militarymoms

Yesterday we attended a celebration at a friend’s home on a nearby military base.  We brought along my daughter’s friend, whose parents are not military.  She was astounded to discover that we had I.D. cards and that she was on a military installation.  She worried that her parents wouldn’t be able to get on base because they didn’t have I.D. cards.  She asked me if people fought battles on the base.  At first, all these questions surprised me - I had forgotten how it feels to look at military life from the outside rather than the inside.

I need to consider this idea more carefully, I think.  After nearly 23 years of the Navy spouse thing, I’ve pretty much crossed over to the other side.  I can explain the acronyms, tell you how to get the most out of your local military body hobby shop and give you tips on PCS moves, but most folks I meet learn about military life by watching CNN and Fox.  They don’t ask me, that’s for sure!

I think, too, that my children accept their lives as “normal” - not just the moving, but the rental cabins and the commissaries and the low-cost activities we enjoy.  That’s good - they like the military life, for the most part.  Almost no one in the military is a millionaire, of course, but our lives are pretty decent (I’ll rant about military pay some other time).  I don’t want to take the blessings we have for granted.

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