The Military Minute: Favorite & Least Favorite Parts of Military Life

I have been married to the Navy for 9 years as of today. I have had many good things and a few bad but my most favorite thing of the Navy is the life it provides me and my family. I have been forced to live outside my comfort zone.

Being Chinese, I was raised with certain beliefs of how a woman is to live and it is not as most American women have been raised to believe. In my beginning of living in America I lived as any woman who is unmarried lived. After my wedding, I attempted to continue living as I believed would be expected. I cared for my house and my husband. But soon we were sent to Japan with him being at sea often. I struggled in the beginning. It is not that I was alone. It was not the first time. It was not the first time alone in a country that was not mine. It was many new rules and the very different lifestyle imposed by the military. It is difficult to be taught for your entire life what a Chinese wife is to be then be in a place where that is no longer a truth. Since I had no choice, I had to learn how to live as a Navy wife. I had to learn a new way of living. Looking back, I would have it no other way and am grateful for the experience. I have grown to be more than what mother taught me. Not better than what she taught, only more. I continue to grow.

My least favorite part is probably a most common dislike. It is my husband’s often departures to sea. Even that is not the worst part. The worst is that I do not know when or what duration I must endure. We have only recently returned to Japan but two days after my arrival Jared departed and was gone for three weeks. I know there is another underway soon, “exact date TBA.”

Since I know I am not alone in my dislike of my husband’s time away I will speak of my second most disliked thing of military life, politics. Politics among the dependents/ranks is annoying. They are cliquish first. I understand some is inevitable. I do not care for being told who I should and should not have as a friend. In Florida it was not as evident but overseas it is obvious. Because my husband is a Commander I am discouraged, not forbidden mind you, only discouraged from associating with enlisted spouses. Why? I understand fraternization rules for him, but I am not a Commander. I have compromised since my behavior can affect him, but I still do not care for it. I keep the “proper” relationship with families of the ship’s crew as best I am able, but all others are my business.

I also do not care for “wearing a spouse’s rank.” Perhaps it is because I do not know how to wield such perceived power effectively. I believe it is because I do not wish to. I am proud of my husband for his choice of career and I will fiercely defend him from those who believe otherwise but I choose not to believe that his position somehow betters my own. His position offers me a good life and I enjoy that life, but I am satisfied with who I am. Respect I receive is respect I have earned and is not dependent on another.

Despite good and bad, I would trade this life I have chosen for no other.