One ship down...on to the next

The next tour to test me was the USCGC GLACIER, “Big Red”, an icebreaker that deployed for about six months at a time and traveled to Antarctica (while we were attached to it). Their primary mission was to break ice, keep the shipping lanes clear, and to take scientists to/from McMurdo station.

I was accustomed to being the wife of a sailor, or at least I thought, but being gone a couple of months was no preparation for being gone six. Since this was before the electronic age (AKA no cell phones and no internet = no computers = no email), contact was sporadic. Letters were far apart, and phone calls were rare. I didn’t know when the ship would hit port or where, and when it did, there would be a line at the pay phone for each crew member to take their turn.

Because I didn’t know exactly when the ship would hit a port, I often waited at home, hoping for that precious phone call. Would today be the day I would hear his voice? I didn’t want to be too far from my phone because if I missed the call, I wouldn’t know it, as I didn’t have an answering machine (were there such a thing back then?), and I wouldn’t know when to expect the next call (sometimes he had a general idea he would try and share in code). So I worked, then came home and entertained my son and myself around our small apartment. This of course didn’t last long, because anyone with kids knows that you can’t stay cooped up in a small apartment with a small child and keep your sanity. Which meant I needed to get out, even if it was to walk around the block or go to the park. So here is my lesson #4: It is essential that you find something to do away from the four walls of your living space. You cannot stay by the phone waiting for a call that may or may not come today, tomorrow, next week or a month from now. It is like the old adage “a watched pot never boils”, because it seemed that a watched phone never rang. For your own sanity, for the sake of your children, and in the end the well-being of your spouse (they will be listening to everything you say and how you say it and will catch if you are struggling and then they will worry), you must take care of yourself. This means going out and doing something…anything that will be fun, that will, even for a brief period of time make you forget the loneliness you feel (and yes, you do feel lonely even if you have children or a pet). You also have to remember, if you are feeling the loss (although temporary), then so are the children. If they see you mope around, they will mope. If you are cranky, they will be cranky. But if you are making each day something to look forward to, the children will also look forward to the new day. It won’t make the feelings disappear, but it will help keep them at bay.

Due to my previous experience, I decided that I didn’t want to know ANY Coast Guard spouse at this duty station. I was not going to put myself in the position to be hurt by those that were supposed to be my support network. I would take care of myself (and my young son). Fortunately my spouse knew that I would need to know at least one spouse, and introduced us before the deployment. Thankfully we hit it off and when the ship left, we often occupied each other when we could. She would win movie tickets through the radio station and we would go together. We would meet and go shopping, out to lunch/dinner or take my son to the zoo. We had fun, and it helped to have someone that was going through this deployment with me, who understood when I was having my own little pity party, who knew what I meant when I said how much I hated this patrol. Who didn’t try and tell me he would be back before I knew it, that he hadn’t been gone that long, or that others have it worse than I do. She seemed to know what I needed, just as I knew when she needed me to hold her up and tell her we would get through this. Lesson #5: Even though you think you can do this alone it makes it immensely easier to have another spouse that is going through it with you and understands the ups and the downs. Reach out and find at least one (more is better, but you need at least one) fellow military spouse that you can trust, to help you through the rough patches and in turn you can help them through theirs.

With a long deployment, it is a guarantee that special events are going to be missed. With this tour of duty, Christmas seemed to be the casualty. Our son was young, so I decided since there was no rule that Christmas had to be celebrated on December 25^th it would wait until the end of the deployment. Thankfully I had an artificial Christmas tree, because that year it remained until long after Christmas (and yes, I really was sick of looking at it). Who said you couldn’t celebrate Christmas in April? Lesson #6: Because special occasions and holidays will be missed (it’s a guarantee), there is no rule that says it has to be celebrated on the actual date. Missed birthdays, anniversaries, Thanksgiving, Christmas or any important occasion that you want can be celebrated when everyone is home and together! This gives you and the family another something to look forward to.

We as military spouses need to remember it is OK to miss our deployed loved one, to wish they didn’t have to leave and that they were home with us, but military spouses are strong, we are independent and we are able to get through deployments. This is what we do, this is who we are, and this is what the world needs to see. We have our moments where we want things to be different, we have bad days and that is OK. We may not like deployments, but we love our military member enough to endure the absences, knowing that the reunions are all the sweeter because we have both survived them.

The GLACIER’s final port call was in Hawaii. I was fortunate that I had family to watch my son so that I could fly and meet the ship when it pulled in. There are dangers with doing this: what if the ship doesn’t pull in when it is supposed to? What if it is delayed/early? What if it skips the port altogether? My friend and I decided it was worth the risk. If the ship didn’t pull in while we were there, if it left earlier than planned or if it skipped the stop entirely, we could still enjoy ourselves. We deserved this for surviving the deployment! So we planned and flew to Maui a few days before the ship was supposed to pull in so we could explore without our significant others. I enjoyed my first visit and only visit to Maui. It was beautiful and the bed and breakfast we stayed at was perfect. It also gave my spouse and I some time alone to focus on us, to reacquaint ourselves with each other and the changes we had made before I had to share him with everyone else back home. This would be lesson #7: Plan time for you and your spouse to be alone. You both will need time to reacquaint yourselves with each other, away from the distractions of home life. People change and grow, and it is easier to learn what they are and adapt to these changes when the kids are not pulling you in one direction, work is not taking up precious time, and family and friends are not demanding your attention. The time to renew your commitment and rediscover each other is worth whatever energy is required to make it happen. You will be glad that you took the time to enjoy just being a couple before the obligations of life invade your world.

Upon the ships return to homeport it was decommissioned. We had orders to our next duty station, and the PCS was a breeze…but that will have to wait until next time.

My start as a military spouse

Before my PCS begins, and I am still able to breathe, I have decided that I will write about a few of the units we have been stationed. It has been suggested that I write about the units themselves to give others an idea of what the Coast Guard does, but I want to keep this for the spouses. Because of this, I will write about the units from a spouses view. I will also write about them in the order that I experienced them, so that my naïveté of what it means to be a military spouse, and how, as I learned from my experiences, my viewpoint changes. I won’t write about all of them at once, as this will give me some time to think of how I felt at the time. Not only that, because we have been around awhile, if I wrote about all of them at one sitting, I may be here for some time.

My husband’s first unit out of boot camp was the USCGC YOCONA, and because they were based close enough to home to visit, but not too close to be a nuisance, we decided it would be a perfect time to get married. Little did we know that the YOCONA was going to give me my very first hard lesson as a military spouse. On our wedding day, my husband finds out that shortly after our honeymoon, the ship will be changing homeport. If you could only see my surprise when he tells me that they will be moving it to Kodiak, Alaska. So, not only do I not get to move out of my parent’s house, but also I will have to wait at least three months before I will be able to move to Kodiak and set up house. So there is lesson #1: never assume that you will be stationed anywhere, even if the unit is currently in that place. The military does move units around, sometimes with very little notice. I was 19, and I had never been away from home, but because I’m young I look at it as if it is going to be a wonderful adventure, life will be perfect and I was anxious to begin this lifestyle of a military wife. That would be fine, but this is before there was Ombudsman, so not only did I not know any spouses from the ship (I had only bet one or two before the wedding), but I also had absolutely no knowledge of how the military did things or anyone to ask.

When the time came, my husband returned to get me and take me to my new home. This was my first experience in an airplane, and it wasn’t too bad, until we flew from Anchorage, AK to Kodiak. Back in the day there were very small planes that flew into Kodiak and when flying in, you come in low over the water. If you are looking out your window, all you see is the ocean and no runway in sight. Being my first time on a plane, this can be very unnerving. Great, so now I’m on an island, in an apartment and the ship is underway again (I haven’t even been here but a week or two?). Here is lesson #2: be prepared for the ship to be gone often, with no real schedule (of course they did have a schedule, but remember, I was new to this so not only did I not know the schedule, but it seemed my husband was gone all the time). Now what do I do? I have some idea of where the base is located, I’m learning to drive our truck (which has a manual transmission, and I only know the basics) and it is the middle of winter. There is only one other Coast Guard spouse in our apartment complex and she is just as new as I am.

I do eventually hear from the CO’s wife about a get-together of the spouses, which I am eager to attend, as I really need to meet these experienced women (back then there were very few if any male spouses, and none that I knew of). Lesson #3: be careful what you wish for, it may not be what you expect. Unfortunately, my experience with the spouses of this unit was not a good one. I was told (from the CO’s wife no less) that because my husband was a nonrate, I could not take advantage of any of the morale events they planned. I also discovered that their get-togethers were more of the “let’s talk about who isn’t here”. Now the dilemma of showing up so I wasn’t the topic of conversation, or avoiding them because who really needs that drama. I chose to stay away…they definitely were not the type of people I wished to know, I hoped that not all military spouses were like this, and at this point was anxious to move on. As to the issue of being able to take advantage of the morale events for the wives when the ship was gone…I should have been able to participate, remember wives do not have rank and should not hold their spouses rank over other spouses. But it is easy for me to say that now, back when I was the new spouse I assumed that this was how things were, and I figured that I would have to wait until my husband attained some mysterious rank that afforded me the opportunity to be involved with these morale events.

I survived this unit, sort of…but because of these lessons, when the opportunity came, I used them to ensure that no new spouse I met ever had to endure the same lessons. Fortunately we do have Ombudsman…volunteers that give up their time to help make new spouses feel like they are included and part of the unit family. There still are those spouses that like to talk about others, but there are far more that don’t put up with it. You will also occasionally come across a spouse that seems to think he/she also hold rank, rest assured they don’t. Be polite and respectful, but don’t allow them to demean you or make you think you are less than they are.

So for those military spouses that are finding this lifestyle difficult, that only seem to meet those that are negative, don’t give up…keep looking. There are many wonderful military spouses out there who will gladly take you under their wing, who will be your friend and will show you how wonderful military life can be with the right people in your life.

This Memorial Day....

I’ve thought a lot about what I want to write about this Memorial Day; most would write about how thankful they are to our Military who have sacrificed everything for our country. I am very thankful that these courageous people stepped up and willingly went out on their mission knowing the risks. We as a country owe them a debt of gratitude of which we can never repay. But, I want to thank those military spouses that loved and supported the fallen, by remembering the military spouse we also honor those that gave their lives.

I often say military spouses are the unsung heroes who keep things running at home, who take care of the children and anxiously await the return of their military loved one. But when that loved one doesn’t return, how long does it take for us to forget them? Memorial Day reminds us to never forget our brave who lost their lives, but do we remember the military spouses who loved them, whose dreams for the future dissipated when the news was brought to them that their loved one wouldn’t be returning?

So this year let us also remember those whose lives were altered by the sacrifice of the brave men and women who gave up their lives for their country and their family. Let us remember the military spouses…let us thank them for the time they loved their military member, for the plans they had made, for their dreams of the future and for that which they lost.

Thank you to all our fallen and to the spouses who loved them!

So you think we are not military?

One of the first things I wish to tackle is the misconception that the U. S. Coast Guard is not part of the military.

Coast Guard spouses often hear "You're husband/wife is not in the military" when they mention what their spouse does. Worse is when they are told "At least your spouse gets to come home every night," or "At least you know they are safe and not in danger". Over time you get used to hearing it from the civilian community because they just don't know...they see the Coast Guard involved with humanitarian missions (Hurricane Katrina, the earthquakes in Haiti and the Gulf oil spill), they know the Coast Guard is who you call if you are out on the water and run into trouble, but what troubles me is when Coast Guard spouses hear this from members (and spouses) of the other services. I guess I just assume that they know this. This reminds me that no one should ever assume anything, and at best should use it as a teaching moment.

So, for those that wonder...the U. S. Coast Guard began as the Revenue Cutter Service, which was founded by Alexander Hamilton on August 4, 1790. This will make the Coast Guard 221 years old this summer. If you want the official U. S. code that declares it part of the armed forces, you only need look at Title 14 where it states: The Coast Guard as established January 28, 1915, shall be a military service and a branch of the armed forces of the United States at all times. On October 15^th, President Obama reiterated this code when he signed into law the Coast Guard Authorization Act of 2010 and said: “This Act strengthens the Coast Guard as a military service and branch of the Armed Forces….”.

Now, that should clear up the legal aspects of it. But what about the other questions? Because missions are often away from home, (and many involve our various seagoing vessels), most often CG members do not get to go home every night. Depending on the unit they are at, they may be gone from a couple of days to upwards of a year. And if you are thinking that they are safe wherever they may be...have you been on a ship in rough seas or tracking down drug runners? How about in a C130 or helicopter during a storm? Perhaps you think they are safe if they are at one of our small surf stations? Again, just look at the missions that the CG performs: Port, waterway and coastal security, drug interdiction, aids to navigation, search and rescue, marine safety, defense readiness, migrant interdiction, marine environmental protection, and ice operations. Many of these require our CG members to work in hostile environments both here and abroad (I'm sure those that have been on a ship in the Bering Sea, or in the air flying during a storm would consider it a hostile condition), risking their lives to save others.

So, that is the overview, non-personal approach to our military lifestyle, but I'll add my personal touch to it. I'm not an expert, but I do know what types of units my husband has been assigned to. In the past 28 years, he has been assigned to ships of various sizes and land units. This means that he wasn't home every night, in fact there were many nights that he was off doing what he needed to do while I stayed home, making sure the bills were paid, taking care of the house, making sure the kids were taken care of and all roles both as mother and father were covered. This was all done with only my fellow CG spouses around for support, as the closest I ever was to family was 2 1/2 hours away during one tour and only three tours were near a military base. Those times he was away from home ranged from as little as a week to as much as 6 months. I will say that because of the dynamics of the missions, I preferred the tours that involved his being gone some where in the middle of those parameters. This was only because the length was usually pretty consistent, with very few deviations. I could plan things around it! The shorter tours were impossible to plan around as you never knew when they would leave or when they would return as it all depended on circumstances often beyond anyone's control. Focus for me was always on the future homecoming. What special occasions would we make up for (we once celebrated Christmas in January), what things did I want to share with him, what accomplishments the children were waiting to tell him about.

We also move often...for us, we have moved, on average, every 2 - 3 years. My kids, like many military children cannot claim any one place as home, they are not close to other family members, as they have never lived close enough to develop that type of relationship. They have however, learned how to adapt. They have learned of places, the culture, how people think in various parts of the U.S. While they don’t have the same experiences as children of the other services who live all over the world, they at least get a taste of what their fellow military children experience. They learn to appreciate where they are.

So, although we are not part of the DOD and often are forgotten or not viewed as MILITARY spouses, we do experience some of the same frustrations (especially when our spouses are gone or we are transferring to a new duty station). Hopefully with this posting, my future blogs will be taken, as they are, from a comrade in arms.

Welcome to my attempt at blogging...hopefully this will become an asset to not only my life, but to the lives of other military spouses.

Congratulations to Marine spouse Bianca Strzalkowski on being named the 2011 Military Spouse of the Year! Bianca will represent military spouses from all branches with a passion and determination few people have. She will give voice to the issues that are experienced by military spouses and make sure that those that need to hear them do. I look forward to standing behind her and supporting her on her endeavors to improve life for military spouses everywhere!

This doesn't mean that I plan to be a silent supporter. As the Coast Guard Military Spouse of the Year, I too am going to continue supporting our Coast Guard spouses in any way that I can. My first step is to begin blogging and sharing what I am doing (hopefully I will have things to blog about). If you, my fellow spouses have any ideas of topics you would like discussed or brought to the attention of those that can change things, please let me know, and if you have ideas on how to improve our lives as a whole I am eager to hear them.

The Commandant has named 2011 as the Year of the Family, and as such, this is our opportunity to bring family issues to the forefront. We can highlight the great things we experience along with the things that need changed...with the bad there is always a silver lining and something good if we look for it.