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Ah the memories…
I am coming up on a milestone, my twenty-year High School graduation-anniversary. Some would say 20 year High School Reunion but, alas, there will be none of that for us. I graduated from a small DoD School at the now closed Keflavik NAS, Iceland. Thank you for the memories! Funny how this post from Wife on the Roller Coaster suddenly triggered one for me out of the blue. June 7, 1992, I graduated from high school in the middle of my /final/ pcs as a military-brat. We hopped on a plane back to the states June 10, 1992. There were moves after high school. Mom and Dad PCSed two times while I was…
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Writing One’s Own Check List
He is so punctual. Life’s ticks are on the calendar. The mileage is documented for the car. Emails are even spell checked before going to family members. “If you are going to do it, do it right!” He bends for others, dismisses gaffs that just up and happen, but his approach to his personal lifestyle: check list, counter check and move forward. My response: I couldn’t agree more, but let me do it faster, and I’ll check with it in a bit. Today a glitch occurred. An event entered the mix without being entered on the calendar. Nothing prohibited it from being terrific, but someone important to Dale was left…
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How Did I Miss this Great Information Resource? The USAA Educational Foundation
What do you know about the USAA Educational Foundation? I have been a USAA member for over 40 years and have to admit that I knew little about this non profit resource provider! They are totally separate from USAA since USAA donated a one time gift to establish the foundation and have completely separate missions, leadership and absolutely no ties for products or services, etc. With an opportunity to talk to Barbara Gentry, the President and Steve Finley, the Director of the USAA Educational Foundation, I thought I could tell others about another resource for your challenging military lifestyle! I spoke briefly to Barbara about the mission of the education…
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“Too Sweet a Deal”? You Decide!
The military lifestyle is a tough road! No one can deny that but many civilians do not understand why it is tough either! Long deployments, extensive TDY/TADs, frequent relocations (PCS), and caring for our families despite these conditions are frequently misunderstood. Also largely misunderstood is the impact on the lives of Reserve Forces including the National Guard and Service Reservists. Yep, some civilians may even ignore these situations but I think the major issue is education. How do we tell our fellow citizens that we are stretched as a community and in some cases would like them to “cover our 6 o’clock” for us? Checking 6 is when another aircraft…
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Earth Day, Everyday at MilitaryAvenue
My husband is the budget guy, I am the environmentally conscious one. I love hanging the laundry on an outdoor rack/line. I am using less electricity (“non-renewable resource”) and letting the sun and the wind do its job. My husband loves it because it helps keep our gas bill down during the summer. I love open windows in the spring, summer and autumn! For me, it’s all about the fresh air in the house using renewable resources. For my husband, it’s all about the lack of air conditioning to drive up the electric bill. There are other simple things we do to live in harmony. I make homemade yogurt. Not only is…
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The Ultimate Military Road Trips
We just returned from a road trip of over 3,200 miles and it reminded us of a PCS except at the end I did not start a new job, there were not three kids in the backseat, the house was still there and we knew the way around our neighborhood! After 18 military moves we get frequent reminders of the military lifestyle and this time I thought about how we automatically do things to expedite our travels, find ways to save money and enjoy long trips. One of the most expensive items (this may change if the price of a gallon of gas keeps going up) for a family traveling…
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Suffering
We are military-wives. We know suffering. Some of us worse then others. Some have lost husbands to war. Some have lost their soul mates to PTSD. Some have lost any sense of closure when something happens ‘back home’ and unable to go to the ones that need them in their hour of need. Other struggles aren’t as bad. But still leave us hurting and feeling miserable. Saying goodbye to our spouse for a year deployment. Saying goodbye to the best of friends as we move across the country, the world. Watching our children struggle with depression because of their “Military Brat” lifestyle. All suffer. Today at church our sermon was…
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Renting or Buying? How to Make that Decision during a PCS!
As we get ready to celebrate the Holiday Season, military families know what the next “season” is going to be! “Waiting for orders season” for about one third of us each year and most orders arrive in the late winter/early spring for a summertime PCS! Unless you were the Kissingers, who seemed to get a lot of “you will appreciate this assignment”, so don’t complain about the 2 week notice type of orders. But with the PCS comes the difficult issues of what to do about housing! Certainly tough choices for a military family and we thought it would be a timely subject. MilitaryAvenue has a long standing relationship with…
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Rockin’ Down the Avenue
Click here to subscribe to our monthly newsletter: http://www.militaryavenue.com/Answers/Signup.aspxEvery month we publish our military family newsletter, made just for you; the soldier, the airman, the marine, the coastie, the sailor, the spouse, the one that cares deeply for the American Military Family! It is jam-packed with articles that impact you, pieces on living the military-lifestyle, stories of the heroes and the families with them (and far from them). To top it off USAA has given us iPods to reward a couple of our lucky subscribers each month… as if great military-family related information delivered right to your email box wasn’t enough… pshhw… 😉 We all need a little incentive in our lives though, right?! It is always…
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Keeping the “Trucks” Rolling Into, Around and Out of Afghanistan and Iraq – DoD Roundtable
The DoD Bloggers Roundtable met with Maj General Robert McMahon, Director of the Central Command Deployment and Distribution Center (CENTCOM DDOC) to discuss the logistics of surging in Afghanistan and drawing down forces in Iraq. With direct oversight of strategic logistics in both locations the general has quite a job. When queried about the effort he said he has a great team of professionals from the Guard, Reserves and Active forces to run the Center and keep track of the passengers, equipment and supplies moving through the system in and out of both countries. In addition, he thanked the Defense Logistics Agency and Transportation Command at Scott AFB for their…
