Everyday Life

The Life in the Military…

Unless YOU know first hand

Shoosh

    I haven't written in a while. Moving while 8 months pregnant wasn't easy and a month and a half later still isn't completely finished. But that isn't what is on my mind today.

    This topic has been on my mind for a while now. And was refueled today after seeing a anti-military rant from a "girl" with not an iota of knowledge on what she said. A few months ago I read a blog written about support of our military and he wasn't going to because he didn't see why they needed it.

     Now before I joined the military via my husband I hadn't a clue either. I didn't have an opinion either way really.  I had no interest and never even knew anyone in the military. Boy what an eye opener when I befriended a woman who was in the service and her husband was and still is. She was my pastors daughter. I remember sitting on their couch talking and laughing while she was staying with her parents during one of her husband's deployments. I remember her phone ringing and the instant seriousness and sober air that clung to her. She picked her phone up, more like clutched it, and took the call in her room. It was only 15 minutes long… Little did I understand how meaningful and heartbreaking one 15 minute phone call was and is. She came back more sober than she left but knowing her husband was ok eased the tension around her eyes and softened the stiff set of her shoulders.

   I don't think people understand how much a service member sacrifices. Yes, some join to serve their country, some join to get schooling, and some join because it's the only way to support their family. And, yes, some are turd smugglers and jerks and all they want to do is shoot a gun…I've met maybe two like that. Yep that's right two. The others have families and bills and responsibilities. I have been actively living the military lifestyle for only eight months, but I have already seen two fathers deploy with multiple children under four, my friend I mentioned earlier just had their second child while her husband is deployed again, their son is barely four months old now and has yet to meet his daddy. My sister in law has her own horror stories of when her husband was deployed last year, things that I don't feel free to tell, that is her and her husbands own story.

    I love how people mention the military benefits…what benefits?! They are being stripped away quicker than I care to name them. My husband works easily 12 hour shifts for a minimum wage pay, his job he does now makes decent money at an airport, he chooses to make a career, though, because that's honorable and he has a goal and I'm ok with that. Yes, we get health insurance, but it's also taken from our pay really, as well as, my dental insurance and if I want to have my eyes checked once in a while. Our president wants to take away what little benefits we are offered now because they chose to join and put their life in danger… yes they did, but I'm so happy to let my husband go to a third world country and put his life at risk and loose even more of what we are "given" because he chose so. 

   What is sad, though, is I haven't even began to touch even the tip of what these families go through. I seriously mean the tip. Do you enjoy having Christmas surrounded by your family? Playing white elephant? A bar-b-que in the summer? Do you enjoy and at least tolerate where you live? They aren't even given that choice half the time. My husband would have given anything to be home for Christmas this past year. It was his second Christmas he couldn't spend with family… and I know there are families who have been in longer who have missed more holidays and birthdays and deaths…. You should take a minute and think before you bash the military, they sacrifice so much even when their own government turns against them, sometimes just to be able to provide for their families...