If you are a military family...

jensneb

Can you please check out my post over on Military Families?  Thanks!  You can reply here or there, I appreciate it.

leslie13510

Hold on, I'll do my best to answer you on the MF board.

jensneb

Thanks so much, I was hoping you would see this.  I didn't want to post on FB b/c my mom would freak if she knew we were considering this.

leslie13510

It's long.  ::blushes::

And honestly, it's mostly not pretty, but there it is.  I hope it helps some.

NavyClan

Know that your time is not your own anymore. There is no such thing as not fair, not right, or "they can't do that." When he is on duty, that trumps all. Even if it's that make or break fight in your marriage, that once in a lifetime opportunity, etc. You might not see each other as often. He might get deployed(might because yes, there are some ratings this doesn't happen to, my own being one of them) Your children might begin to forget who he is. They my cry or run away from him, and he may resent you, them and his job for it. 

Paperwork will drive you insane. Things will be done wrong, they'll screw things up that will be their fault, but will still screw you over, and there's nothing you can do about it. Patience is your biggest virtue. You need to be understanding of the toll this is going to take on all of you. You will need to communicate. Simple, but it doesn't happen a lot of times. You may have to be ok with the idea of a 1 income home, permanently. 

It's also rewarding though. He'll learn skills and get training in things that you never would have dreamed of being able to get the opportunity to do on your own. You'll get to travel(albiet unwillingly, and oftentimes you don't really get that much of a choice lol), and you will be PAID to live there. You'll experience life for those years in a way that is different from 90% of the rest of the population. You'll have insurance. You'll be able to make ends meet. They pay may not be what you're used to if you ever lived as a dual income family, but you won't have to worry about your job. You'll know that next check is coming. You'll make friends from all over the country, and if you live OCONUS, the world. You'll be eligible for many things once he gets out that you never would have had access to otherwise. You'll have resources available to you for the rest of your life for almost any circumstance imaginable. 

A lot of that is "duh" information, but I've found it surprises people. It's not going to be puppies and rainbows, and there may be times he is ASHAMED of his country/job and doesn't feel patriotic and special. He may not be able to tell you about his work. At all. Ever. He may come home in tears and will not be able to tell you what went on. Or why he's stressed. Or what's bothering him. You will not be allowed to know, and that sucks sometimes. 

If I had to do it over again, I 100% would. I just would have chose a different rate. I think, for a good number of people, it is the experience of a lifetime. You just have to realize that once your'e in, it's a commitment you can't get out of, no matter which way it goes for you. I would also advise you to speak to each of the branches (NOT a recruiter...there are sites that you can get in touch with people in actual ratings you're interested in) and find out what the real differences are in each one.

That ended up really long winded, sorry haha. But I wish you guys good luck dealing with this decision, I know it's a big one and can be very scary. Do your research, talk to people, and go in making the most informed decision you can. Good luck! 

leslie13510

I want to really make sure that first sentence of Navy's stands out.  The military absolutely 100% comes first, because there is no other choice.  Now obviously his family will (or should) always come first in his heart, but as far as time goes, it's the military's.  Plans will be changed and cancelled.  You will spend 4x as much on plane tickets because you won't know until the last minute if he can go.  If one of your family members passes away, there's a good chance you'll be travelling and going to the funeral alone because he can't get off work.  Same for weddings, birthdays, family vacations, etc.  You may *need* him home at a decent hour because you're sick as a dog and can't function well enough to even see straight much less care for a child, but if work needs him, he stays.  I went through my first miscarriage completely alone, until I was finally able to physically move from the bathroom floor 4 hours later and drive to an ER, where I had to have a doctor call his 1SG, because they wanted a freaking "doctor's note" to release him to come see me.  It's a whole different world.

jensneb

Thank you ladies, sincerely!  This is stuff I need to see and I will probably show him. I appreciate the honesty.

sweetpea2003

Hi!  I also answered on your military families post.

I will just say that some of the experiences I am reading above are the OPPOSITE of what I have experienced.  When I had my first m/c, not only was my husband there for me, his CO told him to go to every.single. follow-up doctor's appointment with me.  He was able to lay in bed with me for 2 days just to be there.

When my friend's daughter was dx with brain cancer, the spouses group in Millington, TN put together a house (complete with food in the fridge, toothbrushes and toothpast in the bathrooms, and a Christmas tree in the living room) so that when they went ot St. Jude for treatment they felt "at home". 

Yes, there are times when they CAN'T be there.  And maybe in our 9 years we have been lucky to have reasonable commanding officers.  But aside from when he is simply NOT here (deployments, work ups, TDYs) there has never been a time where I desperately needed him and something trivial with the military has kept him from me.  Ever.  And even right now as I sit with two very small children and a husband on the other side of the world, I know that if I needed anything that I have about 15 other military spouses who I could call and that they would do anything for me and be there for me.  I don't feel "alone".  Never have.  And I hope I never will.

sweetpea2003

One other thing, I think military jobs do mirror civilian jobs.  Some civilians have sh!tty bosses.  Some have great bosses.  It isn't "the military" any more than giving a blanket statement about being "a teacher" or "a police officer".  My husband has had some wonderful leaders and some less than desireable ones.  He learns from both (the good and bad) and moves on.  But the generalizations about "the military" being this cold-hearted, "I own your husband", go-it-alone organization is unfair IMO.

NavyClan

sweetpea2003:

One other thing, I think military jobs do mirror civilian jobs.  Some civilians have sh!tty bosses.  Some have great bosses.  It isn't "the military" any more than giving a blanket statement about being "a teacher" or "a police officer".  My husband has had some wonderful leaders and some less than desireable ones.  He learns from both (the good and bad) and moves on.  But the generalizations about "the military" being this cold-hearted, "I own your husband", go-it-alone organization is unfair IMO.

Of course they mirror civilian jobs. The difference is, when your civilian boss tells you no, you can't go home until there's a doctors note stating your wife is in the hospital, you can tell him to fvck off. When you CO, within his rights, tells you you can't go home until a doctors note states your wife is in the hospital, that is an order. No one's saying it's like that all the time. But if it happens, that's what you signed up for.  It's not a reflection on omg the military is full of a bunch of ASSHOLES, it's just that regulations like that often seem to be "unfair," when in reality they're there for a reason and people are only doing their jobs. Does that make sense?

sweetpea2003

NavyClan:

sweetpea2003:

One other thing, I think military jobs do mirror civilian jobs.  Some civilians have sh!tty bosses.  Some have great bosses.  It isn't "the military" any more than giving a blanket statement about being "a teacher" or "a police officer".  My husband has had some wonderful leaders and some less than desireable ones.  He learns from both (the good and bad) and moves on.  But the generalizations about "the military" being this cold-hearted, "I own your husband", go-it-alone organization is unfair IMO.

Of course they mirror civilian jobs. The difference is, when your civilian boss tells you no, you can't go home until there's a doctors note stating your wife is in the hospital, you can tell him to fvck off. When you CO, within his rights, tells you you can't go home until a doctors note states your wife is in the hospital, that is an order. No one's saying it's like that all the time. But if it happens, that's what you signed up for.  It's not a reflection on omg the military is full of a bunch of ASSHOLES, it's just that regulations like that often seem to be "unfair," when in reality they're there for a reason and people are only doing their jobs. Does that make sense?

Yes, it makes sense.  But it isn't easy for even a civilian to their boss to "f off" - unless of course you want to be unemployed.  There are consequences to those kinds of things everywhere.

I am just trying to balance out the "OMGEE the military has my husband by the balls and if you join you will be at the total mercy of the military".  I get that orders are orders.  But I also try to remember that for every a$$hole who will not let his men go to the hospital to be with his wife there are 50 commanding officers who will not only let their soldier go, but will then check up with a phone call and ask the spouse group about providing dinners and childcare.

There is good and bad.  I just notice that people tend to focus on the bad when these threads come up.  Just trying to point out the good too . 

 

 

leslie13510

Of course there are good and bad bosses everywhere.  I wasn't trying to say that OMG the military sux!  It doesn't in many ways.  But it is different than the civilian world, and while we've had some great CO's/1SG's and experiences, we've also had some real jerkoffs like in the case of my first m/c.  In the civilian world he could have told him too fvcking bad I'm going, and the worst that would happen is he'd be fired (but probably not since he could take it up to HR if necessary).  If he had just said fvck off to his 1SG, the absolute least that would happen is he'd get an Article 15, probably lose rank, pay, etc.  He could have even been considered AWOL which could lead to jail time, and knowing the diick that was in charge then, I wouldn't have been shocked if that's the extreme he went to.  There are much higher consequences to picking your family over your job in the military, and if you have a jerkoff chain of command (which happens more often than 1 in 50 times) then sometimes life can suck.  I told her in the other post that normally I don't post in these because I feel like if you really want to know what to expect you need to know the bad side too, but I don't like to seem like I'm only talking about the bad. 

Just to balance that out for you, in the case of my second m/c, they were 3 weeks into NTC.  His CO sent him home a week early to be with me, mainly because he knew how shiitty things went down during my first m/c.  Also, when I was in PTL and we thought the babies were almost definitely going to be born at 31-32 weeks, that same CO sent him home from Iraq a solid month early so he could be here to help me through the NICU time that we would have been facing.  But for amazing CO's like that, there are just as many who would have said "too bad, your wife knew what she was signing up for, she'll deal without you."  You have to be prepared to deal with the jerks like that, and be thankful when you get a great one.