Five Question Friday-- First Friend :)

I started thinking the other day about how we all have such similar stories as military spouses, and yet our voices are very different. Our points of view don’t get heard very often, and when they are it can sometimes seem like we only hear the whining spouses or the “omigoodness she’s too good and perfect to be believed” super-spouses.

I’m not a super-spouse and I try really hard not to whine. I know many other wives like myself, and I hope someday to hear more from male spouses as well. I’d like to use my Friday blog to hear a little bit more from these extraordinary people. III Corps Commanding General, Lieutenant General Don Campbell, Jr. said this to a group of incoming Soldiers and spouses the other day: “Soldiers serve and they know what they are getting into. Spouses serve for the love of their Soldier.”

My friend Erica was the first one to answer my query. She is pretty amazing. I first met her when I was working on Fort Hood as an FRSA and she and her husband were in the unit. She was the treasurer for the FRG (which I wouldn’t wish on anyone) and her husband was one of the sweetly smiling young Soldiers who I loved to help the most. They now have two adorable little girls, Erica writes a blog of her own, and I am so glad to be able to say he is home safely from this last deployment.

Here are her Five Answers.

1. What are five things you know now about military life that you wish someone had told you?

-Patience, patience, patience. Your patience will be tested..daily, sometimes hourly.
- Your spouse’s phone will ring at the most annoying of times.
- You can handle things you didn't know you could.
- You are stronger than you think you are.
- Your Army family really does become your family.

2. What is the most important thing you'd like to tell new spouses?

Have the right attitude. Get involved. Make friends.. They will become your strength during deployment time.

3. What do you love the most?

The closeness of the military community. The pride.

4. What do you find the hardest?

The hardest for me is the loneliness and dealing with things by myself all the time. It takes a toll and can drain a person. It's also very hard for me to hear my 3 year old say daily, hourly, "I miss daddy" when he's deployed. Very emotional.

5. Tell me a story that sums up military life for you.

Military life for me is constant deployments. I've done 3 deployments in 6 years. My husband and I got married and 4 months later he deployed for a year in Iraq. He came home and was home for 18 months and we had 1 child (and was pregnant with another) in that time frame then he deployed for a 2nd year in Iraq. Came home and deployed a year later for Afghanistan. We just finished a year in Afghanistan. Those times aren't counting when he's been away for training or work related stuff. In the last 6 1/2 years we've only been together probably 2 1/2 years at best. It's been very hard. We are in the middle of a BRAC move at the moment and we'll only be at this new post for a year before we ETS and move again.


So...What's your story? Do you know a military spouse with a unique view of things? Let me know in the comments box. Thanks!