In Pursuit of Life

latenightjimmy: New Thank You Notes tonight! and overused...

Fri, 07 Jun 2013 12:49:18 -0700

New Thank You Notes tonight!

and overused incorrectly. (But that’s not your fault, apostrophe, but rather the users’.) It indicates possession not plurality (exception: acronyms).

Rawr! Yes, grammar gets me riled up.

Note to self

Thu, 30 May 2013 00:37:53 -0700

Lots of flash photography at a wedding can trigger a PTSD flashback of a firefight…

Yup, that happened this weekend.

I could see him move away from the present. I looked over and he had that distant look, he started to sweat, his grip got tighter. He looked shocked that he was having this moment, but also was getting distressed that it was happening and he couldn’t stop the flashback.

But the moment passed.

He told me later that it was a good thing I was sitting on his left and touched his left knee. He’s a pilot so nothing ever comes at him from the left. His navigator sits on his right. The mere fact that I was on his left and touched his left knee was enough to give his body a sensory awareness that this touch was in the present and not in the flashback. The touch on his left knee was a nudge to stay in reality and to not “remember-believe-think” he was in that firefight again.

This is real life as a military spouse after a deployment.

Good thing I was on his left. Good thing he had enough awareness about what was going on. Good thing he felt comfortable enough to tell me. Good thing I know what PTS/D looks like and could support him through that moment.

Married to the Marines

Tue, 21 May 2013 18:28:54 -0700

Married to the Marines:

A military spouse reflects on the pros and cons of being married to a marine as he retires from the Corps after 20 years of service.

Molly Blake writes:

And I’ve learned a lot over the years. I’ve learned that when President Bush announced a troop plus up, and seconds later the phone rings, it’s not good news. I’ve learned what it takes to earn an Air Medal and how that tiny ribbon can so clearly reflect my greatest fear. I’ve learned that having my mom in the delivery room for my daughter’s birth – while my husband served in Iraq – brought us closer together. I’ve learned that my dad is great at driving cross-country (twice).

And I’ve learned that being a military spouse has made me a better person.

I always wonder if I will be a better person on the other side… or is that just a matter of reframing…?

2,700

Mon, 20 May 2013 21:26:03 -0700

2,700:

This part of the post struck me:

He asked his brother, a former Army officer, for insight as to why more than 80 percent of those who committed suicide had never been in combat. The response:

Because regardless of what they’re called or what “stage” we’re in, we’re still at war. Being in a war zone for 9+ months is unbelievably stressful even if you’re not in combat. Not to mention, you work 15 hours a day and get 0 days off, which is tough even in a regular job for that amount of time. You have no social life, and people are social beings. You just become numb mentally and emotionally. I was for months after I came back and my deployment wasn’t that bad compared to some. One of my guys killed himself a week after we got back. He seemed fine.

My husband’s deployment was exactly that: 15+ hour days and maybe 3 days off total for 7 months (except he also saw combat). He came back a little deadened. I was nervous about his mental well-being.

The thing that infuriated him the most was all the lip service that the military and the Command pay to “taking care of our troops,” but instead worked them to the brink of their breaking point. It jeopardized their safety in ways that were wholly preventable. The CO of the squadron even denies that the circadian rhythm exists! The CO, logically, cared nothing about giving his Marines any rest, but just said to suck it up. Why are they so thick that they can’t connect the fact that if you give someone a bit of rest, some respite, some time to rejuvenate, that that would help to boost morale, productivity, and sanity?

It’s no wonder people are killing themselves…

Update

Sun, 19 May 2013 15:20:13 -0700

Where have I been tumblr?

Hiding, being avoidant. Husband came back from deployment about a month ago and I was wrapped up in that (yay us!). Now I’m trying to wrap up my final weeks of grad school, which means finally moving in with husband after many years of long distance (like a decade), for the first time fully living in a military community, transitioning from a track record of living in urban environments with lots of diversity to now going to a very white and rural world, and oh yeah having to be a real grown up and finding a job.

But now that I’m starting to sit in front of the computer screen to chip away at this 20-page final paper for my independent research project, I felt the urge to get back on tumblr…you know how that goes :)

Will I ever feel comfortable or safe enough to start writing more personal entries about my life as a milspouse on here? Will writing about all these transitions be useful for me or for others out there? Who knows. But at least I know that this space exists.

Hope you guys are all enjoying your Sundays.

Photo

Wed, 15 May 2013 07:32:15 -0700

p.s. returning to DC in a little under 2 weeks! I’d rather be there than here doing schoolwork...

Tue, 14 May 2013 00:52:44 -0700

p.s. returning to DC in a little under 2 weeks!

I’d rather be there than here doing schoolwork right now… -__-

Explain to me why I feel so much anxiety right now. Tired, exhausted, and yet still up for god knows...

Tue, 14 May 2013 00:49:43 -0700

Explain to me why I feel so much anxiety right now. Tired, exhausted, and yet still up for god knows how late. Argh. Husband on the East Coast is going to wake up soon and I’m still awake?! What is this madness?

"Knowing how to be solitary is central to the art of loving. When we can be alone, we can be with..."

Sat, 04 May 2013 20:54:08 -0700

“Knowing how to be solitary is central to the art of loving. When we can be alone, we can be with others without using them as a means of escape.”

- bell hooks (via onlinecounsellingcollege)

this is basically my entire 10-year relationship with my...

Sun, 14 Apr 2013 13:44:29 -0700

this is basically my entire 10-year relationship with my then-boyfriend-now-husband hahaha

Marriage Equality: DOMA, Military Style

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 22:40:42 -0700

Marriage Equality: DOMA, Military Style:

Karen Santiano Francis gets it:

As an ID Card holder, a spouse gets on post or base, goes to the commissary or the post library; joins the club and uses the pool. Those are the surface rights. The right to be at the hospital when your spouse is in ICU after the birth of the first child for both of you; the right to be able to show your emotion in the NICU as your son fights hard. The right to take your child to the doctor on post as his other mom – not the nanny. The right to housing on post; adjustments to the housing allowance as “married”; being included in the Family Readiness Group during deployments; the day to day realities of our lives in the military community, the lack of these is an ongoing daily discrimination.

Rep. Joe Sestak, a retired three star admiral, noted in his editorial in the Philadelphia Inquirer that there are about one hundred of these benefits that are not available to same sex couples, because of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). These are rights that go deeper, the rights that really matter – and then there are those that none of us in the military community like to talk about.

The right to notification, the right to open the door to the casualty notification officer, the right to the flag draping the coffin.

positive-press-daily: Dog travels 10 miles to find shelter...

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 13:03:51 -0700

positive-press-daily:

Dog travels 10 miles to find shelter mate

Ben and Jade’s story began long before owners Courtney and Jason Lawler came into their lives. According to the Tribune-Star, the dogs (both mixed German Shepherds) were initially strays living on the north end of Terre Haute, Indiana.

When one-year-old Jade became pregnant with 4-year-old Ben’s puppies last summer, staffers from the Terre Haute Humane Shelter trapped them and took them to the shelter so they could better care for the mother-to-be.

“They were a bonded pair,” shelter manager Charles Brown told told the Tribune-Star. Ben and Jade were inseparable during the several months they spent at the shelter and even shared the same pen. But they were later torn apart when the Lawler’s, who were only looking for one pet, adopted Ben.

“We had him for about three weeks, and we thought he was OK, but he got loose on us,” Courtney Lawler told NBC2 News. Ben escaped the Lawler’s home last December and went in search of Jade at the shelter 10 miles away.

About 24 hours later, Ben had found his way back to Jade. “He came out of nowhere and started licking her through the fence, like they were kissing,” Courtney said of the dogs’ reunion.

When the Lawlers realized it wouldn’t do to separate the pair again, they adopted Jade as well and brought both dogs home.

Ben and Jade “want to be together,” Debbie Floyd, the Humane Society board’s president, told the Tribune-Star. “There hasn’t been a lot of human love in their lives. They found love with each other and that what’s make them happy … Hopefully, they will live their lives happily ever after.”

Because who doesn’t love a good love story, right?

In Pursuit of Life: Anyone have thoughts on how to engage the milspouse community in...

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 00:41:00 -0700

In Pursuit of Life: Anyone have thoughts on how to engage the milspouse community in...:

sneezingrainbows:

inpolife:

Anyone have thoughts on how to engage the milspouse community in activism (of the progressive, feminist, equal rights variety)?

I’m moving to a new community (from civilian to military, as I move in with my Marine husband) so my core community of friends who are mainly activists will no longer be…

Interesting post. I’ll share a couple thoughts I have, though I’m only 18 and in ROTC, so take it them with a grain of salt. Here’s my take on it, though.

I’m just in my first year of AFROTC training, but one of the things they start drilling into our heads from the very beginning is that we represent the Air Force, both in and out of uniform. Because of that, discussing politics is difficult. I’m good at following rules and keeping myself in check, but the one thing I’ve been called out on repeatedly is talking about politics too loudly in uniform. Of course voicing support for marriage equality online is a lot different from, say, badmouthing our Commander-in-chief online, but still — military or milsos voicing political thoughts has always been a bit of a dicey issue. It may come off as the community being apolitical, but really, I’m willing to bet most people have pretty strong opinions. We’re just trained to keep them to ourselves.

Secondly, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was reversed less than a year ago. By the end of the DADT period, there wasn’t that much support to uphold it from the military community, but being able to support gay rights is still kind of a new thing. For awhile, it has just been something that people don’t talk about, and I feel like that’s still kind of the case. Plus, the military community tends to run more conservative than the country as a whole. I’m gay and very outspoken about it, but I avoided talking about it when I joined ROTC. Didn’t hide it, but didn’t try to vocalize it, either, and when I did, I ran into problems with a couple people. Because the military is pretty heavily based on how people rank you or trust you, you don’t want to give prejudiced people a reason to stand in your way. Plus, while the majority of servicemembers thought DADT should have been repealed, there are still those who think it should be brought back.

Thirdly, the main driving force behind marriage equality activism tends to be the community comprised of people who mainly care about social issues. I’m not trying to suggest military families shouldn’t care about social issues, but issues like national security and foreign policy tend to be on the forefront. As someone who has signed her life away to the military, I care a lot more about what’s going on in the Middle East, the sequestration, the deployments of people I know in the military, etc than I do about whether I can get married or not. Again, not suggesting marriage equality and LGBTQ rights aren’t important, because they definitely are. But in the military community, social issues tend to be put on the back burner in favor of other issues more relevant to military life.

Anyway, that being said, I think it will really come down to where you’re stationed. In certain areas, I’m sure you will be able to find a community with the activist interests you have. In other areas, not so much.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. First, congratulations and best wishes for joining the AF. Second, good for you for being able to represent yourself as who you are. I wish you all the best in having a successful career and being able to avoid or fight discrimination. Third, I totally hear you about the tricky balance that one must uphold as a person-in-uniform. If you’re part of the military, your boss is the Commander in Chief, and your duty is to follow orders. I’m not interested in engaging on any sort of President bashing (this one or any future ones, but esp. this one b/c I’m a big Obama supporter. I mean, he’s married to Michelle!), so that’s that.

Getting on to other points…

It’s been strange to see even how silent my military community has been about things like the sequester. There are general complaints about what’s happening, but no one is engaged in the political process. No one has expressed an understanding how the sequester came about (i.e., failed political negotiations with the GOP refusing to make any concessions for revenue b/c they prefer to keep tax cuts for the rich. Fine fine, this is too simplistic, but that’s one part of it). Secondly, there are so many misunderstandings about what’s happening in the Middle East, the specifics about foreign policy, debate about national security, etc. because the only “news” people are sharing are from the talking heads of Fox News. Plus, there is this general racism against that entire region.

Maybe there are other people who are much better informed and do have strong opinions or at least would be willing to engage in some academic debate, but where are they? How do I engage with them? How do I identify them? I have so much left to learn and dialogue is part of it (but if you’re getting your news from Glenn Beck, then I’m sorry, there is no room for debate b/c your “facts” are actually lies).

The other part of all this is that LGBTQ rights is military rights. The right to be by your spouse’s bedside when s/he is injured, the right to be an executor of a will, the right to be notified if your spouse is injured or dead while at war. It’s more than the wedding, it’s about being seeing as a full partner.

I can’t imagine what this deployment would have been like without the support of the unit - being connected to the other spouses knowing I can reach out to them, getting updates from the Family Readiness Officer, getting invited to briefings so we know how to prepare, etc. If you’re not recognized as a spouse, you don’t get this support. And when you’re going through a deployment you need all the support you can get.

I want to encourage you to re-consider how certain rights are inherent to the strength of the military, mission readiness, and troop morale (to add another example, prevention of rape).

Outside of those things, there are other things that matter to me, politics-wise and in the community as a whole. For political issues - TriCare and its intersection with healthcare reform; what are the costs of war and are we doing enough to care for veterans; a dialogue about women in combat roles and other forms of sexism; separation of church and state and the over-christianization of the military; etc.

In a community, I want to be respected as a person of color, and not tokenized. I want to know that I can talk about sex in a sex-positive manner. I want to have someone around me who understands heterosexism. I want to have a friend who cares about social justice.

To get back to the root of it all is to repeat this question of how do I engage some other closeted activist milspouses? How do I identify them and myself without alienating my husband, especially if this is counter-cultural?

i.e., how do I find and make friends who share similar values as me?

Edit: I also wanted to add that some of the Marines and milspouses don’t give a flying fuck how treasonous or in violation of military conduct code their posts are. Also, it’s not difficult to identify the Christianists and the conservatives. But how do I find other social justice minded folks when most of us are closeted?

pickledtoast: inpolife: Anyone have thoughts on how to engage the milspouse community in activism...

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 22:09:18 -0700

pickledtoast:

inpolife:

Anyone have thoughts on how to engage the milspouse community in activism (of the progressive, feminist, equal rights variety)?

I’m moving to a new community (from civilian to military, as I move in with my Marine husband) so my core community of friends who are mainly activists will no longer be a coffee date away. What should I do? How do I foster or find this community when I know that many in the military community are either apoltiical or share different political views than I, but I feel I need to be surrounded by other progressive activists?

I ask this question because as my facebook feed turned into a sea of red equal signs over the past two days with updates from college friends, grad school friends, work friends, etc., there was complete fb silence from everyone in my military community. I checked husband’s fb feed, and same thing - silence (except for one or two homophobic posts).

Why do people in the military community (or my military community) not care about marriage equality? Why is there complete silence regarding the things that I feel wholeheartedly passionate about?

I’m nervous. I feel lost.

I don’t know. I’m nervous about everything when it comes the this community. I’m nervous about coming out as a big ole liberal, pro choice, pro equality, atheist. However, now might be a good time to join the bases spouse FB page, and check through the members page to see who has hopped on the equality icon bandwagon. It could give you an initial idea of who to approach about progressive activism in the community.

Your post prompted me to check our bases spouse FB page, and while there were maybe only 20 out of 600+ that had the equality icon, it still gives me an idea of who I could reach out to that might have similar values.

P.S. I’m glad you get to be with your husband again :)

edited to add: obviously this is not a sure fire way of finding people who share all of your values. I knew a woman at our last base who was all for marriage equality, but she still used homophobic slurs, and she was racist, fatphobic, and in many ways a female misogynist. So it’s kind of hit or miss. It was a big miss with this one.

Also remember that the civilian world still exists outside of base, so don’t be hesitant to look outside of the military community for like minded friends if you can’t find any within the community.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. You’re right, there’s life outside of the military community. I mean, there’s also the tumblr community :)

I’m moving to NC and have been part of the spouses club of that unit for a while now, but nothing, all silence. There have been a few people I’ve met who have voiced support for marriage equality, which is a great start, but I also want to be actively engaged in these topics within a community, rather than having one-liners thrown into conversations here and there. But still, it’s a start.

I think I’m going to join a local Democrats group or something like that as a way to stay politically involved.

Over the months I’ve become more and more vocal about my politics, which I’m not sure is a good thing for my husband’s sake, but I feel like I have to lay claim to that identity. I don’t know, this whole military thing is just a bit of a mess.

But it’s a hopeful sign that there are liberals in the military community out there, like you :) I guess we just proceed cautiously, right?

Anyone have thoughts on how to engage the milspouse community in activism (of the progressive,...

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 21:08:21 -0700

Anyone have thoughts on how to engage the milspouse community in activism (of the progressive, feminist, equal rights variety)?

I’m moving to a new community (from civilian to military, as I move in with my Marine husband) so my core community of friends who are mainly activists will no longer be a coffee date away. What should I do? How do I foster or find this community when I know that many in the military community are either apoltiical or share different political views than I, but I feel I need to be surrounded by other progressive activists?

I ask this question because as my facebook feed turned into a sea of red equal signs over the past two days with updates from college friends, grad school friends, work friends, etc., there was complete fb silence from everyone in my military community. I checked husband’s fb feed, and same thing - silence (except for one or two homophobic posts).

Why do people in the military community (or my military community) not care about marriage equality? Why is there complete silence regarding the things that I feel wholeheartedly passionate about?

I’m nervous. I feel lost.

DYING VET’S ‘FUCK YOU’ LETTER TO GEORGE BUSH & DICK CHENEY NEEDS TO BE READ BY EVERY AMERICAN

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 02:01:25 -0700

DYING VET’S ‘FUCK YOU’ LETTER TO GEORGE BUSH & DICK CHENEY NEEDS TO BE READ BY EVERY AMERICAN

Hundreds of dollars gone b/c of changes to homecoming dates and needing to cancel/change all my...

Sun, 17 Mar 2013 00:41:08 -0700

Hundreds of dollars gone b/c of changes to homecoming dates and needing to cancel/change all my flights to an still-unknown date. Thus is the life of a long distance military marriage.

Bah! humbug.

The Most Expensive Fighter Jet Ever Built, by the Numbers

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 22:50:15 -0700

The Most Expensive Fighter Jet Ever Built, by the Numbers:

And how is this not on the table for defense cuts from the sequester…?

So this post went across my milspouse feed in response to this ridiculous HuffPo article by David...

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 11:46:16 -0700

So this post went across my milspouse feed in response to this ridiculous HuffPo article by David Wood (originally titled “After Decade Of Lavish Benefits, Military Personnel Fear Cuts”; now titled “Defense Budget Faces Cuts To Personnel After Decade Of War”):

So, a very ignorant man wrote a very ignorant article about how lavish the benefits of our military are. I emailed this “journalist” in hopes that I can provide him with the true depiction of our lavish lifestyle. We’ll see if he responds, but I doubt it. Link to his article is in the comments. Here is my email:
“Dear Mr. Wood,

Clearly, you knew when you wrote your Huffington Post piece that you would strike a nerve within the military community and with anyone who has ever cared about someone who serves. I am the wife to a Gunnery Sergeant (E7) in the United States Marine Corps; currently he is forward deployed to Afghanistan and we have 3 boys. Since your interpretation of our lifestyle is incorrect, I thought I would invite you to come watch our life here in Jacksonville, NC for a few days. Emotionally life is definitely not lavish. My days are spent like most working parents in America, driving kids to school & sports, making meals, cleaning and doing homework as a single parent household but they also include explaining to my 6 year old why his Dad can’t be at his soccer match. Or, when I have had to comfort my 4 year old who screams out for his Dad in his sleep. My nights however ARE unique; for example, last night a helicopter crashed in Afghanistan killing 5 service members. My husband is a crew chief and because the news did not say what type of aircraft, I laid awake throughout the night wondering if someone would be coming to tell me my husband was dead.

However, when the news came that it was an Army aircraft, I was not relieved. Instead my heart broke for the 5 families who just lost their hero. The 5 families that will be planning a funeral. The 5 families who will never again see their husband hold their child or feel their embrace.

Financially life hasn’t seemed lavish either. We have spent the last 13 months paying a mortgage on an empty house at our last duty station. Also, at the rank of E5, we had to get our dinner from a food bank in Yuma AZ or eat MREs because I could not find employment when we moved.

I am not angry at your comment about our “lavish” benefits, rather I am jealous. I would love to be that ignorant to the realities of military life, especially on days like today where the only luxury I long for is a living, breathing husband. I invite you to look at our financials, to see the whopping $4400 per month paycheck my husband makes after 14 years of service. He is an E7, and unless he will be receiving a $40,000 raise by E8, your calculations are wrong. I have attached the current pay chart for your review.

I feel you owe my peers an explanation as to why, after 11 years of continued sacrifice, you sir feel it is your right to attack the only part of the population always giving. You didn’t feel the need to evaluate the benefits of the welfare recipients or the illegal immigrants but the Armed Forces. I would really value the opportunity to have an honest conversation with you to understand your viewpoint. I promise you, there is nothing lavish about our commissaries or moving every 3 years to duty stations with no job opportunity for spouses or truly worrying every day if you are going to become a widow.

Next time, before you put something so hurtful out, can I respectively ask that you fact check?

Very Respectfully, Bianca M. Strzalkowski

(Source)

While I agree with most of what Ms. Strzalkowski is trying to communicate - that most of military life, especially if you’re an enlisted family, is by no means lavish - I take issue with the fact that she pulls the military community out from under the bus just to throw two other vulnerable communities under it - “welfare recipients and illegal immigrants.”

Yes, because if you are going to identify two “lavish” communities it would be those subsisting on federal benefits and undocumented immigrants. ::groan:: I’m sorry, but these are two of the most vulnerable populations who suffer from early death, terrible health outcomes, bad education systems, and so much more. They continue to be victimized, scapegoated, alienated, and misunderstood. They are anything but living in “lavish benefits.” Yes, let’s blame our nation’s problems on the poorest of the poor rather than the rich who continue to exploit the vulnerabilities of the poor! Oh, and must I remind you all that welfare recipients include those in the military, including perhaps Ms. Strzalkowski’s?!?! If her family had to get food from a food bank, that probably means she qualified for SNAP/food stamps. Not to mention that sometimes (though rarely and often rightfully so and thankfully so) military spouses can also receive unemployment benefits.

A fairer comparison that Ms. Strzalkowski should have used is pointing out that our Congress members are the ones who are the recipients of lavish (federal/tax-payer) benefits. They get paid more than 6 figures and hardly do their jobs (ahem, how many bills have the passed compared to other Congressional session? how much time have they spent arguing over ideological ideas vs. actually solving our nation’s problems? and what about the sequester now?)!

A good number of welfare recipients are the working poor, INCLUDING THOSE IN THE MILITARY. And most undocumented immigrants in the U.S. aren’t here to lounge in their fur-lined porsches. No, they are picking your tomatoes, cleaning your bathrooms, watching your kids.

Military community, you better wake up and know who your real enemies are rather than throwing other vulnerable communities under the bus.

(When I have time later, I’ll go back and link some of these facts. Apologies for now, but must get this rant off my chest.)

3 Dead in Whidbey Island EA-6B Jet Crash

Mon, 11 Mar 2013 19:04:33 -0700

3 Dead in Whidbey Island EA-6B Jet Crash:

schoolmeetlife:

This hits a little too close to home… this was Husband’s training squadron when he was out there. Praying for the families and the community.

Hold your loved ones close, everyone.

Rest in peace.

A reminder that even when your loved one isn’t deployed, threats of death may still feel imminent.