I Love My Military Life

“I could never be a military wife.” That statement, which is usually followed up with, “I could never do it.” pops up frequently in my routine, ordinary, everyday life. Although I am someone who talks…a lot, both statements usually leave me stumbling for words. So for all of the times I have been asked, “How do you do it?” here is my reply.
I love being an Air Force wife. I really do. I love that in a few days my husband and I will dress up and attend the annual Air Force ball. Instead of the anxiety-ridden “Who are you going to Prom with” high school years I am excited about wearing a gown and attending a fancy event with my husband. Not many companies celebrate the birthday of their inception with a formal ball and I love that every September we do.
I love the monthly social events for spouses at McChord. I am a regular at Bunco night, and though I usually do not break even in the $5 I shell out to play, I love the camaraderie and the bustle the game provides. I love going to the squadron spouses’ coffees. I love the chance to be among other wives and discuss any number of topics over a glass of wine and a menagerie of incredible appetizers.
But mainly and most importantly, I love being with my husband. In a society where divorce is common and marriages stumble all around us, I am proud to be Graham’s wife. We go through the ups and downs of married life combined with the rigors of deployments, temporary-duty-stations, and knowing that the Air Force generally comes first, and I cannot imagine being with anyone else.
I love that I found a person to be with who accepts my quirks. Admittedly I do have many. Graham is the realist to my head-in-the-clouds ideas. He knows to just walk away when I suggest far-fetched “what if we just tear down that wall” home renovations. He doesn’t bat an eye when I stumble over the pronouncement of Worcestershire sauce for the ten-thousandth time. And he has agreed to dress me only in non-itchy 100% cotton if I ever become unable to speak or dress myself.
I have found in my husband someone who has committed himself to a profession that not many are willing to. I know that when he leaves the house he goes to a job that at times can be hazardous, dangerous and sacrificial. He is a man who stands by his convictions and I know he will try his best to make it home safely.
My husband is worth it. He’s worth the moves to places where we know no one. He’s worth the tears when we bid him good-bye for another countless time. He’s worth staying for. He is why I do what I do and why I love being an Air Force wife.

The Challenges Of Military Moves

Moving. The mere thought of packing up ones existence and relocating to a completely new place might send some shuddering off in fear. However the act of moving no longer frightens me. I have become nomadic. I get anxious when I think of the time in our future where we no longer pack up the house every few years and head out on a new journey.
I am not sure that I would qualify myself as an expert on moving, though I am accustomed to it. Even before marrying into the military realm of “just when you get comfortable you move” way of life I lived in a series of college dorm rooms and apartments. I once fit all of my belongings in my two-door hatchback while I waited for my new apartment to become available.
Yet, living the transitory lifestyle of the current Air Force brings upon a whole set of challenges. One cannot fully appreciate each obstacle until you are right in the middle of it. A big test for me has been furniture shopping. We have an allotted weight limit for each move. If you go over the weight limit you can expect to pay out of pocket for the difference. Since we were right at our limit during our last move I have become obsessed with the weight of any new furniture we purchase. What comes into our house must replace items that were already here. Our new table and chair set replaced the old set plus two bar stools.
My husband thinks I’m a little fanatical about it and I admit I probably am. But barring my bringing an industrial-sized scale into furniture stores I will continue to fret about our weight limit and dream about our forever home which I will furnish with massive furniture that requires four bodybuilders to move.
Another challenge is the delicate subject of whether or not to feed the moving company’s crew. These are the people who will see everything you own. It’s humbling to know that complete strangers touch every item I possess as they box up my home. So, we play nice and buy the doughnuts in the morning and pizza for lunch. Several kinds of soda are stocked in the coolers for the movers to take freely. It’s as if we are making an offering to the gods in the hope that everything placed on the moving truck will be unloaded in the same condition we last saw it in.
Although we are not moving this summer our turn is around the corner. I am slowly beginning the process of weeding out the extras in our home. As a reformed pack-rat I no longer consider myself a curator of material items but hopefully a purveyor of what really matters: children who know the value of family strength and a household that can function wherever our next journey will take us to.

Springs Arrives Amid Cookie Drive

You may have seen me recently. I was the one planted behind a table at the entrance to a number of local grocery and retail stores. It was my little Girl Scout asking if you’d like to buy any cookies. I stayed in the background while she sold her heart out.
This is my daughter Paige’s third year in Girl Scouts, her second year selling cookies and my first in being the troop’s cookie manager. I was naïve enough to believe her troop leaders when they said being the cookie mom wouldn’t be terribly difficult.
Until I walked in the previous cookie mom’s shoes I had no idea how much work went into the annual cookie drive. For nearly three weeks we had cases of cookies traveling from our house to booth sites. Boxes of cookies sat in our front room teasing two-year-old Drew. Fortunately my fear of him tearing into hundreds of cookies went unfounded.
With Paige being school-aged we have sought out programs that help her fit into our current area. A program such as Girl Scouts offers her a chance to blend into a new setting while still retaining the core beliefs and structure of the previous one.
More so than the adults in a military family, military kids are perhaps the ones that carry the most weight on their little shoulders. With each move we ask them to say good-bye to friends that they may never see again. We ask them to carry on when a parent is sent away to a dangerous and often lengthy deployment. Mostly, we ask them to understand a way of life that sometimes we as adults cannot even grasp.
My hope is that my kids will see that children in Texas, Florida or Wisconsin are really the same as the children they meet here in Washington. Girl or Boy Scouts and similar programs help facilitate that goal.
We are blessed with Paige’s placement in her current Girl Scout troop. Her leaders have dedicated vast amounts of time and energy to nurture thirteen girls on a weekly basis. I applaud every troop leader who volunteers their time to their scouts.
In selling boxes of cookies, Paige has witnessed what hard work can do. Her troop will be attending camp this spring, funded on the profits from this year’s cookie sales.
While participating in booth sites, Paige and I were able to create our own special memories. We witnessed the kindness and friendliness of our fellow South Hill neighbors. Random comments from strangers prompted more in-depth conversations between the two of us.
On our last Sunday of selling, as I was pulling two cartloads of cookies to our last booth site, Paige turned to me and said, “Mommy, you are beautiful.” Every bit of anxiety I have experienced at being a cookie mom was completely washed away. For that brief moment my daughter, who looks like me, melted my heart.

Sightseeing On Limited Time

Three years ago this spring we moved from a remote Texas border town to our South Hill home. After witnessing my husband enduring a demanding year of training we were ecstatic to learn that we would be living in the Pacific Northwest.
Upon our arrival I started a list of sorts in my mind. It was a list of places we needed to go and things we needed to do while we were here. Now that we have entered our third year here I feel like we are on borrowed time. Quite possibly we’ll be moving on in the next year and we still need to see so much. We haven’t been whale watching or taken the kids to the ocean to dip their toes into the Pacific. There are still children’s museums to explore and waterfront restaurants to dine at. I feel a sense of urgency when I think of everything we need to do. It’s as if there is a giant clock looming over my head, ticking down the months until we move again.
At times I am envious of people who never move. They may visit new places at leisure over the course of years. If they haven’t made it to Leavenworth for Octoberfest they can fit in it next year or the year after.
Over the last eleven years my husband’s military career has taken us to five completely different places in the United States. Looking back we can say that we’ve done some fairly amazing things. We have gone swimming in the Gulf of Mexico, had margaritas across the border and were captivated by little white geckos suspended on our windows at night. We have witnessed the Northern Lights and had the Blue Angels screeching over our house every Tuesday morning for their practice session. We have made lifelong friendships with amazing people.
Thankfully, three years here has afforded us uniquely Washington memories as well. We have gone to the top of the Space Needle and have taken the kids to Mount Rainier and had a picnic at Paradise.
We enjoy so much of what is offered from the Puyallup valley. Our kids have enjoyed visiting the pumpkin patches and picking our way through rows and rows of gourds to find the perfect pumpkin. We have cut our own Christmas trees and loaded up on fresh berries at the Puyallup Farmers Market. We have spent way too much money at the fair.
This summer looks to be a whirlwind of activity for us. With our time here ticking down we’ll be trying to fit in as much as we can. We still hope to make it to the coast, travel by ferry across the Puget Sound and see an Orca pod. Yet if my husband came home tomorrow with orders to move I can definitely look back and say we have enjoyed that which is Washington and the people who make it so.

Adapting To Military Adjustments

Upon marrying a man in the military I was told by a well-intentioned friend that I was naïve and had no idea what kind of life I was getting myself involved in. Thankfully I laughed him off and nearly eleven years later, I still have no regrets in marrying a military man.
Looking back, it wasn’t the day we were married or the days that my children were born that brings back my fondest memories, although they definitely are high on the list. It was the days in which my husband returned from his deployments that are my favorite. It’s when we finally felt like a complete family again. With recent developments overseas and deployments being extended, I empathize with my Army spouse counterparts who were just told that their loved ones will be away for an additional three months.
The first time my husband deployed his return date changed constantly. Weeks before they were to come home I received a frantic phone call from a friend. Rumor had it the squadron was going to be delayed by another month. In that instant it felt like someone threw a bucket of ice-cold water on me. I had already made the “Welcome Home Daddy” banner and was counting down how many more days I had to do the little things like take out the trash and mow the lawn. Nothing beats the day when the B-1 carrying my husband finally landed on that runway and we were able to tell him in person how much we loved him.
Adaptability ranks up there with love and trust when one enters into this lifestyle. Sometimes I haven’t wanted to be adaptable. Sometimes I’ve wanted to just lock the door and keep us all safely at home. But my husband and my family take on the sacrifice that we face with each deployment, each remote tour and each temporary duty assignment.
Over time I have changed from the person who did not want to be referred to as a dependent to a spouse who embraces what a military wife truly is. Military wives are the ones who find the adventure in moving to a new place. We can juggle our children’s educational needs with our own career ambitions in a place we never knew existed a few months before. We can make a mean pot of chili for the squadron chili cook-off or have a to-die-for dessert recipe. We whisper in our husband’s ear to be safe and we will be right here when they return.
Military spouses have enormous inner strength and no doubt our local Army wives will survive this latest delay. My heart goes out to those who have a loved one missing yet another special occasion. Still I know, in the loneliness of being half-a-world apart, their strength is in the love of their soldier and believing that they too are sacrificing for the safety of our country.

The Year of the Baby

Much like the Chinese New Year, in our circle of friends we follow a calendar cycle. There is the year of the move, the year of training, the year of the deployment and the year of the baby. It’s not a perfect system as we unpredictably interchange between each cycle.
With the arrival of Christmas cards last December my husband and I were surprised with eight announcements of impending births among our military family. Some babies are welcomed surprises and others, babies that have been wished on for so long. As we entered 2007 we transitioned into the year of the baby.
Our own family circle is complete with the five of us. Anyone who has encountered me over the last few years would probably question my sanity if we added any more children to the mix. I love my three kids dearly but Graham and I are already outnumbered and aren’t about to press our luck.
We have however contributed to previous baby years. Our youngest, Drew, entered the world in the midst of the baby boom of 2004. He was one of seven babies born into our military family that summer.
Teddy was one of 12 children arriving over a 3-month period while we lived in Texas. The squadron commander’s wife made a point to visit each new mom and baby at the hospital. I think she lived at Abilene Regional for most of December, January and February of 2000-2001.
Paige arrived in the winter of 1997 while we were living in Minot, North Dakota. I wasn’t aware of a large number of expectant women during my pregnancy, but by the time we left the base hospital with our firstborn, the postpartum unit was filled to capacity. Curiously, Paige also shares her birthday with at least five other military children that we’ve met over the last nine years.
Our connection to each of the expectant families is unique. Because we are separated from our own families by hundreds of miles we embrace the people who champion us through our own tribulations. These are the friends who have babysat our healthy children when we’ve had to rush a sick one to the emergency room. They have made us meals when we brought our own newborns home. They’ve held us up when everything seems to be falling apart.
Now, we eagerly await news of each family’s addition. In some cases we will be able to visit and hold their newborns. Some will send emails from overseas. For others, we’ll not know the good news until next Christmas and their annual holiday letter. All are true blessings in our circle.
We’re never quite sure what each year will bring. Part of the fun and excitement of military life is the adventure that waits around the corner. In the meantime we have a few birth announcements to look forward to and many baby presents to buy.

The Loss Of A Lab

We are a dog family. Our wedding gift to each other was a black Lab puppy we named Jake. Six months later we added Elwood, our yellow Lab. After yet another six months we saw an ad in the paper for chocolate Lab puppies. Although I signed the check for Baxter, I still blame my husband for adding him to our family. I was six months pregnant and very emotional. One look at Baxter’s puppy face and it was all over. He was ours.
For many years we were known as the family with the three Labs. If a Lab was running loose we’d often get calls. Our dogs seldom ran away but odds were good to check with us first. For a number of years it was a chaotic mix of puppy training, potty training and child rearing.
Sadly, we had to say goodbye to my buddy, my Baxter last week. Due to health and behavioral issues we faced the difficult decision to euthanize our pup. After nearly ten years of being greeted at the door, soggy old tennis ball hanging from the side of his mouth, his body shaking from the excitement of us arriving home, I turn the key and he’s not there. It’s a painful reminder that he’s gone.
I connected with Baxter. He was my running buddy and although never formally trained we were a good team. I taught him how to balance a tennis ball on his nose. He taught me how to be more optimistic.
Like any true Lab, he was an eternal optimist. If I didn’t want to play ball right now he’d wait. Staring at me for as long as it took. Eventually I’d get the hint and throw the ball. We were both persistent. If I go to enough spouse events at a new base, eventually I’ll find someone to befriend. If he’d roll the ball to someone enough times, eventually they’d throw it.
We are now a one-dog family. We had to find Jake a new home when three small children and three rambunctious dogs became too much. Graham was frequently out on missions and I didn’t have enough time to take care of everyone.
Our Elwood is the old lady of the house. As long as everyone is accounted for, she can be found taking a nap wherever the family congregates.
We have moved frequently during my husband’s career and there are definite times where it can be incredibly lonely. Our dogs buffered some of that.
With all of the uncertainties of living a military life it’s been nice to have a dog that is happy to be anywhere, as long as it’s where we are.
At the end of the day when the house is quite and the kids are asleep, I miss having a pile of Labs at my feet. They took care of me as much as I took care of them.

My Trail Of Military Mishaps

One of the perks I experience in being part of the Air Force world is the chance to go about my life with relative anonymity. Being married to a man who has a career that shifts us around the country every few years has afforded me that luxury.
Embarrassing moments that would normally stick with me fade away as we move onto the next duty-station. My calamity-filled life can basically be chalked up to learning experiences. One such mishap was my first foray into the world of squadron parties.
We were living in Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota and my husband, Graham, was a member a large maintenance squadron. During the annual holiday party the night’s festivities were capped off with a trivia game. My name was randomly drawn to be a participant. Unfortunately the game consisted of guessing how much different parts of a B-52 Bomber costs. I was (and still am) clueless to the workings of a B-52 and way out of my comfort zone. For once looking more like a sixteen-year-old instead of the twenty-two year-old I was became advantageous. Instead of cuing into the fact that I knew nothing about the aircraft, many of my husband’s co-workers questioned whether I was legally able to get married without parental consent.
Over the years I have had my share of incidents that left my husband shaking his head incredulously. I discovered that certain cereals should be transported to work in sturdy containers and not small clear bags. During a random vehicle search at the main gate at Minot a drug-sniffing dog found my Frosted Flakes which were now crushed to a fine white powder. Thankfully Graham, who was driving my car that day, was able to clear the up the confusion without a drug related inquiry.
As we dot our way across the country I seem to leave a trail of anecdotes behind. One of my children’s favorite mommy-mishap moments happened near our church on South Hill. On our way to Mass I clipped a sign. Although the sign stood with nary a scratch our passenger-side mirror was nearly sheared off. With little dignity I pulled into a parking spot at the church, placed my mangled mirror inside the vehicle, and avoiding eye contact, hustled the kids in for Mass. Two years later my children still call it the “Don’t Hit Me” sign.
I’d like to believe that my tendency to act before I think keeps my military, clean-cut husband on his toes. If anything life is a little more spontaneous in a world that is not always so. With that in mind I am tossing around the idea of pulling off a completely new persona for our next duty-station. I might go by Bubbles (Graham will become Lefty) and we’ll try to pull off a Scottish accent. If it all goes embarrassingly wrong it’ll just become another anecdote in my adventuresome life.

Paper Chains Our Family Together

I have a paper chain strung across the doorframe between our family room and dining room. You see it when you walk through the front door and you walk under it to get to the rest of the house. It’s a countdown to when my husband will return from his latest deployment and it’s a continuous reminder that we are going to get through this again.
This is our family’s third deployment. The first happened in the chaos of September 11. The second was two years ago and our first Christmas apart. This is our third and we are in the home stretch to having Daddy home again. The paper chain is shrinking.
I am often asked how do we live this lifestyle. Some days we just put one foot in front of the other. We do what we can to get through it.
There are no cookie cutter military wives. We each function in our own way and deployments can bring out a whole range of emotions. Most days are normal. Much of it is routine. I’m fortunate to know a number of military wives who have also fed their kids ice cream for lunch and ramen for dinner.
If anything we try to find a constant for our kids. Paige is our artist. We have a box of letters and pictures that she has drawn for Daddy over the years. It’s her way of coping and keeping Graham close to her.
Our son Teddy holds onto the wonder of the moon. If he sees the moon in the morning he knows that Daddy is looking at the same one halfway across the world.
Drew is two and for him Graham being gone is not unusual. The vigorous pace of the C-17 world has been all he’s known. Even so it’s heartbreaking when he asks for his Daddy and I cannot make it happen.
As an adult I realize that this is part of my husband’s job. I don’t seek out nor ask for special treatment because my husband serves in the military. We are aware that there are many jobs that send a parent away from home.
If there is anything good about a deployment it’s that the little things that drive me crazy when Graham is home becomes trivial when he’s gone. The bagel crumbs left on the counter and the dirty dishes left in the sink are no longer important.
Time can go so very slow while he is away. I carry my cell phone in hopes of not missing his call. I check email much more frequently. I try to keep him in the loop of our everyday adventures.
We all do what it takes to make it through. We make our paper chains. We cross off days on a calendar and we integrate into the communities in which we live. We live and we love. Sometimes it’s just that simple.