Confessions of a Military Wife (37 page)

Beenie and Lloyd chose to be stationed in Okinawa, Japan. Beenie was cautioned by a seasoned wife who had lived there to watch out for the “Okinawa Surprise.”

Beenie replied, “Eeeeeww. Is that like fried octopus or something?”

The wife laughed and replied, “No, it’s the baby your husband will give you when you get stationed over there.”

Indeed, Beenie did have her third baby in Okinawa, but she was no surprise. She was very much wanted. Okinawa, however, was tough on Beenie.

The time change was not like coast-to-coast in the States. Catching each other on the phone was difficult. Add to the equation the fact she was taking care of three kids now.

She called me just after her third daughter was born and said, “I’m done having all these babies, and I’m going back to drinking and smoking!”

She called a week later to report she had drunk all the Amaretto on base and they were placing a special order just for her! In fact, the PX on Okinawa had a permanent waiting list for pregnancy tests and Amaretto.

Life without Beenie is boring.

Michelle stayed on Pendleton for a while, so we were able to have them over for Thanksgiving dinner in our new home in Los Angeles. Jon fried the turkey, which turned out great. We were surrounded by family and our favorite neighbors.

By the first of the year, Michelle and her husband had PCSed to the East coast. I missed their boys so much.

Michelle once told me she had dreamed about Jon and me before she moved onto Pendleton. She said she actually saw our faces. So when she first met us, she felt like she knew us already.

I told her I had prayed and prayed for the Lord to bless us with good neighbors. And He did.

I will always be so thankful for sharing so much with Michelle and her family. I consider it an honor to have watched those boys grow up.

Natalie and Kat followed in Grunt wife tradition. Natalie had a “B-billet” baby in her new duty station. I greatly missed seeing those girls every week, especially sharing a smoke with them on the back porch.

I have since given up my social cigarettes at parties. (I never wanted to be thirty and smoking. I like my skin and lungs too much.)

Unfortunately, I now have “smoker’s lips”—deep groves on the skin around my lips from the smoke. When I put on lipstick it bleeds through the lines and I look like I have catfish whiskers.

I miss both my conversations with Natalie and Kat and the female companionship. Shopping at Target is no fun without them.

Autumn and I remain in touch. Her marriage ended after her husband’s third deployment to Iraq.

I used to cast judgment on military families getting divorced, but what happened to Autumn opened my eyes.

Her husband returned a very different man. They tried going to counseling and talking things out, but finding a compromise proved elusive.

Autumn found out in a message from her in-laws what their next duty station was. Her husband had not bothered to tell her they were moving.

By this time Autumn had returned to school to get her teacher’s credential so she could work wherever they were stationed. She had accepted volunteer positions and found hobbies to keep her busy during his deployments. Wisely, she had bettered herself and her health prepping for a life as a military wife.

Then her husband came home one day and said, “You have lost too much weight with all this exercising you’re doing, I liked you better when you had big boobs and a big butt.”

I hit the roof when I heard this. Jon had been thrilled to hear Michelle and I were walking everyday. He would have been overjoyed if I had taken up a more aggressive hobby like surfing or running, as Autumn had done.

The final straw for Autumn, though, came after one counseling session when her husband said to her, “I just can’t see myself having a family anymore.” He didn’t mean children; he meant her as his wife. The marriage was indeed over.

Earlier in the book, I wrote that in order to make a military marriage work you have to make your man your number one priority and accept that you are number two. But I meant you are number two behind the military, not behind his wants. The biggest part of being married is to live for someone else, and to strive to make them happy.

Autumn was the one wife who accepted the military lifestyle and role as a housewife better than the rest of us. She became my role model. Because of her example I embraced being a housewife and took pride in being a good one. I was shocked to see her marriage fall apart. I knew she had done her best to contribute to the union, but he had changed beyond what could be repaired.

Autumn is very happy now. We still have the most fun together and can be around each other for hours without getting on one another’s nerves. She has moved on and is thriving in her new life.

OUR SORORITY

Since our time on Camp Pendleton and surviving the war together, all of us report we just can’t find that same magical chemistry in the new places we live. Whether it’s a new base housing community or a civilian neighborhood, my “sorority sisters” across the world now have the same complaint: “It’s just not like Camp Pendleton!”

Indeed, that time together was like being in a sorority. I had worked my way through college and never experienced being in a sorority, but I imagine it was similar to our neighborhood on base.

I was chatting with Michelle’s husband, Kevin, on a visit to the East coast and he confided that Michelle was just not as happy on their new base.

“Mollie, I think she thought all bases would be like it was on Camp Pendleton, but they aren’t. I’ve never seen anything like that and I don’t think we ever will again. You all were just so bonded. You can’t repeat that.”

He was right. We had all shared so much at such a unique time. It left us forever bonded.

After that conversation I stopped searching for that type of friendship. I no longer needed to. I already had it.

In the end, if war had brought us all together, then distance could not keep us apart. I love each of those women and their children with all my heart. I always will, no matter where we are in the world.

NEW MARRIAGE

Jon started growing his hair out, which I found totally disgusting.

He started off slow by wearing a “Med Reg” when he returned from his second deployment. Then it moved into a “Low Reg.” I was getting suspicious. It was not sexually appealing at all.

There was no smooth shaved feeling on the back of his head. Now there was HAIR! It was really freaking me out.

I thought of all the tantrums I had thrown over the massages given by the Vietnamese ladies when he was getting his “High and Tight” cuts. Now I was begging him to shave it off.

He told me that he would look “too militant” wearing a Jarhead haircut working in a civilian job. He was right. I finally accepted that he was growing his hair out.

But growing hair was not the only change occurring in our marriage. I figured that since we had spent so much time apart in the military that the time for separation was over. I was wrong.

His new job sent him out of town for weeks at a time, which forced me to PCS to Los Angeles alone. Jon’s new gig also meant working holidays and weekends. It was worse than the Corps because there was no pride behind it. To be honest, that first year out of the Corps was tougher on our marriage than our years in the military. Who would have thought
that
was possible?

We had purchased a home and moved to a new city, but had no friends. We both had new jobs, but we were working opposite schedules. Jon was working nights and weekends. I worked days and had weekends off.

In addition to adjusting to this new lifestyle, we were both coming down from military life and the effects of war. In the military we had spent so much time away from each other that it was like being on a perpetual honeymoon. There had been loving calls home, love letters, emails, flowers. In our new life, there was no romance.

I thought we had had our fill of hardship when we left the military behind. I soon realized that all marriages require hard work, and that life is even harder. You just have to constantly work on it.

We now had to overcome new misunderstandings with everyone around us. We were no longer military, and yet that was a huge part of who we were. Jon and I both went through a time when we felt we didn’t belong anywhere.

The military had been such a huge part of our lives, but many folks in Los Angeles aren’t that receptive to military families. Jon had difficulty with the lack of pride and respect exhibited by his co-workers.

I, on the other hand, had problems socially. Making new friends was hard for me for the first time in my life.

Once again, we only had each other. And yet, we weren’t around one another very much. I found myself lonely and depressed—again.

Jon started to withdraw. I could tell he needed time to be alone. I sensed he felt more comfortable doing activities by himself.

Still, I was becoming increasingly needy and miserable.

It was a very long, rough year. Our communication sucked. We were once again “riding our vows.”

God blessed us by finding a new job for Jon one year later. We were relieved and thankful. We had not had a day off together for a year. Now we could spend holidays with family again. We were able to sleep together and Jon was sleeping better because he was working days.

We accepted that we were very different people from the couple that had met at a fish fry years earlier. We also knew our marriage had changed.

We accepted the changes in each other and we thanked God for each other, our love, and our marriage. We dealt everyday with the changes. It was so much a part of our lives that I barely noticed the changes in each of us.

We were both working full time and I was pursuing my stand-up comedy and writing. But I was overwhelmed. At times I felt like I had three jobs—homemaker, sales rep, and entertainer.

I had done everything for Jon for four years. I covered all the bases, from paying the bills, to cleaning every dish, to buying the groceries.

This made me mad when I came home exhausted from a day at work and had to cook dinner and then write or study for a couple of hours before bedtime. How could he walk by a pile of dirty dishes and not do them? Resentment started to build inside me.