I Am A Military Spouse
I am a military spouse - a member of that brother and sisterhood who have had the courage to
watch their husbands and wives go into battle, and the strength to survive until their return. Our sorority knows no
rank, for we earn our membership with a marriage license, traveling over miles or over nations to begin a new life with our
military spouses. Within days, we turn a barren, echoing building into a home. Though our quarters of inevitably
white-walled and unpapered, we decorate with the treasures of our travels for we shop the markets of the globe.
Using hammer and nail, we tack our pictures to the wall and our roots to the floor as firmly
as if we had lived there for a lifetime. We hold a family together by the bootstraps and raise the best of "brats" instilling
in them the motto: "Home is togetherness", whether it be motel, guest house, apartment or duplex. As military
spouses we soon realize that the only good in "good-bye" is the "hello again." For as salesmen and women of freedom,
our spouses are often on the road, at sea or in the sky leaving us behind for a week, a month, an assignment.
During separations we guard the homefront existing until the homecoming. Unlike our civilian
counterparts, we measure time not by years, but by tours-- married at Shaw, a baby born at Beale, a special anniversary at
Ramstein, a promotion at Langley. We plant trees and never see them grow tall, work on projects completed long after
our departure and enhance our community for the betterment of those who come after us.
We leave a part of ourselves at every stop. Through experience, we have learned to pack
a suitcase, a car or hold baggage and live indefinately from the contents within. Though our fingers are sore from the
patches we have sewn and the silver we have shined, our hands are always ready to help those around us. People of peace,
we pray for a world in harmony- for the flag that leads our spouses into battle, will also blanket them in death.
Yet we are an optimistic group- thinking of the good and forgetting the bad, cherishing yesterday
while anticipating tomorrow. Never rich by monetary standards, our hearts are overflowing with a wealth of experiences
common only to those united by the special tradition of military life. We pass this legacy on to every military bride
and groom. Welcoming them with outstretched arms, with love and friendship, from one to another, sharing in the bounty
of our unique, fulfilling military way of life.
