*****This is a sticky post so scroll down for my regular posts!
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**Who is going to tackle this question by Anonymous, left in comments on the Misconceptions and Conception post??
The question is this: "Why do people enlist in the armed forces knowing that they will almost certainly go to fight a war?"
I'm going to have Daniel give his answer once he is back home from his TDY in which he was preparing for his turn in fighting a war....
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Misconceptions about the life of those in the military.....
Where to begin?
I'll start with the one that bothered me the most. And this one isn't an 'across the board' misconception. This one is directly related to Recruiters.
The misconception was that Daniel, as a Recruiter, received a bonus or commission on each person he enlisted in the Air Force.
Not true. It would have been awesome had it been true, believe me! He put a LOT of people in the Air Force within those four years.
We did, however, receive a special duty pay of 450 dollars each month. It is the highest you can receive as his job was deemed among the hardest. Funny thing is that the cost of living was so extravagant in Burlington, Vermont that that 450 dollars kept our heads just above water. And for that I am thankful. But, let me just tell you, money will never replace having a husband or a father at home. Never.
Another misconception I have found, and it was touched upon in an earlier post, is that the men and woman who enter the military do so out of desperation or because they are ignorant.
Daniel received a 98 for an ASVAB score; he has three associates degrees, and is thisclose to his Bachelors. He is wicked smart. His decision to enter the military was well thought out.
We don't receive any extra money for each child we have. Every deployed member doesn't end up with PTSD. Deployments are not always forced, some volunteer to go (Daniel did this). Pity is not what we want from you when our husbands are deployed; we just want your help and care. We make very little money but we have wonderful benefits.
There is so much misinformation out there. It makes me sad.
C'mon military spouses/members help me out. Bring the misconceptions you have been faced with.
Civilians, bring your questions! Anything and everything. Like I said before, nothing is going to be looked upon as stupid.
I am going to leave this up at the top for a little while so that we can have some good discussions.
**Please visit this post's comments: Misconceptions and Conception for a lot of discussion that has already taken place.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
**Who is going to tackle this question by Anonymous, left in comments on the Misconceptions and Conception post??
The question is this: "Why do people enlist in the armed forces knowing that they will almost certainly go to fight a war?"
I'm going to have Daniel give his answer once he is back home from his TDY in which he was preparing for his turn in fighting a war....
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Misconceptions about the life of those in the military.....
Where to begin?
I'll start with the one that bothered me the most. And this one isn't an 'across the board' misconception. This one is directly related to Recruiters.
The misconception was that Daniel, as a Recruiter, received a bonus or commission on each person he enlisted in the Air Force.
Not true. It would have been awesome had it been true, believe me! He put a LOT of people in the Air Force within those four years.
We did, however, receive a special duty pay of 450 dollars each month. It is the highest you can receive as his job was deemed among the hardest. Funny thing is that the cost of living was so extravagant in Burlington, Vermont that that 450 dollars kept our heads just above water. And for that I am thankful. But, let me just tell you, money will never replace having a husband or a father at home. Never.
Another misconception I have found, and it was touched upon in an earlier post, is that the men and woman who enter the military do so out of desperation or because they are ignorant.
Daniel received a 98 for an ASVAB score; he has three associates degrees, and is thisclose to his Bachelors. He is wicked smart. His decision to enter the military was well thought out.
We don't receive any extra money for each child we have. Every deployed member doesn't end up with PTSD. Deployments are not always forced, some volunteer to go (Daniel did this). Pity is not what we want from you when our husbands are deployed; we just want your help and care. We make very little money but we have wonderful benefits.
There is so much misinformation out there. It makes me sad.
C'mon military spouses/members help me out. Bring the misconceptions you have been faced with.
Civilians, bring your questions! Anything and everything. Like I said before, nothing is going to be looked upon as stupid.
I am going to leave this up at the top for a little while so that we can have some good discussions.
**Please visit this post's comments: Misconceptions and Conception for a lot of discussion that has already taken place.
32 Comments:
I just wanted to touch on getting paid for each dependent. If you live OCONUS then you do get COLA based on the number of dependants. It works out to be an additional $2 a day..
Our biggest hurdle seems to be that we make a choice to stay overseas. Specifically in Japan. So many people (military included) seem to think it is awful. I wish more military families would consider living overseas. It is a wonderful experience. (OK, so driving on the other side of the road can be a challenge)..
Having only lived in the US for a short time as a military family, I do have a question. Do all of the wives where you live have Coach bags? Or is that just an overseas thing?
I think I will have to do this over at my place. Most of the people that read my blog are not military!
I found you from Katie's blog and this is the first post I read. I'm an Army wife and your misconceptions made me laugh! Sounds like we all get the same ones-the ignorant thing is a big one for us...I hear it all the time! We always just laugh because my hubby was 25 when he joined and he had a BA in business. He wanted to have a greater purpose in his career and he thinks that Army is the place for that. (I'm one proud wifey!)
To Sabrina...LOL about the Coach purses! The PX here at Fort Rucker has one rack of maternity clothes, but TWO shelves of Coach purses!!!! (Although I will admit I do have two nice black ones that my mother-in-law sent me for gifts!)
Hey Andrea, I am in complete aggrement with the coment left by Muthering Heights in the previous post about having to be a "single mommy" while your hubby is deployed and worrying about his safety and when or if you will ever see him again. I have friends and family in the military, and I always was very proud of them, and thankful that they would dedicate their lives to serve our country, and protect our freedom. I think the ignorant ones, are the ones who are making the assumptions about why people join. And also about the baby thing, go for it!you are such awesome parents. I love your whole family, I know I'm a little old but will you adopt me? But on a serious note, There are times when I want more too and it does seem to be when I finaly fit back in to my old size 6 jeans, that I feel the baby bug. I wan't to try right now. But I am nervous about being a single mom some day because of Kevins health, that definately holds me back a little. :(
Wow, I ha no idea that people thought recruiters made commission for each person they recruited - that's kind of messed up!
Just wanted to let all you military families out there know that my family and I are deeply appreciative of ALL that each of you do for us. I realize it isn't just your husband's giving something up, but also the wives you have to part with them for a time and the kids who have to miss their daddies during deployment. I cannot imagine some of the heartache.
Thank you for serving our country in such a tangible way. May God bless you all.
One of the most frustrating things I've had to deal with is that many people outside the military just assume that we have the same ability they do to schedule our lives. And even when I explain, they still get annoyed when I have to say no to something or can't commit.
Oliver can't call in sick for anything. He has to go in and convince the Corpsman he is stark-raving-out-of-his-head sick before he can come home and crawl into bed. In five years, I've yet to see him come home for this reason.
If you are trying to plan a wedding/other special event around us, don't. We can give you some input on what we THINK is going to happen and when we MIGHT get leave, but we won't know until it happens. Pick a date that works for you, and hope we'll show. That way, you won't be upset when we can't be there.
We aren't trying to avoid you by missing birthdays/Christmas/other special events we used to attend regularly. We aren't there because it wasn't possible. If we had come, he would be AWOL and that's not a good thing, trust me.
When you ask me to do something, be aware that if my hubby is coming home, I'll drop everything, including whatever I said I'd do, to welcome him home. Our family is more important than leading the book club/teaching a class at church/being at that meeting/insert other important event. While I try not to say yes to things that will most likely overlap with something like this, I don't really have any clue if the schedule will stay the same or if the boat will return early/late.
Stuff happens, and we are at the mercy of the Navy. While I would like to be your reliable, perfect friend/relative, I can't. There is NO PLANNING in the military. You just hope for the best. I wish I could find a way to make people believe me on this.
I came across your blog sometime ago. I found this post to be very funny! So here is my 2 cents...I am a military wife of 18 years. yes 18 years as the second wife I call myself at times. Hitting that 18 year mark and getting those emails from ACAP has really made me start to think back on what life has been like. I would NOT change a thing in the world. I have loved every minute of it. Even though M has been gone most of our married life together, this life has made me who I am. I use to always be that wife that was into everything. I volunteered for it all. If you needed soemthing you came to me because I would never say no. When we moved to our final duty station I gave that all up. 3 children keep me more then busy. But in the last year on his third deployment to the sand box. I found that I needed to be more then an FRG volunteer, a wife, an army wife and mommy. I needed to find ME. I have stuggled with that for that last year. I am so tired of family and non military friends, even stranges at the store feeling sorry saying I dont know how you do it. I am so tired of younger wifes whinning that their husbands are go and they cant do this or they cant do that. Sorry I have never been one to ask for help. I will fix it myself what ever it is, I know that I can do it. M is very proud that his wife deals so well with this army life. With his time ending soon, I am starting to get worried. How will I deal with it all. There is something to be said about a group of wifes who have this one thing that they share. It is something specail that few people will ever get to have!
I've heard/seen a lot of the things other people have mentioned. We're National Guard, so different from the AD community in at least some ways. I grew up as an AF brat, but my dad was full-time Reserve most of his career, so that was pretty different than the "typical" experience, too. We do our share of deployments (though at a slower tempo, I think, than most of you AD folks??)--one a year for about 13 yrs while I was growing up, and we're on our second in six years of marriage, now. During the upswing for a deployment, D works for the Army a bit more than one weekend a month--three and four day drills, drills twice a month, month-long annual training--on top of a "real" job and him being in school full time. We don't get health care or housing or even much in the way of money =)--it was only with the last promotion that D started making enough to do more than cover gas to Drill--until he's AD, and even then the BAH doesn't always cover the mortgage payment. But a lot of people seem to think that the Guard/Reserve is still sort of the "pretend military"--which I don't think is true any more, not since the Gulf War, and certainly not since the War on Terror began.
The misconception I see the most among civilians is about what military service actually entails. I can't count how many times I've heard, "He's deployed again? But, after this, he's done, right?" and/or the reaction, "Wow, that's a long time!" when they find out how long a deployment lasts. I get the strong impression that most people don't understand what the military does or how it does it--how small and underfunded our military is (relative to the incredible number of places it's deployed around the world); that US service members are *always* deployed or stationed overseas *somewhere*--not just Afghanistan and Iraq, but Kuwait, Turkey, Albania/Kosovo, Germany, Korea, and probably a ton of places I don't know about either; that a *short* deployment for the US Army right now is 12 months.
And I mentioned to Kiki today that a lot of people seem to think that during deployments I suddenly have a lot of extra time on my hands that needs to be filled. Huh? Just when I've added all of my husband's jobs to my own list. . . ?
Oh, and:
Anonymous's question--Why do people enlist. . . knowing that they will almost certainly go to fight a war?
I've written some looooooooooong posts about that--and it's really too complicated a subject to condense the answer.
Links:
http://lu-ann.blogspot.com/2008/09/still-here.html
http://lu-ann.blogspot.com/2008/12/extension.html
The best stab I can take at a condensed answer is: There are some things more important than safety. There are some things worth fighting and dying for. For us, given sufficient cause, fighting in a war is no deterrent. I don't want to be a widow--but, do you remember that poem by Richard Lovelace? The last line runs, "I could not love thee, Dear, so much / Loved I not Honour more." There's something in that, I think. . . .
I think most of the misconceptions that initially came to my mind have already been mentioned. But one that really gets to me is when people think the reason men and women join the military is because they want to kill "helpless" people and/or are obsessed with weapons, fighting, etc.
My husband, for one, didn't join the Army to kill people; he joined because he is a patriot and was raised to help and serve others. He is willing to give his own life while defending his country and all of us he is committed to protecting. He has had 5 (and counting) wartime deployments because that's what his country called on him to do, and he is immensely proud of the services he provided in Iraq and Afghanistan and would do it again in a heartbeat (and will be doing it again soon).
Our neighbor has a bumpersticker that reads, "Join the Army: Travel to exotic distant lands; meet exciting, unusual people and kill them". It's things like this that give the general population the wrong idea about the military and the services, protection, and defenses they provide.
To anonymous' question: "Why do people enlist in the armed forces knowing that they will almost certainly go to fight a war?"
The main answer to that is, because they believe in what they are doing. They want to serve their country. This is the way they do it. It's the reason I joined. It is not the reason my husband joined, but it's the reason he's stayed for 16 years. It's the reason that he volunteered for a deployment.
One of the hardest questions for me to deal with is the "and then he'll be done, right?" question. Why would he be done? It's his job. Will your husband be done with his job in 5 months? If he has a really tough project going on at work, will he retire after he's done with it?
The question/misconception that bugs me the most is that we don't want him to deploy. When we moved here, people kept asking, "Will he deploy?" His previous position was a non-deployable position. Well, yes, he's going to deploy. But, that's his job. It's the reason he left his old job. We're active duty guard, and he could have stayed in his previous job forever, but he felt like he wasn't doing his part in the deployment cycle. And, guess what, we, as his family, understand that need.
The boys, ages 11, 8, and 5, and I have had long discussions about deployments, war, and dying for your country. The boys are all in agreement that our country is worth fighting and dying for. And, I guess that is what it all comes down to. If you can't understand that, you'll never understand why we are willing to put up with the many absenses, or why we are so proud of him.
Oh, and one more thing. There is a song that shows how I feel about my husband's service, even when he's been gone for about 3/4 of the time we've lived here, thanks to TDY's and a deployment. It's "My Hero" by the Foo Fighters.
I am not in the military, but living just outside the front gate of Eglin AFB, many of my dearest friends are. I think that one of the biggest misconceptions today, is that Iraq is a horrible place and our men and women in uniform hate being there.
Is it safe? Of course not. but then neither is downtown Miami.
My best girlfriend was deployed four times and still wanted to go back. The containers upon containers of school supplies and necessities for the people of Iraq come daily. What our soldiers are doing there is so much more than fighting. They are building schools and hospitals and homes.
Our men and women hate being away from home, but truly value their personal contributions there.
AS to their daily service here stateside, you will never meet a more dedicated group of people.
If anything I just want to say thankyou to your husband for serving our country!!! It's a hard job full of MANY sacrfices for sure! I hope that no one is rude to you with their ??'s...Have a great weekend! :)
To anonymous:
My husband retired from the military 2 years ago after 20 years of service.
To answer your question, there are amazingly still people in our country who understand the somewhat cliche phrase "freedom isn't free". Whether any one appreciates them or not, they go on doing what they do, not for glory, certainly not for money, but in the belief that, so Americans can go about their day without even thinking about their safety and security, someone has to do the heavy lifting. And that belief extends not only to Americans but to freedom-loving people everywhere.
I remember one time exercising in a gym on base and seeing all the military men and women around me working out and thinking that they are not only working out to be fit and look good, but so they will be strong and ready for the next task required to defend and possibly die for people they don't even know, yet still believe are worth protecting. In fact everything they do is for that reason.
I truly thank God for them. Most people will never know what they and their families give. In short, the reason they enlist knowing they may fight or die in a war is that there are still heroes in this world. No greater love... I hope that helps to answer your question.
I have been following this blog for awhile--I found it through Susie Sams' blog. I want to say how much I respect you, your children, and your husband for serving our country. Everything you do is precious and treasured, regardless of people who don't understand.
My husband and I are both civilians although my husband's dad and at least one uncle that I know of has served. His brother just enlisted and his sister was in the Air Force. His brother-in-law is still serving as well. We are PROUD to know them and PROUD to be family. Recently, his brother came home after his graduation, wearing his uniform...it was a powerful moment for our family.
Thank you.
Lets see...as an Army National Guard wife and now an Active Duty Army wife (same guy) for going on 5 years. I get a lot of stuff from our parents. His mom on his guard activation wanted to go down to wherever and sign a paper saying he was not allowed to go. Um....sorry MIL, you can't do that. Not possible or I am sure everybody's moms would be doing it. My dad watches Army Wives on Lifetime and they had one episode where there was a 'playdate' (2 wives getting together to cheat on their husbands with eachother EWWW!) and called me at midnight to ask me if I do that or if I know of wives that do that. Not all wives are looking for ways to cheat on their husbands while they are gone. And another one from his mom is that she believes after this deployment he will be done with the army and we will be able to move back 'home'. Sorry, he signed a contract and will keep this job for another 4 years at which time he will either re-enlist or we will find other means to support ourselves. And while he is gone, he has to wait in line to use a computer or a phone to somehow communicate with me. He does not have his own room, he does not have a cell phone, he cannot call me whenever he wants, if I need him then oh well, because he is 14,000 miles away and while on the subject, NO I don't know when he is coming home, NO I have not heard from him this week, and NO I don't know how he is doing. All I know is that he is still alive because I have not had a knock on my door telling me otherwise.
My complaint????
I cannot stand people that tell me, "How do you do it, I love my husband too much to be away from him for that long."
Grrrrrrr.......
You know what! I love my husband more than anything else in the world. He's an amazing dad, amazing husband, and my hero. He goes, because he loves us so much. And lucky for you, he cares about the greater picture.
They should trust me when I say our time together is probably worth more to us and spent more wisely.
I could go on, but I know this probably isn't coming out like I want it to!
I'm really glad you are doing this. It's funny in a way to read about other people experiencing the same (annoying) things that you experience. Some of the biggest misconceptions I encounter are people thinking it's just like any other 9-5 job, or that they have the option to say "no" to doing certain things. I also hate that people think we are "rich" just because we are debt free. Um, yeah. Wanna try living our lifestyle for a while and find out?
I also get annoyed when people overdramatize deployments. Yes they are hard. Yes that is when everything under the sun goes wrong. Yes we miss our spouses terribly. But, there are so many other women going through the same thing. I am not the only one! (Cannot seem to get that thru my family's heds)
Also I love that people think we can just choose where we are stationed. To an extent that is true, but if they only knew. I would have never in my life chosen our current base, but here we are.
Hmmmm, so many misconceptions. Great topic!
The misconception that I get a lot from people is that because I'm a young Army wife, that means I'm not educated.
A lot of people assume the military is one big happy family. Like the show Army Wives. I haven't experienced that at all. For the most part the military wives I've formed friendships with started here on Blogger. Not in person.
The biggest biggest misconceptions that I have encountered are the following:
(and we aren't even married yet!)
The biggest are that I don't work and am uneducated. People always act surprised when I tell them that I have a full time salaried position. And even more surprised when I tell them that I graduated from a University that doesn't have the word "online" somewhere in it.
(Not that there is anything wrong with that, I plan on getting my masters or MBA and it will most likely be an online endeavor.)
Also, my sister asked me, "why would I want to put my kids through all of that?". As if being someday, when we have children, I will be putting them through some kind of terrible torture by being an AF brat.
Yes, there are drawbacks to the military life. But there are also tons of positives! Just keep your mind open!
Ha! Yes, I prominently display a license plate frame from the university I went to along with our military bumper sticker, to make sure people realize that there is education behind our decisions--so many seem to assume there isn't.
Ok, this is probably not strictly a military issue, but since the military took us far away from home, it's the reason we have this problem.
I hate that most everyone in our family thinks we are the ones who should visit. There is some kind of weird expectation that Oliver's leave should be used to keep in touch with them. They don't seem to understand we only have so much time together, and sometimes we want to do something other than visit family for a vacation.
I find it odd that not one of them think it's exciting to visit a different part of the country. I mean, we've offered our house if they want to stay, but only my father and mother in law have taken us up on it. My sister actually called and wanted to know if I'd come visit during HER vacation. Um, no, especially not when I have to fly across the country with two kids versus her one....
I hate that most everyone in our family thinks we are the ones who should visit.
Sigh. This is a major problem for our family. We spent a lot of money traveling to see family, for the first 8 years of our marriage. We even went into debt to do it. Then, one day, I realized that none of our siblings had come to visit us. I asked my husband's sister and brother-in-law when they were coming to visit. They live in Rhode Island. We lived in Oklahoma and the brother-in-law's sister had just moved about an hour away from us. Their reply? What is there to see in Oklahoma?
My parents-in-law are really good about visiting once a year. But, they expect us to spend every Christmas with them. Never mind that we have another family on the other side of the country, and somethimes we just want to stay home.
I am the same on the vacation thing. Why should we have to spend our precious leave sitting in your house. They have even asked to come and then they went to work and we sat there alone. We love our family, but we want a real vacation as well. Come with us, you will have more fun, I promise.
Overseas wives, what is the hardest thing about living overseas?
I love the misconception that if my husband isnt on the road flying as he is typically three weeks out of the month. That he's at home with us. Not so. He has an office and works 12 hours days when he's in town.
I am also amazed at the number of people who feel free to offer me up their opinion of the war as soon as they find out my husband is military. As if he can drop a comment in some suggestion box somewhere. Oh and the number of people who ask me if my husband has killed anyone. Really one wouls ask someone that?!
Thank you for posting this topic and sharing all the misconceptions. It certainly set me straight on a few things. While I am thankful and proud of the men and women serving in the armed forces and their families, it is a culture I am not familiar with. I am thankful that you folks feel the calling to serve your country in this direct way. Our freedom is not free. It was fought for and bought with the lives of service men and women. For that I certainly am very thankful.
But I did want to ask a question that The Mrs. touched on. She said someone asked her if her husband had ever killed anyone. While I agree that it is NOT an appropriate question to ask someone, I have to admit that it is somethig I am curious about. I am assumming that any one in the armed forces that has been deployed into a war zone has had to kill another person. In war it is kill or be killed. SO I understand that. And I do not hold any ill will towards the service men put in that position and them carrying out their job. What I wonder is how do you wives deal with knowning your husbands kill as part of their job? How do your husbands morally deal with that reality? What do you tell your children?
I want to say again that I place no judgement on the service men and women whom have had to follow through on orders from their Commander in Chief. I am just curious how you deal with the rammifications on a "thou shalt not kill" level
I have extended family in the military, but I felt like responding to Jennifer's comment. My brother-in-law has been deployed twice, my cousin has been deployed once (during this war). Not everyone that is deployed is on the "front lines". My BIL is an intelligence officer, so his job was on the base over there with computers. My cousin is a medic with the Guard, so he was doing actual patrols. One of them would come face to face with dangers that the other wouldn't have to, simply b/c of their jobs. So not everyone that gets deployed HAS to "kill or be killed".
@Jennifer, because I ask my husband if he has had to shoot anybody and how it feels.
My husband looks at it as it is his job. He is protecting his family, his friends, his life. He doesn't go around just killing random people, he shoots if he fears a threat to himself or his crew. What do we tell our daughter? She knows that daddy has a weapon, she won't call it a gun for some reason, she has seen it and she got to touch it when we dropped him off at the beginning of the deployment. She knows it can hurt but she is still too young to understand what kill and die means. But she knows that daddy is taking care of the bad people (because it isn't just guys) and she tells people that daddy is in Iraq putting the bad people in time out. We didn't really tell her what daddy was doing or what he has to do. She came up with that on her own about 4 months after he left.
We had to take our ASVABs last year in school and I got a 98 too! Though I don't know how, lol, I completely bombed the mechanical portion. Now, the Navy calls at least once a week and sends what we refer to as 'love letters', trying to entice me to enlist. It's just not for me though.
I just had to type a quick reply to Jennifer.
I understand why you would think that. However, it's not true! I was deployed to Iraq. A very busy, fighting part of Iraq. I worked in a hospital with many other brave men and women. We didn't kill a soul. We saved everyone. US servicemen/women, Iraqi soldiers as well as Iraqi's who very much hated America and Americans.
We were trained to shoot, to defend one another, etc. But we didn't have to do that. Our brave men/women out in the field were doing their best to protect us. And sometimes that means having to kill the enemy. Most of us who were/are in the military consider every American as our family--which means we will do what we must do to protect everyone, regardless if they love or loathe the military.
Sorry that was so long! I just wanted to help explain it a little :) Awesome posts, Andrea! Love them and love helping put in my 2 cents.
I want to thank you for responding to me. Someone else responded to me in the comments on the "kindness" thread, as well. I do understand the difference between Murder and following an order. But in the end for me personally, it would still be me taking another persons life. A person whom is most likely following an order from his superior, as well.
I also realize that not every person in the military is on the front lines or put in a position to "kill or be killed" on a daily basis. But my point is, if the government calls on you to "kill or be killed" it is not like you can say no. If you join the military you are taught how to shoot a gun and how to kill someone else. It is part of your job description to protect the US, your fellow Soldiers and americans. So whether or not you regular job is a computer tech or nurse or doctor....there is always the possibility that in a war zone, you in a moments notice may be in the situation to "kill or be killed". Solider first.... right?
I guess I said all of that to say how thankful I am to the men and women in the armed forces who are able to sperate in their minds the difference between murder and a job. For it is something I could not do. I am forever thankful that you and your spouses are willing and able to put yourselves in harms way for my freedom and that of America.
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