Yesterday after spin class, the woman who'd been riding next to me asked if I was military. It took a second to process her question within my post-exercise addled brain (no coffee, no breakfast, a jug of water, and an hour of intense aerobics = non-functioning brain, thank you very much), but then I realized she must have seen my ID. I told her my husband's in the military, and that's when the now standard response came.
She thanked me for the sacrifices we make.
It spawned a train of thought. I've had a generous handful of civilians acknowledge the lifestyle and what we give up daily. Without exception, I've appreciated every single person making the time to let me know they understand and (for a brief moment anyway) aren't taking their freedoms for granted. But what has stuck with me is that I never used to get comments. It's only been in the last few years that anyone has ever acknowledged us.
I blame TV. Lately, it seems like troops and families are getting more publicity, and the trials of military life are finally being laid out for the country to understand. I like this, but it's overdue.
Every military family sacrifices, even before we started this Global War on An Idea and Not a Country or Group Which Seems Like a Very Bad Idea But Nobody Asked Me. Service members all are underpaid, from the youngest seamen with kids at home and a wallet full of WIC and food stamps all the way to the Admirals and Generals. Those bastards are WELL paid, but it still doesn't add up to much when you consider the incredible responsibilities they have and the number of hours they work (okay, most of them anyway). Hell, even midshipmen who go to real schools and train within ROTC only get a pittance of a stipend that's *supposed* to cover their room and board (it was $100 a month when I was in school 14 years ago, and it apparently hadn't changed since I believe WWII).*
In spite of all the sacrifices I can genuinely acknowledge every military member faces and which every military family member must endure, I have to say that the Navy and the Marines endure worse. I say this not in judgment but to point out the blind masses who only now, five years after a war began, are recognizing the hardships of military life that sailors and marines have never had a break from. The Navy never stopped deploying. They did it during the Cold War, they did it between the Cold War and the Gulf Wars, and they'll be doing it in twenty years when (please gods) all this current crap is behind us. It's what they do. And since I must rib marines, I shall say now that since their entire job is to hitch a ride on the Navy's vessels, they have also continued with their deployments (end dig! ;). Army and Air Force definitely had jobs that took them away from home, but to paraphrase a recently overheard admiral, "The Army and Air Force took a vacation for several years, but we never stopped."
Maybe because the Army and Air Farce are so much bigger than the combined Navy/Marine forces, it wasn't obvious during the years of "peace" that sacrifices were still being made constantly. Maybe it didn't sink in for civilians who lived in Navy towns and saw brief footage of farewells as ships left port. Who knows. But it's interesting that I spent the first ten or eleven years of my marriage enduring the worst the Navy had to dole out with no understanding or even lip service from the civilian world, and in the last few years, I've seen a giant swell of recognition from the formerly blind.
This is a good thing, to be sure. I just hope, when other news takes priority and the troops are no longer the scoop du jour, civilians will still be aware and will still remember. When the soldiers and airmen come home, when national guardsmen are relieved from foreign service at last, when the sailors and marines are still humping it hard away from their families and homes, I hope those civilians haven't forgotten.
Because the sacrifices never stop.
*You can argue on that one that midshipmen aren't putting their lives on the line, but I can argue that they're selling their souls to the military for YEARS in exchange for their scholarships, and that their training requires them to spend time in very dangerous situations during their summers. Also, if a stipend is meant to cover your living expenses, you probably shouldn't have to take out a massive student loan on top of your ROTC scholarship just so you can live in the shittiest dorm room or roach-infested apartment... not that I'm bitter about the student loans we're paying that covered YodaMan's holy shit apartment... nope, not me!
