How Did I Become An Army Wife?

I met my husband when we were in college. He was going to be a priest and I was going to be a nurse. Friendship became love and sooner rather than later we ended up pregnant with our first son. He was in his third year with the ROTC and his fourth in the Physics department when he took the decision to leave the ROTC and get his bachelor degree before he had planned it so he could support his new family. My family in the other hand didn’t believe in us and didn’t like him at all. We married a week before my due date and he left a day before our son turned two months old for his BT. We didn’t live together during all this time because my parents didn’t want us to and I thought they actually had the power to keep me away from him. They helped a lot though, but we paid them back by been apart from each other more than we should of have.

Once he came from AIT (they didn’t let me go see him during his graduation) we begun our life as a family of three. He was a reservist and tried to find a job as a physicist with no luck so two years after that he joined the AGR program. We were just in time to properly welcome our second and last child, our daughter. We then decided two children were more than enough and started planning for their future.

So, I guess I didn’t become an Army Wife at any particular point but rather became a Wife/Army Wife all at the same time. I don’t know other way to professionally support my husband than to cheer him up in his military career. I didn’t want him to join the Reserves when I got pregnant but he had always loved the Army so it was all part of the package (pun intended). There are days where I hate this life, especially because of the long absences and the fact that we are just mistresses and the Army is the wife but that also has its own advantages! I don’t like to be scared of pending deployments or certain missions but I like the thrill of the adventure of not knowing where we go next, the challenges with each duty station or the romance behind each phone call and letter/e-mail. There are friends who do not like my involvement in the Army or the federal government (PR is a territory divided into those who fight for its independence of the U.S. and those who would like to see it as the 51st state) but I don’t get those friend’s points of view so we are even I believe. To some people in the island he’s a Hero and to others he just sells his Land every day but we love and believe in the same things and that’s what matters and what at the end makes us stronger as a couple and as a family.

More than an Army wife…yes of course I’m more than that! But this kind of life defines who I am, it really does. I’m a nurse, medical interpreter/translator, and soon health educator because those are careers I can carry with me everywhere…and I care about where I can go because of the Army. We have two children because I feel that’s a perfect number to keep safe in a busy airport in a foreign country since I have a hand for each…and that also worries me because of the Army. I have two dogs even though I love animals because that’s usually the amount of animals allowed on a post per household. I have four cockatiels and all but one (my favorite) have plan Bs for when we PCS next. My internet connection fits in my pocket because when you PCS that’s where you sometimes need it. I don’t buy expensive furniture if I know it’s too fragile to move it across the ocean. Although we speak Spanish as our 1st language we taught our children English as their 1st because that makes more sense with a military life. I don’t put up stuff on the walls because I know one of us will get stuck removing and covering the holes when we PCS. I don’t even look at pretty curtains because they have to be practical and cheap so it doesn’t hurt when we move to a house with different size windows. I live in a tropical island and keep five boxes with Winter clothing for all the family in case we need to move to Alaska (I’d love that).

Thing is, I love my life. It might not fit some people’s standards but heck, not many get to marry their prince in shining armor and live happily ever after….going from adventure to adventure and from castles, to countries, to oceans, to islands, …..