Three More Leave This Week

Well I guess its good bye times three this week.  Three more soldiers leave our network of friends.  One left the service on a pregnancy chapter.  One left the service because he couldn't make the weight and tape guidelines.  One PCS'd to a new duty station.

So this is my good bye to them.  I wish them well in their life journeys.  May they make only good choice and find life easier wherever they may go.

The pregnant one I knew but not all that well.  She has known my husband since AIT.  I guess she was an alright gal.  Little odd but then again we all have our quirks.

The guy who is leaving is a friend of my husband's but not really one of mine.  He is in our network of friends but to say something nice about the guy from my mouth would probably hurt my face.  Read He's Not My Friend and you'll understand why I'm not really going to miss him.  I do wish him well.  I hope he can find a job. 

Finally we get to a set of friends, had I more time, I would have liked to have gotten to know them better.  This family has seen the good and bad side of the Army community and the guy's unit.  Could they have treated him better, probably.  Will they in the future treat other soldier's in that unit better, I have my doubts.  See he isn't the only soldier that has left the military from this particular unit, I won't mention numbers and names, that have complained about its chain of command. I have two other friends from that particular unit that had nothing good to say about it.  They are happy to have it in their past now.  I'm just glad my husband doesn't work in this unit.

I count myself lucky enough to have known the above mentioned people.  I've learned from the experiences. 

PCS =Permanent Change of Station

AIT = Advanced Individual Training

Emotionally Drained

After last night's episode of "he's not my friend" I'm totally drained.  I didn't sleep much before the alarm clock went off at 0522hrs.  We were up talking until 0104hrs about the problem.  I can only imagine just how tired my husband is today considering he had to do PT this am.

 I know that my husband's day has gotten worse due to a surly co-worker.  This particular co-worker has been giving him a hard time since he arrived at the unit almost two years ago.  What's ironic is that its a person of less rank than he when my husband got to this duty station.  They met at AIT where the soldier was in a different cycle from my husband. (Cycles are like college classes that start at different dates)    Now they are equal rank and this soldier is still being intolerable.  The soldier sleeps in the office, cries that about not  being treated fairly and likes to back stab.  I really wished that when they got re-deployed this soldier too would have been moved out of the section.  I mean this fsoldier used to message me on facebook and tell me about  hating my spouse and was going to make trouble for him when he got back stateside.  Mind you I kept those messages just in case this soldier does try to start trouble for him.  Well it seems as though me keeping those messages was a good thing, almost 20 pages of messages give or take a page.

 I just would like to know why someone doesn't straighten this soldier out.  Its not my job.  I want to stay out of it but like most wives in a committed relationship when someone tries to rip apart our husband's blossoming career with petty disputes we come out with fangs bared.  I'm going to have to bite my lip on this problem most likely.  I'm sure this soldier is going to play the medical card yet again to the fullest. Mind you this soldier has already turned in two other guys for cursing and teasing  when this soldier was the first to start cursing.  What happened to the rules applying across the board?  If this soldier was a civilian they would have been fired for sleeping on the job, or should I say sleeping around on the job?, and the above annoyance wouldn't be happening because this soldier would no longer be an employee.

 Sheesh folks this soldier is there to do a job just as much as the next soldier.  That job does not mean you bring your emotional baggage to work with you.  It means check it at the door. I'd like to tell the soldier this, "I don't want you taking your bad mood out on my spouse just because you broke up with your significant other and hate all of humanity.  Grow up  act like an adult and treat the others around you with the respect they are due.  They didn't break up with you!  If you didn't sleep at home its on you to work to stay awake so that you do your job not leaving others to pick up the slack."  But like I said I'm going to have to bite my lip on this one.  So I'm posting it here without names, unit numbers or locations. 

Okay I know it just bugs the heck out of me but I had three soldier friends that went through similar without sleeping at work and making work life a living hell for their co-workers.  So why can't the soldier just "suck it up"?   The US ARMY is after all mission first family last.  Soliders aren't issued families or emotions as they just get in the way.  The families are the silent ranks because if we put our noses where they didn't belong nothing would ever get done.

Serenity and no its not the Sci Fi tv show

 The Serenity Prayer

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.
Amen.

--Reinhold Niebuhr

 The above prayer is the one my mother would often recite to herself when things just didn't go as she had planned.  I chuckle now seeing the actual words written out above and how they can apply quite well to the life of an Army wife.  I'm not the religious sort, more of the spiritual type leaning away from any organized religion.

The Army life brings with it many challenges.  Just yesterday I get a phone call from my husband, after 1700 hrs, stating that he wasn't sure what time he'd be home.  Our routine is forming.  Before he deployed to Iraq last year he was home all of six months and we had barely had time to form any routine.  Before Iraq he was in Korea for a year and before that he was in BCT and AIT which took up eight months.  I'm still adjusting to Army life with my spouse actually being home.  For the better part of three years I've been living alone, eating alone and in general going about my own daily routine without interruptions with the exception of doctor appointments.  Now I'm learning about sharing my time with a guy that has a very busy lifestyle.


Before Army life my spouse was an outdoorsy type of man.  He would teach snowboarding at a NY ski center.  I tried snowboarding once and had lots of fun falling.  No seriously I laughed when I'd fall and try to get back up.  During the warmer months he'd work as a journeyman landscaper.  He loves being in the outdoors.  So it should have come as no big shock to me that when he got home from Iraq he started digging holes in the yard.  Not just one hole to enlarge a garden but several holes.  He has now installed a drip edge and filled in the low spots in the lawn, front and back!

So as I roll up his laundry into the style he has become accustomed to since learning it in BCT I'll roll this up as well for today.  I'm learning to accept this new lifestyle and all that it brings to me with friends and new experiences. Tomorrow is a new days with its own challenges that I'll learn to accept as they come my way and hopefully not complain too much about but that is still to be seen.

To those of you that read my blog, many thanks!