Appreciating Military Spouses

Twitter is replete today with posts about #MilitarySpouseAppreciationDay. I didn’t know a thing about it.

In a quick search, I found “A Proclamation on Military Spouse Appreciation Day, 2021,” from the White House. As an Army brat, I feel the same way about Military Spouse Appreciation Day as I do about Earth Day: every single day is and should be Military Spouse Appreciation Day.

“Military spouses may not always wear a uniform, but they serve and sacrifice alongside their service members and keep our military strong.” 

That’s from the first graph of the president’s proclamation. I agree. My father would never have had the career nor the family that he had without my mother. Full stop.

My mom and dad were in college when my father proposed. He was a year ahead of her in school, so he returned from his first year of service in Germany to marry my mom on a summer day. He promptly whisked her away from the small island and the only home she’d ever known to a foreign country on the other side of the ocean. Far from her family and friends. No time for a honeymoon.

He’d found a home for her in a loft in a barn in a German family’s home, not far from the base where he was still billeted. My mother spoke no German, and my father was gone for long stretches on training exercises in the field.

Years later, my mother would say that she didn’t know my father intended to make the military his career. And she most certainly did not know the sacrifices she’d make to support him in his career. But she loved him and she stayed with him through every tour of duty. When my father died in August last year, he had been married to the love of his life for 62 years. Over the years, he had made it known that he did not intend to be the first to leave. He did not want to leave her. He fought like hell to stay.

When my father deployed to Vietnam for a second tour, the Army booted us from then Fort Lewis. Back then, families could not stay on base while their soldier was deployed. The Army doesn’t do this anymore, for a myriad of obvious reasons. My mother was left alone with four young children in a neighborhood where she knew no one, with her closest family members and relatives living on the other side of the United States.

I was in second grade and my youngest brother was nine months old. In that year, my youngest brother was rushed to the hospital with convulsions, and our kitchen caught fire. My mom soldiered on alone. I can’t imagine the strength and resolve it took for my mother to get up each day to care for her children then end her day watching the evening news with the horrible scenes of combat, death and destruction.

That year I decided I wanted a puppy. My mom said I had to ask my dad. I sent my dad a letter and waited for his response. He said I could have a puppy if I promised to take care of it because my mom already had more than enough on her plate. I promised, but my follow-through was that of a child, i.e. poor. My mom ended up caring for four kids and a rambunctious puppy that shredded furniture and got car sick.

Anyone in the military knows that the comportment of an officer’s spouse and children reflects on his or her leadership. My father made us aware of this at an early age. As his rank advanced, my father assumed more leadership responsibilities. Mom acquired more duties in line with his role.

By the time Dad was a battalion commander, Mom was hosting teas for the officers’ wives. She was running bake sales and fundraisers, as well as sewing costumes for school plays and Halloween. She hosted elaborate sit-down dinners, New Year’s Day receptions and cocktail parties. She frequently made breakfast for the soldiers who hung around until morning after a long night of poker.

My grandmother, the story goes, didn’t want my mother to marry my father. Mom and her siblings were the first to go to college, and her mom worried that my mom would not use her education if she married my father. Mom was able to substitute teach a few times at some base schools once all the four children were in school; she didn’t get to fulfill her potential as a teacher though.

We moved 26 times in my father’s 30-year career. My mom was usually left alone to pack up the house and get things organized before the moving van showed up, then we’d all pack into the car and head to Dad’s next duty station. After Dad returned from that second tour in Vietnam, we put four kids and a dog in the back of the Ford station wagon and headed east.

Dad had planned a trip to Niagara Falls on the trip. He had booked a lovely hotel near the falls: a room for all four kids and one for he and mom. We were devastated to learn the hotel did not permit pets. Dad said, no problem, the dog can stay in the car overnight. We wailed–I’ll admit that I wailed unceasingly. Dad and Mom relented, and we got a hotel a long distance from the falls in a sketchy part of town; however, they did accept pets.

When I look back on that choice, I think of the sacrifice, once again, that my mother made for her family. I’m sure she was looking forward to that nice hotel and a special night with my father after that long, desperately difficult year that he was in harm’s way.

Times have changed. Now women soldiers leave their children for combat tours, and husbands and wives both serve on active duty. They all continue to make sacrifices, as do their families.

The military is a world onto itself. It’s tough for civilians to know or understand the culture or the demands and strains a life of military service places on a spouse, on a family.

On this Military Spouse Appreciation Day, I honor and celebrate my mother, who made more sacrifices than her family will ever know. She served just a nobly and valiantly as my father did. In fact, he couldn’t have served his 30 years with dedication and distinction without my mother’s unwavering support and steadfast presence, even when he was miles and continents away from her.