My experience with being a military wife

You could also call this post "How a recent dinner party went for me"

My husband and I were invited to a dinner party last night. He was tasked to bring a fruit platter. I had an old plastic platter left over, so instead of spending $30 on a new one, I just went out and bought some fruit, cut it up, and put it in the platter. This has no bearing on the story, but I was proud of how it turned out. :)
What would have cost me $30 ended up costing me $8, and I had 3/4 of a watermelon, 2 heads of broccoli, a nearly-whole bag of carrots, and 1/2 a cantaloupe left over for me to enjoy. I ended up using a yogurt that was unopened but expiring soon as a dipping sauce for the middle portion. ANYway. :)

So, we went to this dinner party. I don't know anyone there (they're all my husbands friends), and I'm feeling super-awkward. I try to stick to my husband's side because I tend to be shy until I warm up to the atmosphere.

Three people there were military wives. What did we talk about? Here are the standard questions every military wife must ask the other when having a conversation for the first time and they're usually asked in this order:

• Where are you from?  (Chances are VERY good that you're all not originally from where you're stationed at the moment.)
• Do you like it?
• How long have you guys been here so far?
• How long have you guys been married? (In my experience, enlisted tend to spend less time dating so when you hear an Officer's wife say 2 years, you might bet they've been together for years longer than that. This isn't always true, but it's just what I've observed.)
• How many times has your husband deployed?
• For how long?
• Were you married when he was deployed?
• Did you have kids then?
• Do you work? (Most don't so things start to go downhill from here...)
• What does your husband do? (This is probably a boring answer, too. It's probably something like "Work in the motor pool" or "He's infantry"... okay and that means what?)
• (All of the military wives there were breastfeeding new babies. I had my 16 month-old who is still breastfeeding. I suppose in this case you could add:)
• How long do you plan to breastfeed? (or) Have you had any trouble with it yet?
• Are you guys co-sleeping (bed-sharing)? 

People like to pretend there is some sisterhood in being a military wife. We're all as different as the general population. It's just a bunch of people thrown together in an unusual circumstance and we have to get along.

It's been a really lonely time for me. I'm a couple-thousand miles away from home. I have no family here and I was super close to my family before I moved. I miss them and I miss my home state and the climate there. I guess I'm homesick.

The friends that I've made here so far have moved away in the short time I've known them because they got stationed somewhere else or got out of the military. We all pretend we'll keep in touch, but it never happens that way (also, I'm not on FB anymore, anyway!... that makes keeping in touch a lot less likely).

I guess I'm feeling jaded with the whole military thing. I've been at this for 7 years now (a girlfriend for most of it). Anyway, I think you really have to be cut out for this lifestyle. I don't mind moving a lot. That's actually pretty cool... getting to start over. Being able to be a teeny, tiny bit more open about my religion is also kinda nice. I still don't wear my pentacle when I know I'll be around people who know me or my husband. But if we go to the neighboring town a few miles away and I'm feeling adventurous then I'll wear a Pagan-themed necklace. I get tired of hiding.

Aaaand there you have it. That's pretty much it. That sounds like a hoot, doesn't it? Like a really whimsical time, eh? Don't you want to be a military wife now?

Putting Curses on People

Totally not worth it!

I'm a firm believer that if you put a curse on someone, that shit will come back at you--and HARD. Just don't do it!

First off, you never know if it's going to work in the way you intend. For a person to be cursed they have to believe they have a curse on them. That would mean that you'd have to tell them that you cursed them. This is problematic in polite society. If they don't believe in curses, your curse won't work. It's as simple as the Law of Attraction (however "simple" that really is).

Secondly, if you're Wiccan, you believe in the Wiccan Rede and the Rule of Three. Whatever you send out comes back to you three-fold. Cursing someone could spell disaster for you. Even if you don't believe in the rule of three, chances are you believe in some sort of "What Goes Around Comes Around"  philosophy. This is reason enough not to curse someone.

But what if you curse someone into a situation that they are eventually happy about? Like "I put a curse on her that her boyfriend would cheat on her and leave her." Well, what if that happens and she ends up meeting some hunky astronaut? Man, wouldn't you feel like an idiot? 

My experience with Family Readiness Group (FRG)

I hope this post isn't too boring. I don't think it will be.

So, Family Readiness Group (FRG)... or as my husband likes to say "Families Ruined by Gossip." I'll tell you a little about my experience with FRG,  but first a little about how I see the world. :)

Okay, I'm an idealist. I see *potential.* I see possibilities. If there is the potential for something to be
awesome and great, I definitely see it. Trust me, I do. I'm a fantastic visionary.

With FRG the possibilities are definitely there. It has the potential to be a really great organization. With the right FRG leaders and the right volunteers, it could be awesome.

The (long ago) past:

When I met my husband I was a wet-behind-the-ears girl. I was in college, I was in love. And I was a girlfriend. A military girlfriend. My husband was deployed when I met him, so let me tell you what this means to military girlfriends. It means we don't get any information. It means we don't get any rights. It means we don't get any phone calls telling us when our deployed military loved one is coming home.

Even if he asks for his FRG to disseminate this information to his girlfriend, she won't get any. If he signs a waiver stating that she can receive information about his movements, she won't get any. 

Fast-forward a few years.

We've moved to another station (I'm still a fucking girlfriend). I was invited to the battalion (BN) Executive
Officer's (XO's) house by the BN XO's wife where she was having a FRG mixer. She was a wonderful lady, very nice and sweet. There were military spouses there. That's right. Spouses. This is the key word here. One of the spouses asked me "So, how long have you and your husband been married?" I said "Oh, we're
not married yet. But we've been through a deployment together and we've been together for 3 years." At that point no one wanted to talk to me. I didn't know what had just happened, but they all clammed up. Later, as things were winding down,  they made it very, very clear that they were not interested in speaking to me again. One of them said "We all host FRG events at our houses on base. When I host the next one at my house I'll have everyone bring pictures of their wedding day and we can talk about it together." Then she looked at me. "Well, you can bring a picture of your boyfriend and you or something." *giggle*

Bitch.

And it was then that I knew why I wasn't being accepted by these women. They were all in the "Military Wives" club and I was not a member to this oh-so-exclusive club.

So, I sized them up really easily after that. They were a bunch of petty, holier-than-thou women who had no self-worth. They had so little self-worth that they had to ride the coat-tails of their husbands for their self-annointed importance. "I'm a Military Wife. Toughest Job in the Military." or "My husband's a First Sergeant. What's your husband's rank?" 

Fast forward a few more years:

My *HUSBAND* (yep, that's right, after 5 years and TWO year-long deployments as his girlfriend he decided to marry me) got a command. I was asked if I wanted to be the FRG leader. I say yes. My, my how the tables have turned! Given my less-than-stellar experience with my husband's previous two FRGs, I take this one on. Like I said, I'm an idealist. Well, my husband's new command doesn't have an existing FRG structure. The exiting commander didn't take the time to nurture and grow it, and there's nothing there. So, we built it from scratch! We got a treasurer, and events coordinator, key callers to disseminate information to the spouses, a newsletter editor (that's right, we created a newsletter!), the works! I was soooo on top of my game. It was amazing. I was a great FRG leader. No need for modesty here. I think I was pretty good. I included everyone. Girlfriends and boyfriends, fiancees and fiances, wives and husbands.

And I thought to myself *THIS* is how a FRG should be run.

The FRG was my husband's legacy. After he left command, the FRG continued on, built on itself, became more involved. This was something to be proud of.

The lesson here is that the FRG is a mixed bag. You're gonna have your douchebags and your bitches. You're gonna have your awesomely organized FRGs. It really just depends.

I should mention that the FRG is an all-volunteer organization. The military does NOT pay ANYONE to do any of the work involved in making a FRG great. If you have a gripe about the FRG, don't just sit on your ass and complain. At that point you're only part of the problem.

GET INVOLVED. Or as Gandhi said "Be the change you wish to see in the world."