Oh… Military Life! This is likely what brought you to Mission: Milspouse in the first place. It is what binds the military community together with its wildly unique lifestyle.
Whether you are here to learn how to better live in this military life, how to support a loved one who is living the military lifestyle, or to see if this lifestyle is something you may like to be a part of, you have come to the right place.
Here at Mission: Milispouse the military lifestyle is what inspires us, drives our home lives, our moves, and our service member’s career, and gives us a camaraderie like no other. So welcome friend, take a seat and read more about all things that make us who we are and make the military lifestyle a life like no other!
My soldier came home last week and told me he was three-quarters of the way done with his retirement papers.
Yeah… That is my face. I think it’s stuck that way right now and maybe for months to come, because the mixture of emotions, fears, anticipation, and excitement that come with this announcement are all mixed into it.
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Be excited or terrified.
Tell the world, or keep it a secret.
When I did reach you there was blood on your nose, lip, cheek, and head, and there was grass in your mouth. Your arm was limp and curved slightly. My first thought was you had possibly dislocated your shoulder or had broken one or several bones in your arm. Now I know that you were simply coming out of unconsciousness, so you did not quite have control of your limbs.
I am grateful to have volunteered as a cross country, basketball, and baseball coach this school year, so my CPR and First Aid training was fresh. I know this provided some help in my initial check on how banged up you were. However, even with that training, this was something I had never experienced with either you or your siblings. This accident looked as if it could have snapped your neck, your spine, cracked your head open, or possibly all three.
Or worse.
Dearest Eva,
It is seven hours since your accident and there are tears in my eyes as I write this. Tears of concern and tears of fear.
I was just telling your mother yesterday that regretfully I cannot agree with folks that argue those of us not infected by COVID-19 should not talk about the blessings this shelter in place world has brought us. My argument was that if we as individuals can never see blessings when others are suffering, then no one would ever have cause for celebration, as human suffering is always abundant on our planet. It does not mean we do not pray for the sick and grieve for the dying, but we must acknowledge the newfound blessings that have entered our lives.
Italy is known for a wide variety of things: history, culture, incredible food, and even better wine. Before I moved to Italy, I would drink white wine, on occasion, but absolutely never, ever red wine. I didn’t care for the way red wine sits on my tongue and gives me a “cotton mouth” sensation. That was until I moved here and tried Italian red wine.
I remember dreading our move from Fort Benning, Georgia, to Fort Rucker, Alabama. Fort Benning had become a place of rich family time for us. We had just come off a 15-month long deployment while in Hawaii, and my husband had accepted an instructor job at Benning, which meant semi-normal hours and the big bonus of no deployments.
Music to my ears!
My children were toddler age and so were many of the other children in our particular housing loop on post. Evenings were filled with friends chatting, laughing, and watching children play on the shared patios. We did life together, and it was fabulous.
It was one of those duty stations where the community and friendships ran deep, and it all happened so naturally. So when our three years were up, and it was time for a PCS, I was digging in my heels. I did not want to leave, and I had serious doubts that any other place would be as amazing as the little world I had made for me and my family in South Georgia.
If you had asked me at the beginning of the year if I thought this is how 2020 would go, I would probably have thought you were crazy. Near the end of December, I heard about the alarm being sounded by the Chinese doctor in Wuhan who eventually died from COVID-19, but I didn’t understand then what he was trying to warn the rest of the world about. Now that it has migrated to America, it’s quite sad that we weren’t able to understand the full extent of what China was experiencing at the end of 2019.
In Illinois, we have been asked to shelter in place since the middle of March. My son was already home from school that week before the shelter-in-place order went into effect. The weekend before, we didn’t do much. We stopped at Home Depot for our usual kids’ workshop, but it had been canceled. The employee told us that Home Depot had canceled them nationwide to avoid large gatherings of kids, especially in bigger cities. We got our workshop kit and left.
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