MilVetSpouse

269 Days…My husband tells someone at least once a week how many days until he retires from the military.  I’m sure as we get closer to the date, he will be telling people to the second.  I am a milspouse (military spouse) that will soon be a milvetspouse or a retmilspouse (my made up “words” for military veteran’s spouse or retired military spouse).  The military comes up with acronyms all the time, like scatminewarn (something you could say to your kids?), hotphotorep (hmmm), and tactragrulant (not even sure).  I am a bit nervous to leave the support we’ve grown accustomed to over the past almost 20 years, but excited to start yet a new chapter in our lives.  We’ll move to a small town where my husband’s family is and where they have established lives.  I hope that it is not too difficult to become a part of their circle or get used to a one-traffic-light town.

I grew up in a military town (where I met my husband), but my parents were not military.  I have loads of uncles and cousins who were in all the major battles back to the Revolutionary War.  I am big into family genealogy (but that will have to be for another post).  I was 21 when we married, and the military whisked us and our new baby boy from one coast to the other less than a year later.  Since then, we have moved 10 times, lived in 14 different houses, and been in at least 13 commands (my husband would know better).  Since his father was also in the military, he’s probably double that on the moves.  He’s been deployed or tdy/tad (more acronyms for temporary duty or temporary additional duty) more times than I can remember.  But that’s the military life.

My kids have benefited so much from the moves.  When they study things in school, they have actually stood on the ground where the history lesson is talking about:  ground zero of Nagasaki, the beaches of Normandy, Loch Ness, the Danish fjords, the Great Barrier Reef, a Jewish concentration camp…  But when my oldest son graduates from high school in a couple of years he will have attended 8 different schools, 3 of them different high schools.  That is the hard part.  Making new friends, leaving the old ones behind, catching up in a subject that was taught differently at the old school, sitting through a class they already took (I just tell them, easy A!).  Just one more move.