We Are Going Where??? (Shocked Once Again...will this ever stop???)

The military and its assignment process never ceases to amaze me.  Every single time we have received notification of a new assignment, there is a sense of shock and either amazement or dread.  But there is ALWAYS shock.  Even when we suspected that we may be heading somewhere, when the reality of it hits, the shock remains.  There is only so much mental preparation that you can do.  Because we are expected to be strong and resilient, the ever present support to our military members, we spouses often wear a mask of cheerful acceptance that hides the fear that courses through our souls.  

In the autumn following our Angel's first birthday, we discovered that we were heading to the Orient.  Because I was still disillusioned about what was expected from me as a military spouse, I plastered that smile on my face and declared it an adventure.  Family didn't help my internal battle one bit.  There was talk of "taking their baby to that place" and "is this REALLY what you want??"  SHOOT!!!  We didn't have much of a choice, now did we??  After a while, I just stopped talking about it.  

At that point, I had a few really dear friends, but I felt that by voicing my fears about our next location that I was showing weakness.  Good Heavens!!!  I wish, with all my might, that I could go back and slap that young woman!  I kept all those questions, fears, and shock bottled up inside.  "For goodness sake, Girlfriend!!  You are heading to a country that blows stuff up and is known for gastrointestinal illnesses!  It is OK to be scared!"  But NO!  I had to keep it to myself, smile, and pretend that not only was everything ok, life was PREFECT!  (I am sitting here, shaking my head in wonder at my naive self!)

But life wasn't perfect.  It was FAR from perfect.  We had been told that we were probably going to California, stationed close to my grandparents.  My disappoint was beyond acute.  All I had wanted, after being in the Great White North for three years, was to go home.  I hadn't learned yet that home is where the USAF sends you, and so my heart ached for something it couldn't have.  My engineer kept asking me if I was ok with everything.  At the time, I just couldn't tell him that my heart was broken.  There was nothing that he could do about it.  When we married, we had the passage from Ruth as part of our ceremony.  I distinctly remember telling myself, "where you go, I will go."  Part of me felt like I had made my bed, and now I had to lie in it.  

After spending some time researching our future location, I stopped reading about the Orient all together.  Every article was about unrest, bombings, and terrorist groups!  What the heck were we doing?  I remember holding my Angel, thinking about the fact that she had not been given a choice in the matter.  What kind of mother was I?

With squared shoulders, I smiled and presented a strong facade.  I felt that if I acted like it was a great thing, it would become one.  Life is built around perspective.  Actively changing my perspective, I stepped forward with my foot over the abyss.  All my little family had before us was the unknown.  Our sponsor was single. And while she tried, she didn't have any answers for any of our questions. We were embarking on the ultimate adventure.  The Orient and all that it held awaited us.  

In the end, we had all that we needed to make it work.......

Each other.

"Home" for the Holidays

Holiday Traditions took on a whole new definition after we joined the military.  For years, our holidays had the push and pull chaos that went with various family groups demanding our attention.  I am sure that all of you understand what I mean.  Quick, hurry and do your intimate family plans at home...and then RUSH to meet up with everyone else because it is expected of you.  I think you can tell that rushing around and pleasing everyone is not my idea of a good time.  Now, if these family gatherings happened on a day that was not Christmas Day, I would be happy as a clam.  New Years and Thanksgiving....I can live with that craziness.  But really....Christmas should be left alone.  For the first time in years, my wish was granted!

Please don't think I don't like family.  I LOVE family.  I adore the large family dinners that come with Thanksgiving.  Family recipes that are only used once a year are dusted off and prepared with love.  But it wasn't until after we went into the military that I was given the freedom to spread my wings and find our own!  With great joy, I discovered how to create a turkey that my guests would actually turn over and pick absolutely clean, despite weighing in a whopping 26 pounds.  My mother's Cranberry Jelly wouldn't have to compete with a can shaped mass of reddish-purple stuff.  It was with a lot of experimentation that I would create my signature Thanksgiving Pie that my daughter would talk about throughout the year, relishing the thought of both helping me make it and, subsequently, consuming it.  Until entering the military, my cooking skills were shoved to the nose bleed section by the older women in our family.

You see, I LOVE to cook.  I had been raised to know how to cook.  When I was 12 years old, I prepared my very first complete Thanksgiving dinner when my mother was ill.  I didn't learn how to cook when I got married.  By the time I tied the knot, I had over a decade of experience in the kitchen, and LOVED it.  There is nothing more pleasing than to see people sit back, with their eyes closed in ecstasy, as they eat food that I carefully prepared.  The military presented me with the ultimate environment in which to better my skills and learn new ones.

While we missed our family during the major holiday seasons, that distance gave us the perfect environment to immerse ourselves into our new community and military family.  We grew to love the motley mix that would gather during the holiday season.  Singles, couples, families...they would all come together to form a family that could laugh and talk with the best of them.  The thread that always came up at these gatherings were the various traditions that each brought to the table.  It was like having all of America under the same roof!  We would exchange recipes, laugh at blood family antics that always happened at holiday gatherings, and share memories that defined our love for those special occasions.  After a while, while we didn't travel to be with our blood family during those times, we grew to absolutely love our new tradition of spending that time with our military family.

I will never forget our first Christmas morning of our military career.  We had a wonderful dinner the night before, dropped cookies and treats off to our friends and military family, and tucked in for the night.  The next morning, I had put a dish in the oven and we enjoyed a quiet, laid back, Christmas Morning together.  Stockings, gifts, a good simple breakfast, and each other.  After a peaceful morning together, we called our families, and then took a dish to a quiet gathering we had been invited to.  I will never forget my engineer looking at me and saying, "this is one of the best Christmases I have ever had!"  It would be with great joy that we would make that peacefulness a tradition in our own home.

Another aspect of Military Christmas that I adore is the annual cookie drive.  Every year, the spouses organize a baking frenzy to supply single service members with freshly baked cookies.  Every location has a different name for it, but the goal is the same.  Our young singles live in dorms and typically can't afford to travel home for the holidays.  That very first year, when I heard about this military tradition, I fell in love!  With great care, I combed through my personal recipes and chose my mother's gingerbread cookie recipe to be my contribution every year.  This cookie is the BEST gingerbread I have every had...and I have had several.  It has the right amount of heat to it and is soft & chewy...yet maintains a beautiful form.  Knowing that this cookie converts gingerbread haters to lovers, I knew this had to be my choice every Christmas season. With gusto, I bake 15 to 25 dozen of these cookies every year for the base wide cookie drive.  To this day, it is one of my favorite parts of the holiday season.  It just wouldn't be Christmas without it.

Our Holiday traditions would continue to morph and grow as our time in the military increased.  The traditions gathered while in the Great White North would stay and more would be added with each subsequent move.  Base Christmas Tree Lightings, the Annual Cookie Drives, quiet and simple family time, and warm gatherings of "displaced persons" would become real parts of our heritage as a family that our children would look forward to every year.  While they may not be America's idea of a perfect family holiday, these all became such a treasured part of our lives that the idea of giving them up is not a savory one.  As long as we are all together, wherever we are at, we are Home for the Holidays.



 

The Bug Chain. Pt. 1

Bugs.  What on earth is it with my pairing locations with their bugs?!?!  As I sit here, in the Pacific, thinking back on all our past assignments, one of the major things that forms a chain between each is bugs.  Every single place that I have lived or spent any amount of time in my life is always marked with very graphic memories of their insects.  I seriously wish that I had known this pattern would be there when this journey started.  You had better believe that I would have taken pictures...and LOTS of them!  No, I am not going to ruin the mystery and talk about the bugs for each location in this one post...that would spoil the fun.  Instead, I am going give you Part 1 of The Bug Chain.

Since the Great White North had such harsh weather with temperatures that spent most of their time down in the negatives, their insects had to be resilient little freaks.  It wasn't as if they could escape to a nice warm fire during the winter months like the rest of us.  The big thing, bug wise, that I noticed our very first winter was the lack of flies.  They were no where to be seen.  Seriously, I thought I had lucked out!  I had never thought there could be a location that didn't have flies.  But my glee would be short lived when the ultimate thaw in May took place.

With the disappearance of snow came the emergence of the Great White North's mascot bug: The Mosquito.  Oh my, did it emerge with a vengeance!  The first hint of a problem came when I started noticing these faint gray clouds that started forming over grassy areas.  Up close, because these were the first hatchlings after a long winter, they were puny, tiny, weak looking little guys.  But there were a lot of them!  Unless I wanted to dowse myself with bug repellant, my daily walks became quite an adventure.

On base, there were areas that were worse than others.  I learned quickly to avoid walking near parks, ball fields, or long expanses of grass.  These places were absolutely infested with them.  One step on the grass would raise an army of mosquitos into on defending their turf to the death.  Now, in hindsight, I think it is quite hilarious.  We had our own proverbial minefield, right there, in the Great White North.  Let me just say that mowing the lawn resulted in an explosion of mosquitos on nightmarish proportions.

As I mentioned earlier, the first round of mosquitoes were very small in size.  With horror and a morbid fascination, we would actually see the following generations get bigger and bigger, ending with the largest mosquitos we had ever seen.  I remember how I would get a closer look at them as they rested on the window screens.  By late summer, when the Great White North was preparing for its long winter, the mosquitos were so great in size that I could see that they were actually brown with what reminded me of tiger striped designs.  By the end of summer, I felt that those little blood suckers were appropriately designed.  Predators indeed!

Just as the military went to war against the Dak-Rats, they also launched a campaign against the mosquitoes.  West Nile was the major headline in the news at that time, and our leaders took every measure they could think of to eradicate their foe.  Our version of the ice cream truck would slowly drive through our neighborhoods spraying bug killer, causing all the mothers to quickly usher their children inside...and rushing to close all the windows and doors. Luckily, they timed these "drive bys" to happen at sunset, when children were supposed to be indoors anyway.  But woe to anyone who had a BBQ going on.  "A little bug killer with your steak???  Don't mind if I do!"  It was just part of the summertime fun.

By the end of summer, I discovered the reason for our very healthy population of blood suckers.  Like many military bases, the Great White North was built on unwanted land in the middle of a swamp. While the military had converted the area to a small town, all the bones of being a swamp still remained: unpredictable soil make up that resulted in construction issues, beautiful birds, frogs, soggy ground, and last...but not least...mosquitos.  After that first assignment, the first thing I would ask about a new location would be whether the base was built on a swamp and what kind of bugs did they have.  I can't imagine what our sponsors may have thought of me.  But after the dealing with the Great White North's Bug Mascot, I feel that it is a very legitimate concern.  

Code Black

Dr. Seuss....why is it that he is coming to mind when I think about Black road conditions in the Great White North..."Oh, the places you'll go!"  For some reason, I don't think that is quite what he had in mind.  The military has taken us to many places...all of them half way across the world from each other.  But none of our various "homes" had road conditions quite like the Great White North.  Honestly, the GWN has put every place we knew before and since to shame.  Rain??  People, you haven't seen anything yet!  Spend a few winters up there and you will KNOW what "bad roads" are all about.

I had grown up in a place that had occasional rain, when it wasn't in the midst of a drought, and pea soup fog.  I had experience driving on snow and ice after I had unwittingly moved to the Midwest.  Nothing wrong with the Midwest, mind you....it just isn't home.  It was while living in Chicago and Missouri that I discovered how nasty roads can get when the temperature drops below 32F....something I had never really experienced growing up.

Now, Missouri has ice...and I mean ICE!  I will never forget the time when I was driving from my university town to St. Louis to meet up with my engineer in the midst of an ice storm.  I remember actually having to pull over and chip the ice off my windows, mirrors, and antenna. By the time I got back in the car, I looked like I had a fight with a shaved ice machine.  Up to that point in my life, that was the worst road experience I had ever had.  By the time I arrived in St. Louis, I was done with driving for a while.  Thank God above it was winter break.  I think most of Missouri was iced in that week.  I thought I did a pretty good job.  Car in one piece....check.  No dead pedestrians....check.  No smashed trees....check.  I was ALIVE....double check.  While pretty relieved that I had made it in once piece, I felt like it was just barely.

Flash forward a few years and dump my sorry self in the Great White North.  I would spend three 9 month winters white knuckle driving up there!  I kid you not, I prayed every single time I turned out the gates to head to the neighboring town.  You would have thought I was preparing to meet my maker...and in a very real way, I was!

How many talks with God I had in that car, I have no clue.  It was just a running dialog of, "please Lord, I know I am a pill sometimes, but this really isn't the way I want to go!!" and "Honestly, I thought you loved me...why did you HAVE to add more snow to the ice that is already there WHILE I am driving?  I know you have a dark sense of humor, but really!!"  He just listened...and listened...and listened some more.  And OBVIOUSLY...I am writing this, so He must not have wanted to deal with me quite yet.

The winter that scared me the most was our second winter.  At that point, I was VERY pregnant with our little girl.  Now, when I am pregnant, there is NO WHERE to HIDE the baby.  That little one is WAY out there entering rooms before I do.  Every time I would maneuver myself into the car, I would say a quick prayer that we would both come out of it safely.  Unfortunately, all my OB appointments were in town.  So, there, at the end, I was having to spend a lot of time on those icy roads.  I will never forget one particular drive where the roads were RED when I left the gates....and the switched to black right after I turned off down the highway.

That was a particularly bad day.  I was having some really nice, sometimes even, contractions.  Rest took care of them, but I had to go to that appointment because my Nurse Midwife was concerned.  So, down the road I went.  After about a mile, I started getting concerned.  Cars littered the ditches on either side of the road.  Even though I felt like I was crawling down the road, I could still feel the car wanting to slip and slide.  Snow was coming down, and I couldn't see another MOVING car anywhere in sight.  Both hands white gripping the wheel, I could feel my little one dancing inside me.

Seeing so many abandoned cars along the road scared me.  I remember taking the car all the way down to 15, and then 10...literally crawling the remaining 8 miles into town.  I was horrified to find that the roads were even worse in town.  I had thought that maybe city crews may have gone through, but it looked like it had been completely deserted.  By the time  I arrived at the doctor's office, my blood pressure was through the roof.

I must say that I sat in the office for quite awhile before taking a deep breath and heading home.  With great relief, I discovered that it had stopped snowing and the road crews had been able to do what they do best....make the roads safe for pregnant women who only want to go home.  I would LOVE to say that was the worst I ever had to deal with. Unfortunately, it wasn't.

Through the following two years we had there, God seemed to be working at breaking His own records.  I honestly felt, at times, that I was the recipient of some prank, and the angels were having a blast watching me on TV.  The number of near misses that I would have during our time in the Great White North is something I prefer NOT to think about.  Never in my younger years had I ever thought I would actually get very good at driving in deadly road conditions.

During following assignments, we would be given strict road condition warnings that would cause both me and my engineer to raise our eyebrows.  It became apparent that road condition warnings were relative.  Europe's Red was the Great White North's Green.  And, of all the places I would go....the Great White North took the prize for having the worst winter roads I had ever seen.  And, quite frankly, they can keep them.  

My Angel's Birthday

The contrast between our first year and our second year in the military is striking.  The loneliness and deep feeling of separation had vanished by the time my angel had her first birthday.  While I cannot define exactly what happened during the valley between the two points in time, I can see the night and day difference between the two.  This amazing transformation is most evident with my angel's birthday party.

Like every First Birthday, it was really a celebration of our survival of the first year of Parenthood.  With great excitement, my engineer and I planned a simple party that would bring together friends who had supported us during the previous year.  Like all new parents, we had not registered the significance of the event for ourselves.  It was a wonderful friend with 3 children of her own that pointed it out to me.  Her oldest was a piano student of mine, and I found in her someone who I could comfortably find guidance, both as a mother and as a military spouse.  When she spoke, I listened...and listened carefully.

Honestly, it was with a bit a fear that I built our guest list.  I really wanted our little girl's First Birthday to be wonderful.  Still being new to the military, I was fighting the sad feeling that comes with the lack of family presence at that very big event in our lives.  I would think of what her birthday would be like if we hadn't been located so far away.  While my engineer's parents were present, the absence of my family was hard for me to swallow.  I had grown up with birthdays being family occasions with cousins and grandparents present.  Internally, I broke...knowing that my little girl would have none of that.  So, building our guest list, I thought of each name as a stand in for those who could not attend.

What a list!  It was with joy that each person RSVP'd.  Before I knew it, I was preparing for a houseful.  What a houseful it was.  Families, lots of children, singles....they were all coming!  Excited, my engineer and I chose a cake, ice cream, blew up balloons, hung streamers, and cleaned.  Before we knew it, there were knocks on the door and smiling faces entering our home.  The celebration of our angel's birthday and our survival had begun.

Looking back on that special day, I can see the changes our family's make up had gone through. While most of the people there were friends, a few had moved beyond into being family.  While blood family may not have been there, military family was present with a vengeance.  My angel had aunts and uncles there who would stand by her and understand her life in the many years to come, even when distance separated her from them.

Holding her in his arms, my engineer helped his angel blow out her single candle.  The delicious cake (baked by a fellow military spouse) was half yellow and half chocolate.  Naturally, our sweet thang went for the chocolate.  Happy children played while parents visited.  The guys talked shop (which would become an increasing occurrence during the following years) and had their own kind of fun.  After a while, I would just get used to the shop talk and learn to smile, shrug, and steer the ladies somewhere we could get away from it.  When you are married to an active duty member, you soon accept the fact that they are never really off duty.  She is always present.

Thinking back to that time, I remember how full my heart felt with my "family" between my four walls.  They were there to celebrate our little one's birthday.  Many of them had known her from the time we discovered she was entering our lives.  While many were casual acquaintances, some were precious friends who had been there for me when I needed family the most.  Their loving support and friendship showed me something that I desperately needed to see:

There is family that you are born into....but there is also family that you choose.  Of all the people I have met in my life, my military family is the family I choose....and I choose it with pride and  great honor.

There Be Dragons...

Note - Fast forward to the present...location: the Pacific.

Spiders, Snakes, and Scorpions are the most poisonous when they are young.  Their inability to control their venom output can give a deadly blow to their victim, even if it was unintentional and reactionary.  While these creatures are still deadly as adults, they, at least, try to reign it in a bit and only strike when needed.  To be honest, and I mean no offense, the same can be said of "new to the military" spouses.  While all of us have met those who NEVER learn that lesson regardless of how long they have been around, most people mature fairly quickly in the military...striking only when needed.

Over the past decade, I have met only a handful of ladies who I would classify as dragons.  Honestly, I can count them on both hands.  I have an abundance of roses in my life, thorns & all, that are the dearest women I have ever met.  Sadly, sometimes a dragon can be mistaken for a rose.  It is after navigating the thorns for a while that it dawns on me that I am really walking through a fire rather than a garden.

There is nothing like that feeling I get when I discover a dragon.  Normally a pretty good judge of character, I feel a deep sense of disappointment in myself for not seeing what was right there in front of me the whole time.  I am sad to say that four of the 7 dragons that I have met in my life were spouses who were new to the military.  All four of these women had less than 3 years in the military, complained constantly about the military, and did not understand what those who have been living this wartime environment for a decade or more have had to face.  Every single time, all the "Dragon" signs were there, and I chose to ignore them.  I guess it was hopeful naivete the caused me to close my eyes to what everyone else could see.

What is the sign of a Dragon, you may ask.  While there are several, I am going share the signs that I have recently ignored.

• Fire, not calm, is her initial response.  This is the one sign that I have continually chosen to ignore and should not have.  Sometimes excused as "bluntness," it is really a strong sign of pride that does not budge...even in the face of being wrong.  I am an honest, blunt person.  Those qualities are something that I love to see in others.  However, the marriage of diplomacy with bluntness is a must, fore without it, people get burned.  "Bluntness", used in the above description, is also used to cover an inability to control one's anger.  Being calmly honest has a far greater impact than "bluntness" raining down like fire from heaven.
• She talks poorly of others behind their backs.  She may be "venting" to you, but be aware that she may be doing the same about you to others.  Avoid a gossip at all costs and don't take part.  Don't put your brain on pause and wait for her to finish like I have...change the subject or excuse yourself.  I know this sounds like a no-brainer...but how much of this do we tolerate in order to be "nice?"  
• She complains about the military constantly.  Ok, this is a hard one.  We all have our days.  This life isn't something that comes naturally to everyone (including myself...but I work pretty darn hard to make the most of it!).  However, if you are constantly hearing her talking about the military as the wall separating herself from happiness, run....and run fast!  This is our life.  We work to embrace it, warts and all...and make it work.  There is no use in wallowing in self pity, we have to grab it and claim it.  Otherwise, we will fall.  This constant complaining is the sign of a truly unhappy person who would be miserable anywhere.  The stressors that come with the military are challenging enough without throwing someone else's bitterness into the mix.  Don't be that person who is going to "cheer" her up...she needs to do that herself.
• She is into "collecting trophies".  This one is a doozy.  A collector is someone who befriends people for what she can gain from them.  There are strings attached to everything.  You may not see this trait at first.  Most of the time, it is too late when you realize what you have gotten into.  I am wary of gifts.  While I can graciously receive, gifts tend to raise a red-flag for being bought.
• Every conversation centers on herself.  A blinding beacon that tells you that, in her world, she is the most important.  Others tend to fall somewhere in the nosebleed section.  I don't think I have to say anymore. 

I know that this is completely out of the ordinary for me.  I just want you to learn from my own mistakes.  Our lives are too full and demanding to include dragons.  Now, Roses, on the other hand, with their beauty and thorns are worth the risk.  I don't know where I would be without my Roses.

Our military society is filled with so many different kinds of roses.  While the thorns are there, they are not something that can destroy others.  With most roses, you discover that those thorns are beautiful gifts that the rose uses to protect others, not herself.  While at first she may be a bit prickly, there is a beauty in her soul and a gentleness in her scent that will make your world a truly beautiful place.

Make sure that you are a Rose, not a Dragon...

Out of the Mouths of Babes

Children are very, very precious in Military society.  They bring a sweet breath of fresh air to an environment that, due to a 10 year war, is stressed and, at times, forgets the innocence outside the wire.  Their free spirits bring lightness and laughter to our world.

When our lovely daughter was a wee one, we went to a Going Away for a friend who was separating from the military. She had found the love of her life in a good man.  Up to that point, she had been a single parent to two very bright, energetic children who were the reason for her entering the military.  She loved them dearly and provided a good life for them. It was with joy that we went to her Going Away to wish her a wonderful future.

Our daughter, though only a year old, had been to several Military events at this point.  It is with a good dose of fear and trepidation that I prepare my children to attend military functions.  While everyone says that they are wonderful, I know how quickly situations can spiral into a humiliating oblivion. Being the good mother that I am (ie scared spitless to make a scene at the front of the room), I had taken a seat at a table toward the back. With great relief, my daughter and I were welcomed warmly by the NCOs there.  She did what she still does best: she flirted shamelessly with every single uniform there and made herself the belle of the ball (at our table).  I felt like I was walking on ice the whole entire time.

After a long string of uniforms taking the mike to offer both their memories and well wishes, the commander took his turn.  This commander had a way of alienating his audience.  At every turn, regardless of what the occasion was about, he always shifted the spotlight to be about himself.  Having sat through many such events, the whole room knew what was coming.  Looking around, I watched people settle in for a long winded speech that had nothing to do with the person who was leaving. It was ten minutes into the speech that it happened.

My angel made her presence known.  Standing with her little feet on my legs and bouncing around, she started blowing raspberries with all her might!  Louder and louder she got, bouncing with all her might.  Preparing to stand and take her out, the Staff Sgt. next to me smiled, leaned over, and told me, "Stay...she is expressing all of our feelings!"  My mortified self looked around the room and saw smiles playing on lips everywhere.  At about that time, as I was rising to leave the room, the commander said, "I guess that tells me I am done!"

Butter Bar No More

There is nothing like that feeling a whole family gets with a promotion.  When my engineer traded in his Butter Bars for a single silver bar, I felt like we had come out of purgatory.  My engineer, being 30, did not mix all that well with 22 to 23 year olds.  At last, he was a Butter Bar no more.

His promotion was a very special occasion.  It meant that we had survived.  We had survived our first two years with the military with all of its schools, Jr. High politics, and the make or break early years of marriage.  Despite the USAF, we still loved each other.

The number of mile stones that got hit during those short two years are numerous.  I am talking personal milestones.  My family and friends from my early years will attest to the fact that tact is not something that came naturally to me.  God did not see fit to bless me with a filter already installed...instead He wanted to see me stumble and fall.  I am convinced that He is a huge fan of slap stick, for my own personal blunders as a Butter Bar's wife are billboard proof of it!

It was with great joy that my grandmother told me that my mother was just like me when she was my age.  I had always felt that my mother was the most gracious, diplomatic person I had ever met.  A woman with few words, you HEARD everything she had to say.  When my beloved grandmother told me that my mother was just as blunt as I was in her 20s, I felt like there might be hope for me yet!  Early on in my engineer's military career, I discovered that diplomacy and grace were a must for a peaceable, respected existence. I had my work cut out for me.

My engineer, on the other, has always had a presence.  He walks into a room and people automatically extend deference.  His ability to deliver difficult messages diplomatically quickly earned him respect among his superior officers.  Most of it had to do with the fact that he was 30, not 24.  For me, it was wonderful to no longer see him grouped with the kids straight out of college.  The distance between my engineer and his peers became such that he gave up trying to bridge it.  It was hard for me to see.

The jump from Butter Bar to 1LT is something that happens if you can still draw in a breath.  Unless you thoroughly and completely mess up, you WILL make 1LT.  For us, it was simply a matter of treading water for a couple of years.  My engineer, being the thorough type A personality that he is, always put in 130%...then worried that it wouldn't be good enough.  Over time I saw that, by his willingness to put so much into his work, he set himself up to be completely engulfed in whatever task the USAF felt she couldn't live without.  It wouldn't be until the middle of our next tour that I would receive the advice that would be my magic carpet ride as the spouse of a man in uniform.  But that is for another time.

I will never forget the cupcakes that I baked or the care with which I dressed my baby girl.  Juggling baby, food, and diaper bag, I made my way to the squadron.  People gathered from throughout the squadron to support the step into the next rank.  With great pride, I pinned that silver bar to his shoulder, thinking about all that we had gone through...and all that had changed in our lives.  Our family stood for a simple photograph.  A photograph that marked the next stage in our life as a military family...and the close of the chapter of a Butter Bar Spouse.

Iced Walls

You just have to LOVE base housing!  There is this myth that it is the lap of luxury offered ONLY to the military, and it is often used to show just how good the government is to its service members.  Oh boy.  If these lauders of good will had seen the dumps we have had to live in, they would be shame faced and wishing they had kept their ignorant mouths shut.

Our adventures with base housing started in the Great White North.  Honestly, when we initially moved into our home, I had forgiven its obvious age, hard living past, and superficial upgrades.  It was presented to us as the only thing available, and, therefore, our only choice.  Desperately just wanting a home and completely out of my comfort zone, we took it and made the best of it.

My engineer never once told me the obvious signs of trouble that he saw when we first moved in.  I remember seeing the distinct look of concern on his face during our walk through.  He had been a design & manufacturing engineer for four years before signing the dotted line and taking the oath.  He saw things the way they were, and quietly said that he was glad we weren't buying it.

The list of crazy trouble we had in that house was long and was proof of the sad neglect that poor building had suffered.  We continually heard that enlisted housing was horrible, and, therefore, I kept my mouth shut.  Cracks in the basement walls.  Aged plumbing that burst.  A stove that didn't like to work.  Heating system that claimed to be on, but allowed for a frosty breath.  If enlisted housing was worse than that, I really couldn't say a thing.

It was when our kitchen wall consistently froze and had a sheet of ice that I stopped believing that the enlisted lived in worse conditions than we did.  What the heck was that all about?  My home had ice on the inside, and it wasn't in the freezer.  I remember that evening clearly.  Stooped down so that I could see why our facet wasn't working, I discovered ice coating the inside of our wall.

At this point, I had already had the run in with the neighbor concerning her backed up plumbing.  The bathtub had flooded the kitchen.  The heater's dislike for working caused us to wear very, very warm clothes and shoes in the house (I remember even donning a knit cap on occasion).  Our stove and oven often took vacations, typically in the middle of a baking cycle.  Despite resealing windows & doors, we had a beautiful breeze that swept the house as if we left everything wide open...and this did not create a comfortable atmosphere when it was minus 55 degrees outside.

Our frozen walls were an eye opener to me.  Luxury living, eh?  A privilege that I should be eternally thankful to the American Government for providing?  If there were families having to live in worse, was this really a gift that I wanted to accept?  Hmm...I don't know.

When we moved out, we had to white glove clean that house.  Working hard and long, we gave it back in better condition than we got it...only to discover that it was being demolished after we left...iced walls and all.

Pluggin' in the Car

Some of you may come from the Great White North.  Snow boots, parkas, double layer long underwear, Ice Chippers, snow tires, and ice fishing are just another part of daily life.  I, on the other hand, grew up going to the beach on New Year's Eve.  The heaviest jacket I ever owned was a glorified sweat shirt with poly fill padding.  While the fog may get thick in places and frost would coat the early morning trees, I had no use for snow boots or long underwear.

When we moved to the Great White North, I thought the above list was all I needed.  Instead I found out that there was "stuff" that I didn't even know existed, let alone was used.  Some of it is comical.  I will never forget the first time my engineer walked in the door with a snow mobile mask and ski goggles (he trekked to work). It took everything I had not to laugh at him.  Notice it is "at"...because he was definitely NOT laughing.  Nothing was quite as comical as my trying to walk through deep snow in my subzero boots.

While I was pregnant, my engineer and I would bundle up and go for a walk at night after he got home from work.  At this point in my pregnancy, I could still tie my own shoes...if barely.  I remember putting on all the needed layers, quickly starting to resemble the Charmine Kid with the toilet paper.  Then, with my thick wool socks, I would shove my feet into those boots.  Holding tight onto the banister, I would stomp my feet, trying my best to just get my poor feet where they needed to be.  Carefully lowering myself, I would tie them up, only to realize that I then needed help back up.  The look of amusement and love that would cross his face as he hefted me up stays with me to this day.  Night after night we repeated this before going out into the still frozen world outside.

I have to admit, for as much as I HATE the dark and cold, the beauty in that stillness takes my breath away.  No one in their right mind went out at night, walking in the bitter cold.  It was just the two of us in that frozen stillness, hand in hand, talking about nothing in particular, yet everything as well.  I remember how the lights in the windows gave off a sense of familial intimacy that existed behind each window.  Some were the cold blue glow of a television, but others were the warm gold of table lamps, which gave a promise of conversations that may be taking place inside.

On the return home from these evening walks, we would make sure that the car was plugged in.  Now this, along with the subzero boots, was something else that completely threw off my understanding of the world.  Plugging in my car had NEVER crossed my mind.  Are you kidding me?  I remember how stupid I felt when we first arrived in the Great White North and I would see these plugs literally hanging out of the hood of every car I saw.  I wasn't about to ask what it was all about.  Obviously EVERYONE was doing it, I just didn't know what IT was all about!

My mind ran over so many different reasons for the plugs.  They had SOMEHOW gotten conversion kits for older cars to make them completely electric??  If so, why had I not heard about this sooner?!?!  And why, of all the places I had lived, was this the first place I had ever seen such a promising innovation?  Honestly, my mind was so confused I refused to talk to anyone about it.  Yes, I was new here, but I didn't want to look like a complete idiot.  The fact that I felt like one didn't help the situation in the least.  Luckily, my confusion came to an end one evening when my engineer came home from work.

He had come in and said that we needed to get an engine block heater installed in the cars.  At this point I had been wondering what the heck that stupid cord was all about for so long that I couldn't hold it in any longer, "a what??"  An engine block heater...you know, to keep the engine from completely freezing over.  "Ok!"  I tried to act as normal as I could, but, inside, I was rejoicing!

No, I wasn't an idiot after all!!  Californians don't have a reason for plugging in their cars to keep them from freezing, so I didn't miss anything at all.  I hadn't missed some ground breaking news story about gas to electric car conversion kits for older cars.  All that time, I had wondered how on earth their cars were surviving the winters, and it was there, dangling from underneath the hood, right in front of me.

Babies Having Babies

The military is built of warriors in their prime: from the invincible 18 year olds straight out of high school to the mature, yet strong, senior leaders in their 40s and early 50s.  It is  an interesting society that has its oldest age group topping out at their early 50s...with the rare occasion of those in their 60s located at top brass assignments.  Just as these individuals are in the perfect period in their lives to fight and lead, they are also in the prime time to breed.

One thing that I found to be quite interesting when I first entered military society was the abundance of pregnant women and babies.  Strollers, diapers, showers, birth announcements...they were everywhere.  I was in my mid 20s when we started this Blue Journey.  No children at that point and completely surrounded by them.

What had shocked me was how young some of the parents were.  Now, years later and a greater age distance between me and our younger service members, I am still caught flat footed when I see a 19 year old mother pushing a stroller through the BX.  While this may strike some on the outside to shake their heads in concern, I understand it a little bit more.

A young man (or young woman) enlists straight out of high school and marries his or her sweetheart.  They have stable incomes, health insurance, and social support within the community.  So, why not go ahead and start a family?  Sometimes it is an "oops" situation.  But some are not.

During our time in the Great White North, my engineer had a young man (18 years old) in his squadron.  This young troop and his beautiful wife (17 years old) were expecting their first child.  Finding that he couldn't support a child, he enlisted and provided his love and his child with a stable home and health insurance.  He also took advantage of all the professional training and education that the military would provide during his time in service.  Years later, my engineer would see him again, but this time in a tailored suit working as a defense contractor, still providing for his family.  He was a smart young man who had the ability to roll with his situation and make wise decisions.

Some cases aren't so successful.  I grew up with the understanding that there are worse things than being single.  Being married to the wrong person can create a completely toxic existence. Marrying just for the sake a of child, and not out of genuine love of each other, can make for not just a bad home environment, but a dangerous one as well.

Around the same time as we became acquainted with this young man and his wife, we also went through the New Parent Orientation that is held at all bases for first time parents.  I will never forget going to the class and finding that most of the mothers there were five to six years younger than I was.  I felt like I had "geriatric" written on my forehead.

The bulk of our time at this class was spent on the many reasons you should NEVER shake your baby.  I felt like it was pretty obvious why you should never shake a baby.  But, looking around the room, I saw shock and fear written on the young faces that surrounded me.  Oh, my!  This was new to these young parents.  That was when I started looking at them a little differently.  There was so much that they hadn't dealt with yet.  And here they were, about to become parents when they didn't even qualify for reduced car insurance.  My heart, to this day, goes out them.

They are very young, far from their families and friends, and, on top of all of this, have the increased stress that comes with being in the military.  While most young people their age are off at college or flipping burgers, they live in a pressure cooker that allows for no mistakes.  By the time most of these youthful warriors are 23, they have deployed a couple times, seen death, have dealt with losing friends, grapple with the weight of taking a life themselves, and have families who depend on them.

Through the years, I can not count the number of child abuse convictions that I have read about.  While I am not making excuses, part of me understands how these painful and deadly situations come to pass.  Stress, anger, and a feeling of being disconnected from their families creates an environment that just causes rash behavior to build to the point of explosion.  This isn't just with young families, but with all families.  However, our younger families are more at risk due to the sheer number of them within our ranks.

Now, when I meet a young family expecting their first child or with a newborn, my heart and prayers go out to them.  They need the communal support of our extended military family the most during this time.  Aunts, Uncles, and Grandparents are so far away.  It is time to step forward and adopt a young family...for everyone's sake.

If you know a young family or you are active in your military community, please get familiar with the Don't Shake Program.  Encourage the young families in our midst and let them know they are not alone.

Don't Shake . Org