Why I am Proud to be a Military Wife

Military life: Moving, packing, saying goodbye to friends. Frustrations with paperwork, paperwork, and more paperwork. Fighting with insurance, saying goodbye to your soldier at the worst times. Holding together a home, being mom and dad, keeping a cheery countenance for the sake of your children. Sweating out the paycheck every month, wondering if you'll be in this town next year. Worrying about your soldier, the car, the house, the finances, and taking care of every sniffle, bump, bruise and tragedy by yourself. Relishing the joys and successes by yourself.

It's all worth it.

We are immensely LUCKY to be American. To live in a country where we have God-given rights and privileges, every one of us. Where free speech is honored, and protection is granted by an all-volunteer force-- the greatest military power on the earth.

The American military system, even with all it's flaws, is the greatest on the Earth. WE have an all-volunteer system, mostly consisting of college-educated, noble, freedom-loving alpha-individuals. The training our soldiers receive is phenomenal compared to other forces around the world. To have an individual, who is patriotic enough and willing to live daily and even die for their beliefs, enlist or become and officer in the Army befits our nation. That is what our nation was founded upon... people who were willing to die for their beliefs, to forge their own path in defense of freedom.

I am proud to be a military wife. This is a difficult life, but it is mine. There is nobility in this life. I am grateful to be married to a man who, just after 9/11, said, "I have to do something." We will never be wealthy, but our life in the military has been enriched in ways that money could never buy.

Just tonight my man and I were chatting about how different we would have been if we started out with money. I shudder to think (honestly) at the person I could have been if money was disposable. I am grateful for the toil and labor this life has posed-- I am a much better person for the work I have been given, been entrusted.

Our soldiers join the military for something way beyond money-- the belief that this country is worth living and dying for. We all need to tire ourselves in efforts to protect this great nation.

But for me, I feel that with every move, every night slept alone, every prayer said for my man in unfamiliar sand, I do my part. I truly love being a military wife. I love my life.