Open Letter to a Military Wife
Hi. We really only know each other online. But I think we have so much in common, more than is readily apparent. I was raised by a military wife, and learned well the lessons that military families must in order to survive.
I’m going to say some things that you cannot say because you are indeed a good military wife. Maybe you agree or disagree. Maybe you are pumping your fist in the air, or quietly disapproving. But I can say these things because I have no ties anymore, except by memory and loyalty. But I am on the “outside,” I’m a “civvie,” and while some military folks secretly sneer at me, I know better. As a civilian, I get to express some of the opinions that you hold, and hold private.
In military life, even simple things, like going to the commissary, are sometimes difficult. You are bound to want something a little bit different. No, you will have this brand or that type because that’s what we’ve got. Sure, go offbase and pay for it. “Steak taste on a hamburger budget.” I heard that phrase all my life until I was about 14, two years into my dad’s retirement. That’s when my mother’s extra income began to allow us to buy and eat … steak.
Watching television, if you are stationed overseas, means that you are subjected to AFN propaganda. Oh please, yes, it’s propaganda. We can laugh at YouTube spots, but imagine not having the luxury of seeing a really crappy local car dealer wearing a big white hat talking about how he’s “sharpened pencils and ready to cut YOU the deal of a lifetime” on a new Ford truck. Carpet cleaning deals!! Don’t squeeze the Charmin! The woman with scary scary teeth who smiles A LOT and want to make sure your flooring needs are met, WITH NEXT DAY INSTALLS!
Free enterprise, baby. And lots of it. Does not exist in the military.
Free speech. Guaranteed by the Constitution that your military service protects. Does not exist. If you have an opinion, keep it to yourself because it might reflect badly on your husband’s record, it might be considered disloyal, and it might affect your child’s schooling. There is nothing worse than treason or dissent in the military. Nothing. Loyalty is the collective mindset that holds everything together. Our nation was founded on dissent but the military must run on obedience and loyalty. So, you nod and smile, you attend functions, just enough to form community, and maybe you suffer. You bleed internally because you have to stuff whatever disagreeable feelings you may have.
My mother drank and played cards as a solution. There was quite a raucous group of folks who were the “fast” crowd. It was easier and more fun to divert all that frustration into booze, dancing at the O club and card parties (this is well back in the day when a military salary could support a family - nowadays many military wives may need to work, even in a café on base, for some extra income). The only reason my parents quit the “popular crowd” was because his duties shifted to more serious squadron command and because the ringleaders began to spout some pretty awful child-hating things, in our presence. Not ok. Treason against our family unit was the worst sin of all for my dad.
Medical care was “take it or leave it.” If you need it, you wait for it. We did a lot of waiting. Waiting for scheduling, waiting for appointments, waiting for the doctors, waiting for x-rays, waiting for Rxs. I had to have a lot of medical care, and the days of appointments were blocked out completely. No other plans those days, and sometimes overnight stays in San Antonio were required if we had to come back the next day. I spent a lot of time in the car (a VW bus, actually) daydreaming out the window as the fertile green hills of Texas rolled past. (Now, it’s chock-a-block big box stores, fast food joints and outlet malls between Austin and San Antonio.)
Back to medical care: there was no “second opinion.” The doctors were great, don’t get me wrong – some of them even dreamy. But it is a volume business with high turnover because of various deployments. Because of the need for continuity, there is little room for dithering about a diagnosis. The day that doctors at Langley AFB Hospital decided that I needed a consultation at the Norfolk Naval Hospital - well, that was a VERY dark day for my parents because it meant dire conditions. (It’s all good now, in some manner of speaking, but what they must have been going through.)
At another time and place, I will talk about this, but for now, let me just add that “take it or leave it” does not apply to vaccinations. It was “take it” PERIOD (and I believe still is). So, we lined up like little soldiers to take vax that would wipe out whatever. And I got polio from the vaccine. The evidence was all there in medical records (that are now lost to me). However, to refuse any care or treatment was just not in the lexicon. At all. Later, when I discovered (and I use that as a legal term), that I had been injured by a vaccine administered by the military, I told my mom about this. She looked like she wanted to slap me. How DARE I? I realized that she’d been living with the guilt of that incident my whole life, and had never considered the military’s culpability in the matter. It was easier to blame herself than to take on the overwhelming notion that maybe one could refuse medical treatment.
(To the credit of some pretty awesome doctors, my condition was cause for some kick-ass treatments, surgeries and physical therapy that resulted in a near-normal life for almost 35 years – all things that the current civvie medical care system would make prohibitively expensive. The warnings about a difficult pregnancy were just that: warnings. I now have a wonderful child and the most able “disabled” body around.)
Close friends of mine are somewhat amazed that I was raised NOT to discuss sex, politics, money or religion outside of the family. This explicit policy also successfully squelched discussion in the family too. What else is there to discuss? I don’t remember – I was a kid most of the time. Music and books? Always and only the classics. Vivaldi, Beethoven, Bach, Shakespeare, Shaw. Stationed stateside, the kids on the playground talked a lot about television and commercials, ironically. My father and older brothers talked incessantly about warfare, warcraft, guns and ammo. How bad you could defeat an enemy was always “okay.” My mother and I talked about them. And horses, guns, dogs, books and Barbies. She has a million stories from her growing up, and she told them all to me. She took me to forests, zoos, nature preserves, John Wayne movies – we had plenty else to talk about.
Our military life and that family taboo bonded us as a family, like no other. The stalwart unquestioning manner that my father served – sometimes away from home, sometimes every day, sometimes in the middle of the night – became the example we all followed. It was part of us. It was just something we did, something we were. My oldest brother went on to serve in the Navy and then the Army, then civilian service with the FAA. My middle brother studied hard and took various exams for agency service (though he was initially refused and then chose a different career), and my father groomed my language and teaching skills for the USIA and Foreign Service. As a child before I realized I had an actual disability that disqualified me, I wanted to be a nurse. I envisioned being a Lt. Col RN – my favorite people during my hospital stays. Instead I got a PhD and taught college freshmen how to express their opinions.
Our military service gave us an identity and a culture, while maybe not the cookie-cutter façade we observed in other families, it was unique and sustained us as a family through and into our adult lives. (And I wonder what those other families evolved into – were their façades just that too?)
That bond is what I grieve so strongly now. I have lost that microculture, that structure that identified us as something. I too have my thoughts and opinions about the war, about our country, about change, about how it needs to be better. I have my fears that my 12 year old son, my draft-eligible niece and nephew, my 13 year old nephews could be pressed into service in a “100 years war.” So, I vote, I caucus, I donate where I can. I answer poll questions, and through this last primary cycle, I invoked the right to remain keep my opinions private. Yet I realized that my father was still speaking to me from the Other Side. “Don’t discuss politics.”
Except I am a civilian. It’s my duty to get involved, to speak up for those of you in military life who do not, because your beliefs might be deemed disloyal and treasonous. I get that now. I know the good parts of being in the military, and I know the bad parts.
I am intensely proud of the service you and your family provide to me and my family, to our country. I am fiercely proud of the service that my father and mother and brother gave to their country, and it would be wrong if I sat on my hands and silenced my voice now. I had forgotten that your service obligates me as well.
So I’ll talk about politics. I’ll talk about rights and responsibilities, about privileges, about duties, and about amazing and colossal lies, rumors and whispers that need to have cold, clear light of truth shed upon them.
Remember this – Freedom: “it’s everyone’s responsibility.”
P.S. No animals were harmed in the making of this blog entry. But a Dove chocolate bar was nearly decimated, and a zucchini spice cake was threatened.
March 10th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
You are a really amazing writer. I can totally relate.