Over the past year I have had many new experiences being a military wife, a few of them enjoyable, but several of them totally giving me a bad attitude about the military. Every time I try to tell a “short story” about something that is going on in my life, it is never a SHORT story and I have to back track to explain another part. So I am going to do my best to outline my experiences from the past year to try to catch everyone up on the “plight of the military wife.”
Weddings
Bill and I legally got married on August 21st, 2010. We decided to do this after Bill had completed his 10 weeks at Officer Candidate School(OCS). We planned the wedding while he was in Virginia and I was in Norway last summer. It was a real last minute ordeal, but my mother and my best friend Lauren really pulled everything together. I went back to work at school August 16th, set up my new classroom as a 4th grade teacher. He drove home from Quantico, VA and arrived on the 18th of August. We went to get our marriage license on the 19th and we were married at 2pm on the 21st. Because he is in the military, we could waive the 72hr waiting period. He was home until Labor day, then together we drove back to Quantico to drop him off and check him in for The Basic School (TBS). During his final days home we planned a wedding celebration for the following year on June 12th, 2011. During his time at TBS, so many things were uncertain. One thing that was uncertain, was if he would be able to come home for the wedding we had planned. He told me to go ahead with planning and we would adjust to changes later. Well, flash forward to March 2011, we find out Bill has been stationed in Okinawa, Japan. This is good news, we all thought he would finish TBS, have a temporary assignment in Quantico, report to his last schooling in August and then move to Japan. The military had other ideas about what he should do. Shortly before graduation from TBS in Quantico, we found out Bill would spend the 4 months before his Naval Justice School in Okinawa. He was moving to Japan immediately…..he was not going to be able to come home for the wedding in June. So next task, MOVE THE WEDDING! The new date is July 24th, 2011. We are a couple of days away from the wedding and there have been so many issues. One of the biggest issues is getting Bill home. The day before he was to get on a flight, the military travel office finally booked him on a flight. He leaves on Saturday July 16th and arrives in DFW on Sunday, July 17th. One of the military’s contingences on getting him home is that he had to travel all the way to his training station. So his flight(s) take him all the way to Rhode Island before coming to Dallas. Bills flights will take him from Okinawa, to Tokyo, to San Francisco, to Chicago, to Providence, RI. He will spend the night in the airport in Providence and then on to DC, and one more flight home to DFW! His travel time will be over 40hrs. with time changes, layovers and flight time. I think we are just both so excited about home getting home to TEXAS!!!
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