My Life! : Military Wives

I just spent an hour writing an awesome post and then I lost the whole thing 🙁  It’s not in my revision history or anything so I’m going to try this again but I’m pretty sure it won’t be as awesome.  The first one was epic, it would have won awards, it’s too bad you’ll never get to read it 🙁  Ok epic might be stretch but it was pretty good.

I never thought I would be a military wife despite growing up 15 miles from a Marine Corp base.  My grandfathers both served during WW2 but my Dad luckily missed out on going to Vietnam.  Even when I met David he was on inactive reserve duty so military life still didn’t touch us.  When he re-enlisted to be an active Reservist doing the weekend warrior thing I thought he was sexy in his uniform!  I would usually run out to give him a kiss as soon as he stepped out of the truck in uniform.  The holidays came around and he put on his dress blues for Toys for Tots events and I swooned a bit!  Yes I’m a girl that loves a man in uniform!  It was all very sweet and didn’t really change my day to day life so it wasn’t a big deal.  I could say I was a military wife but I didn’t have to deal with military life.

Then he came home one day last year and told me he wanted to deploy.  Woah this wasn’t playing anymore this was real.  Wait a minute I didn’t have a cool group of women that were going through the same thing like on Army Wives.  I had just me and I needed to figure out what life as a military wife would be for me.  The IT contract I was working on was about to end and with David leaving I had plenty of time to devote to going full time with my business so that is what I did.  I threw myself into it and I set out to make friends in the local photography community which led to making friends in the wedding community too!  I found an awesome group of girls to hang out with in my off time and even though I missed my husband dearly I learned that staying busy is what a military wife does.  I hear people talk about the sacrifice military families make for their country and I felt a little embarrassed because I was whining about one deployment for 7 months.  I met a girl at a wedding this year whose spouse just shipped out for 18 months!!!!!  That is sacrifice!  I’m amazed at the strong military wives out there.  It is hard being married in the military but the women I see succeeding at it inspire me!  They wake up everyday and continue to love their spouse even when they are halfway around the world.

Their success and inspiration will keep me going over the next year and remind me to love my spouse even when he is halfway around the world.  Yes David is deploying again, yes it has been less then a year since he came home, yes he swears he still likes me and isn’t doing this to get away from me!  How do I feel?  Like crying sometimes but we’ve done this before and I know we can do it again.  After this one though I’m chaining myself to him so he can never leave!!!!  If I can give my husband even half the support he has given me in my dreams then that is what I will do.  I’m a military wife and I support my husband and his military service!  I’m just thankful that he won’t be in a war zone and I might (slim chance) be able to visit!  I still think compared to other military families out there my sacrifice is tiny, they are dealing with back to back deployments in war zones while raising kids back here.  Those are the military heroes if you ask me!

In honor of military wives I wanted to share pics of two of my military brides!  One of these ladies is now in Japan with her new hubby starting over and creating a new life as a military wife!  I’m so proud of her and I love keeping up with her on Facebook!  Semper Fi ladies!!!

You know I think this revision is more EPIC then the first!