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You are here: Home / Deployment / When Military Life Isn’t Fair

When Military Life Isn’t Fair

March 14, 2022 by Julie 5 Comments

When Military Life Isn't Fair

Military life isn’t fair. It really isn’t.

One of the mistakes I made going into this life was thinking military life might be fair. I know life isn’t fair but I guess I just assumed that the Military would be. The military is structured and organized, right?

I thought that if you turned your paperwork in on time, you would get a quick response. Nope. Sometimes you have to wait because so and so went on a two-week vacation. Other times your paperwork gets lost or sent to the wrong department. You really have to be on top of what needs to get done.

We stopped getting our BAH once because we didn’t send in a rental agreement, only no one told us we needed to, and figuring out what the was problem took some time.

I thought that if you went through one deployment, you would get a break on the next one. Nope. How often they deploy depends on the unit and luck. Two soldiers can enlist the exact same day in the exact same MOS and have a completely different career path.

You can control some of this, but not everything. Sometimes what happens is just random and that is hard to get over when you think there should be some sort of fairness to this type of life. I learned that fairness has no place in a deployment schedule. Or in military life in general. That is just the way it tends to work.

Through the years I have learned that sometimes you just have to hope for the best but prepare for the worst.

I have learned that you just can’t plan everything out based on what you think should happen. You can’t even plan based on what has happened in your spouse’s career in the past. Things change a lot and you really just have to go with the flow.

I am such a planner. I want to know what is going on, what time it is going on, where it will be happening and what I need to do to prepare. Military life makes this hard sometimes. Often times you get little notice for something.

Some military families only get a short notice before they have to move. Others go through the deploying one week, not deploying the next to end up deploying anyways. The whiplash is hard to take. And can happen over and over again.

I had to let go of the idea that everything will lead to a nicely wrapped future. I don’t think that is true for anyone. If I could go back in time and tell myself anything it would be that.

I would tell myself that things will happen that I have no control over and that I just have to roll with the changes. I think life would have been a little bit easier if I had realized that in the beginning. This was a hard lesson for me to learn, but over the years, as I became a more seasoned military spouse, I started to understand the realities of military life.

If you are new to Military life and you are already feeling the unfairness of it all, take a step back.

Realize that military life is going to be this way sometimes. That the best thing to do is try to roll with what is going on, vent to those who understand, and figure out a way to get through the difficult situation.

Look for the good benefits that this life brings, they are there. If it wasn’t for the Military, I wouldn’t have met the friends I did or traveled to the places I was able to go. I would be a different person and I am not sure I would be as strong.

Try not to be jealous of others. Be happy for them because you never know what might happen in the future. Try to enjoy the journey as best you can. Find friends who get what you are going through, depend on family who wants to help you, and try to support others when you can.

Military life isn’t far, even if you think that it should be. Military life is filled with twists and turns, ups and downs, good times, and bad. You just have to work to find a way to make this life work for you, even if that means taking all the struggles one day at a time.

Last Updated on March 21, 2022 by Writer

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Filed Under: Deployment Tagged With: Life as a Military spouse, military living

About Julie

Owner of Soldier's Wife, Crazy Life. Writer, reader, coffee drinker. Mom to three boys, wife of a National Guard soldier. Living life in Tennessee.

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Comments

  1. Kara, the Hippy MIlspouse

    May 1, 2015 at 8:50 pm

    I never thought it would be fair. I didn’t know just HOW unfair it would be, and how long I’d have to deal with it.

    I’d like to have some sort of input on my life.

    You know being able to take (or even apply for) the jobs I want, live in the place I want to live, plan ::anything:: ahead of time or actually be there for important life events for my family (and have them be there for mine).

    Reply
    • Julie-Soldier'sWife,Crazy Life

      May 14, 2015 at 6:59 am

      Yes, I think it is so hard to know how hard it will be until we go through it.

      Reply
  2. Victoria Terrinoni

    March 21, 2022 at 10:00 am

    I thought it was entirely unfair that my husband still deployed after I broke my foot. He left two days after I got out of the hospital. He was gone for four weeks and the day he was supposed to come home, a plane broke and he volunteered to stay behind. I was pissed! But on the bright side, this event showed me how wonderful my neighbors and friends were.

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Five Tips for When You First Become A Military Spouse says:
    November 15, 2017 at 6:00 am

    […] Know that Military life is rarely fair. Sometimes you just get dealt an unlucky number with deployments or the unit your spouse gets put in. During our first deployment, we were the only unit in the brigade where soldiers couldn’t come home on extra leave for a birth. While this did not affect us as we had our baby during R&R, I know how frustrated other were. This felt very unfair to a lot of people. Sometimes the people who leave first are the last to return.  A lot of what happens doesn’t make any sense, it is just the way things are in the military. Military life just isn’t fair. […]

    Reply
  2. Dealing With Jealousy When You Are A Military Spouse - Soldier's Wife, Crazy Life says:
    January 16, 2018 at 10:00 am

    […] big lesson I have learned over the last ten years is that the Military isn’t fair. Some people deploy more than others. Promotions don’t always happen even if it feels like […]

    Reply

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About Soldier’s Wife, Crazy Life

Soldier's Wife, Crazy Life

Welcome to Soldier’s Wife, Crazy Life! I am so glad you are here.

My name is Julie and I have been a military spouse for 16 years!

My husband of 19 years has served in the active-duty Army and now the Army National Guard. We have lived in Germany & Tennessee during our time as a military family.

We have three boys and have been through four deployments together.

I hope that you can find support for your own deployments, PCS moves, or anything else military life brings you 🙂

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