be able to do what you need to do.

We get frustrated when people tell us “I could never do it” when it comes to military life, but the truth is, we do it because we love and support our spouse. We do it because we love our country and want the best for it.

We do it because we know that we are meant to be with this person, and this person is meant to be in the military. 

So to the military spouse who can’t do military life anymore, know that you genuinely can. Maybe for you, military life will be over in a few years. Maybe military life will be over when you are in your 50s. Either way, you can do this.

Take this military life one day at a time, one hour if you need to. Look for military spouse support, at your duty station, through your friends, and online. Find a way to make it through because you have to, because you want to, because it is how you will figure out how to make being a military spouse work.

Have you ever felt like you couldn’t do military life anymore? What did you do to break out of feeling that way? 

5 Tips for a Better Homecoming Day at the End of a Deployment

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5 Tips for a Better Homecoming Day

From the moment your service member leaves for a deployment, you start thinking of homecoming day. You dream about that day, you plan for it. You spend hours looking for the perfect dress, the perfect sign and you want everything to go as smoothly as possible.

I have experienced four military homecomings plus all the random times we reconnected after a time apart. When I flew into Germany I was nothing but exhausted after the long flight with my toddler. Still, seeing my husband again after 4.5 months was everything. This was the first time we had ever been apart and we were finally back together again. I didn’t have a sign, I am not even sure I cared what I was wearing but I was back in his arms and everything felt normal again.

When it comes to homecoming day, it is way too easy to become too stressed out about everything that needs to happen.

Here are 5 tips for a better homecoming day:

1. Remember, the dress is for you- Picking out that perfect outfit for a homecoming outfit can be a lot of fun. You spend a little more money than you normally would, and you get to go shopping with friends and buy something special that you will always remember as your homecoming outfit. However, I don’t think what you wear matters to most of the service members coming home from a deployment. They want to see you. They want to hug you. They want to be home. The dress is for you and if you are too stressed about what to wear, don’t be. Pick a nice outfit and you will be fine.

2. Make a to-do list- Preparing for homecoming is all about having a to-do list. There are things you will probably want to do right before they come home. From having the carpets cleaned to figuring out what your kids will wear. Make a good to-do list and stay on track. This will help with your stress level. Know too that you probably don’t have to do everything on your to-do list but having one will keep you busy and keep you from overstressing in the last few days.

3. The simple things are the important ones- Remember, you just need to know where to go and what time, everything else is just extra. Your service member is excited to be home and to see you and your children again. Try not to stress if one of your rooms isn’t clean or if you couldn’t get the right type of beer for your husband.

4. Times and dates will change often- Times and dates for homecoming can change and you might not know for sure until just a few hours before. I really had no idea that my husband would be in one afternoon until he called me from Canada. Try to go with the flow and remember OPSEC!

5. Homecoming is good but can be hard for some- Homecoming can be one of the best days, but for some, homecoming is a day when the reality of war hits. Coming back from a war zone can bring up a lot of different emotions. Both for you and your service member. You are used to being the only adult in the house, they are used to being around other service members all the time. They have been through things us spouses might not be able to imagine. The reintegration period isn’t easy and knowing that you might need some extra help after homecoming day is important.

The good thing is that there are resources out there to help. Here are a few worth looking into:

Military One Source

Real Warriors

IAVA

Operation Homefront

Reboot Combat Recovery

Are you getting ready for homecoming? What has helped you to stay sane during the last few weeks of the deployment?

10 Things to Remember, When You Are Married to a Service Member

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Are you married to a service member? Going to be? Military marriage can be very difficult sometimes. There are extra stresses those who are not associated with the military don’t have to worry about. Here are 10 things to remember as you start your life together:

10 Things to Remember, When You Are Married to a Service

This post does contain affiliate links!

Be there for each other- This is the #1 thing you can do. Just be there. Over the course of your marriage, each of you will need each other in different ways. Checking in with one another is a great way to learn what is going on with your spouse and figuring out what they need from you at the moment.

Don’t assume anything- Assuming will get you into trouble. If you are not sure about something, just ask. This is your spouse, you should feel comfortable doing so. This is why communicating is so important.

I think a lot of our struggles over the years have come from assuming different things about each other. The more we talk about how we are feeling about what is going on in our lives, the better we can move forward.

Don’t get jealous- This is hard, especially if your spouse is gone a lot. Other people get to be in the same place as your spouse and you don’t get to be. Try not to let it bother you.

Talk things out if something doesn’t seem right. Remember, they are married to you and that is who they will be coming home to as soon as it is possible to do so.

Know your love languages– If you haven’t read the book already, the Five Love Languages is a great way to get to know your spouse. My husband and I have different love languages. Knowing this makes things a bit easier because I understand how he feels loved and how he shows love back. They also have a Five Love Languages Military Edition.

Put yourself in their shoes- This is always a good thing to do. You never know what someone is going through or if you would act the same way if you were in their shoes. When your spouse is deployed, try to imagine what they are dealing with. To have to leave home for so long, trusting you to handle everything from children to finances to your home. It is a strange thing to think about sometimes.

Remember to trust– I really believe that in order to get through a deployment you need to have a lot of trust. I see trust as this invisible thread that connects you. You just have to trust your spouse even when they are across the world. Without that trust, everything falls apart.

Hold hands- Keep holding hands, kiss often, give each other hugs. Doing this will bring your closer and remind you of when you first met. This is a simple way to show your spouse you are still in it with them.

Date- Regular dates with your spouse are a great idea but they are not always possible. Sometimes they are just gone too much or working all the time. Other times you have small children and finding a babysitter feels impossible.

Do what you can to date your spouse. Make a lunch date while kids are in school, plan a nice dinner after the kids go to bed, go on a walk with your baby in a stroller. Think about the different ways you can have a date even if it isn’t on a regular basis.

Tell them you love them- Don’t ever stop telling your spouse that you love them. Say these words before you hang up the phone and before you go to bed each night. Write them a love letter. Speak their love language so they always know that you care.

Be silly with each other- Laugh, flirt, be silly when you can. There is something about laughing together with my husband after all these years that I just love. Even through all the stresses in life, I am thankful we can still laugh with each other.

What is your best marriage tip?