Most Americans are not touched by the Iraq War. They don't know anyone in the military. For them, it is a war fought by people they don't know, and the losses are suffered by families they can't identify with. The military is an alien culture to them. If there is a base in their area, they may see a few minutes on the news of families waving good-bye to the active duty member, the wives blinking back tears and comforting children, the husband keeping a stiff upper lip (yes, I am well aware that there are many women in the armed forces, but the only make up 15% of active duty members, so, for the sake of simplicity, I'll use "he" for active duty personnel). They see equally brief clips of joyful reunions when the soldiers or sailors or Marines return from a deployment
Most Americans are not touched by the Iraq War. They don't know anyone in the military. For them, it is a war fought by people they don't know, and the losses are suffered by families they can't identify with. The military is an alien culture to them. If there is a base in their area, they may see a few minutes on the news of families waving good-bye to the active duty member, the wives blinking back tears and comforting children, the husband keeping a stiff upper lip (yes, I am well aware that there are many women in the armed forces, but the only make up 15% of active duty members, so, for the sake of simplicity, I'll use "he" for active duty personnel). They see equally brief clips of joyful reunions when the soldiers or sailors or Marines return from a deployment.
And it is, indeed, very different from civilian life, in many ways a closed world. I'd like to give you some insight into that world. From 1988 until 2003, I was the wife of a Navy enlisted man. I was a very atypical wife in many ways--older, better educated, childless by choice, far more liberal religiously and politically than most of the wives I lived among--and I have admitted to being one of the Worst Navy Wives in History because I didn't participate in a lot of squadron doings--but I DO have the experience, and I'd like to share it. I am, at heart, a storyteller, so I will try to weave my story and that of other women I knew into the narrative.
The first lesson a military wife learns is that who you were before you married doesn't matter a damn to the military. You could be a supermodel or a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter or a lawyer or a waitress at a truck stop or a stripper or checker at a grocery store--they don't care. From the moment you become a military family member, the only thing that counts is your husband's rank.
HIS rank determines where you live on base, how large a home you are entitled to (the number of children also play a role in that determination), how much Housing Allowance you are entitled to, what clubs (restaurants and bars on base for military members) you can eat and socialize at, and the people you can have as friends. Rank is everything
That is a hard adjustment for many of us. I was 38 when I married my second husband (I was widowed at 34), who was a Petty Officer Second Class (for you non-Navy types, that's an E-5). He was older than the average E5, because he'd spent 5 years out of the military as a Navy spouse, which really helped him understand what he was going through. I was a professional writer, with fiction sales to my credit, two master's degrees, and a Phi Beta Kappa key. I was used to being judged on my own merits and accomplishments.
The rude awakening came when we went to the base, the Monday after our marriage. I had to get my first military I.D. The woman who handled it got enormously bent out shape that I wasn't taking my husband's last name. She asked me why I was refusing to do what everyone else did. I explained that in my career field I had to get college and grad school transcripts every time I applied for a job as a librarian or a teacher, and I didn't want to confuse the colleges, which is why I'd kept my maiden name the first time I married; also I was known as a writer under that name. In high dudgeon, she finally agreed to handle it the way I wanted to, after my husband stepped to and explained that there is no law forcing women to change their name. I later learned a friend had the same issue hyphenating her name with her husband's and dealt with the same woman.
EVERYTHING in the military that you will deal with relies on that I.D. card. His name and rank and Social Security number are on every file, including your medical file--the doctor knows before you walk in the door what your status is. You can't get into the commissary or the exchange to shop without it. If you're overseas, you can't get in to see a doctor or get a tooth filled at dental without it. And right up front, everyone knows where you stand in the pecking order.
Don't think it matters? You'd be very wrong.
When we received orders to Japan, I had to go through overseas screening, which meant I had to have a physical from my civilian doctor telling them I was reasonably healthy and see a base dentist who would tell me what dental work had to be done before he would sign off. The screening did not start on a happy note. The battle ax at the front desk referred to me as a dependent. Since this makes me feel like a wart on someone's foot, I politely reminded her that Admiral Boorda, then the CNO (Chief of Naval Operations) had issued an order banning that word and requiring military people to use the far more respectful term" military spouses and family members" which recognized that we were independent beings. She got snotty, so when I saw the dental O, I told him what had transpired.
Lt. Commander Dentist had already looked at my record and knew my husband was an E5. He looked at me with a gleam of triumph in his eye, and, determined to put the an E wife in her proper place, said, "Well MY wife doesn't mind, and she has a master's degree."
E wives generally have a high school degree and work at low-paying jobs. A few go to college while they're married. They are often from small towns, with traditional views on gender roles and religion, and many defer to authority. I was definitely the exception to what he was used to dealing with.
I smiled back. "I am so happy for your wife. I'll meet her master's, raise her one--mine are in Communications and Library Science--and throw in a Phi Beta Kappa key. Now am I permitted to eel demeaned by this term?"
Looking back, it was not the best way to have handled it, but I don't deal very well with people who don't know anything about me except Ben's rank, attempting to look down their noses at me. He threatened to write me up as emotionally disturbed and to bar me from accompanying my husband overseas, which would have meant a 3 year separation. I told him that since he was a dentist, not a psychiatrist, he couldn't do that, and he knew it damned well. I told him to do the dental exam, and tell me what had to be done.
In a tremendous snit, and going out of his way to do the exam with as little care as possible ( my mouth ached for three days afterwards), he filled out the chart for the fillings I needed without saying another word to me.
I recounted my experience to my husband, who was furious. With steam coming out of his ears, he drove me home (I'd learned by this time that any encounter with Navy medical might require a witness) then went back to his squadron where he told the MCPO (Master Chief Petty Officer, E9) of the squadron what had occurred. The MCPO picked up the phone and called the skipper. Then and the skipper called the head of dental. The result was a very chastened and apologetic LT. Commander Dentist who called my husband, apologized profusely and said that as soon as we dropped off the sheet signed by the civilian dentist, he'd make sure it got taken care of.
So, yes, rank matters a lot. But smart junior officers listen to Master Chiefs.
Enlisted housing is always much smaller and a lot less well-maintained than Officer's Country. These days, it's often in high rises while Os get townhouses or separate dwellings, with as much as double the space allotted to a family the same size. The housing gets nicer as you go up in rank. E housing is often woefully 8inadequate, for the Navy. I had 630 square feet of badly laid-out housing with a kitchen that was 7x7 before you put in the appliances, and my washer and dryer (which we had to buy because none was provided) had to go into my kitchen and my dining room. My bathtub had chips in it the size of saucers, and I suspect strongly that this contributed to the yeast infections I suffered non-stop in Maine.
Much of the house is so old and poorly maintained that it is considered substandard.
The military wants to tear it down and build new, larger housing--but the Republicans keep cutting funds for military construction, which includes base housing. When I read a diary on this the other day, I wanted to scream. People who are fighting for their country shouldn't have to worry about the conditions in which their families live. Yet people sign up for the waiting list (typically 12-18 months long) for housing on base.
If base housing is so awful, why do people live there?
It's simple: money. The Housing Allowance for renting quarters off base is supposed to cover 85% of an apartment of the size the military would allot you. Unfortunately, that amount does NOT include utilities--and in places like Maine, electricity and oil can cost you 300-400 dollars a month above your rent, money that has to come from somewhere (and military salaries lag behind civilians in comparable fields). Base housing may suck, but heat and electricity are free, and that's a huge savings.
It used to be worse. Fifteen yeas ago, they used to base the housing allowance on what people were actually paying, not what they SHOULD be paying for an appropriate apartment in a safe neighborhood. Because they couldn't' afford the 15% the military didn't cover of the rent plus the utilities for appropriate housing, young sailors with families often had to rent in a marginal area in substandard housing, just so they could afford to heat their homes. At least today they are a bit more reasonable--they don't cover utilities, but the rent they pay 85% of is at least a more accurate approximation of reality.
Last but not least, rank determines who will be your friends and your support network. There is a stern non-fraternization police, which means senior enlisted (E7 and above) do not hang out with junior enlisted, especially if they are under the seniors' command. Officers don't socialize with enlisted, period. Even the wives' clubs are segregated by rank as well as by command.
Someone like me, a junior enlisted wife with a very different educational background, is an anomaly. We tend not to have much in common with the wives of the appropriate rank. So we find our support network off base, by joining organizations that match our interests. Most of us would love to work, but a sad fact is that employers don't tend to hire military wives, except for McJobs; you can always get a job at a fast food place or waitressing at a restaurant, but good, professional level jobs don't exist.
I've tried to find a job every place we lived. I was only able to find a fulltime job commensurate with my education and experience once--in Jacksonville, where I worked for the public library system. In Pensacola, I was actually asked what my husband's rank was--and, while the interview had gone very well up to that point, as soon as he learned he wasn't an O, it came to an abrupt halt. Illegal to ask that question? This was a small business, and FL has no statute protecting your from discrimination based on marital status. I know because I called the EEO office.
Therefore, you are stuck at home unless you make an effort to find something to do.
For me, my support network was the Society for Creative Anachronism, in FL, Maine and Japan. Here military rank didn't matter, only SCA rank. The local Baron might be an E 5--and the O3 pilot would bow to him when we held events. The SCA, costuming, Goth activities, the public library (a godsend when you can't afford to buy paperbacks) and writing kept me sane while he worked long hours or deployed.
For most wives, though, base housing and the wives' clubs is where they look to for friendship. Mothers of small children meet other mothers with kids the same age. Wives' club activity tends to be very kid-oriented, so I attended one meeting and dropped out (going to Chuck E. Cheese with 15 Moms and 35 kids is my idea of hell), but for most wives, it's godsend. They plan pizza nights with the kids, trips to the beach or a water park, picnics, etc. It keeps you going, and you have someone to lean on when it gets rough. Someone whose shoulder you can cry on during long deployments. Someone you can have a beer with at the club, without worrying about being hit on by some single guy looking to get laid.
You NEED this support desperately, because no civilian can understand what it's like to wave goodbye to your spouse for 6 months, and have to truly on infrequent letters and even les frequent calls home. It isn't like he's on a business trips--they seldom last 6-18 months, and they almost never involve the traveler being in harm's way every moment he's away.
I had to rely on civilians for comfort, and it was very hard for them to understand what I was going through. Sometimes I wished I were more typical, so I could find comfort in the sisterhood of squadron wives. But I wasn't, so I did it my way, and it worked for me.
One last story. Occasionally you run into the O Wife From Hell--the one who thinks her husband's rank gives her special privileges, and that rules don't apply to her. I ran into one at NAS Jacksonville.
This woman shoved ahead of the three people behind me and tried to pass me. I was next in line. I told her politely that head-of-the-line privs only applied to active duty military duty in uniform during 1100-1300. She didn't fit the category.
The peevish blonde glared a time. " My husband is a COMMANDER."
"But you aren't. Get to the back of the line. You're just a spouse, like the rest of us."
She stormed off to try and intimidate another line, and I got a round of applause from everyone in the area,. Apparently she did this every time she came to the exchange and was roundly loathed by everyone who worked there.
Normally I am not rude. Ordinarily, if she'd asked to cut ahead because she was in a rush and only had two items, I'd have happily let her ahead of me. But she didn't. She tried to use her husband's rank to bully me, and it pissed me off.
Fortunately this sort of person is rare. Most military wives, O or E, know we're in this together and we do our best to support each other.