My friend is an Army veteran. She’s even parachuted from airplanes and she’s smart as a whip. Married to a philosopher who used to teach as West Point, she’s moving with him and their boys to the Middle East so he can be military attache at the US Embassy.
I met her at a nonprofit seminar – she was running a miitary families organization and I was looking for business. We got to talking. She believes there is a “military class” of people who follow one another, from generation to generation, into the service. Because they pass military life on within their families, civilans have gradually lost any connection to them.
Educated, comfortable American civilians often don’t even know a soldier. Not one. So she and I decided we would use the Internet to break down the walls – bring women together online to get to know each other and help reduce the tension and distrust between the two cultures. That never worked out; too many interests competing and not enough money to make it happen.
We, however, did cross all those barriers. Politics, religion, lifestyle. . . so much different. Still, we could go to lunch and keep talking until one of us realized someone needed to be picked up or invited to dinner or pitched for a new contract. There is always just so much to talk aboutl
And so my dear much respected and valued friend – Godspeed. Embrace the exotic as I know you will and cram in as many adventures as you can, as I know you will. I’m back here – eager to hear about your adventures and always ready for lunch!
That is such an interesting observation, Cindy! It is true, particularly few civilians know career military professionals, even if we knew people who did a tour of duty in order to pay for college.
One of my closest friends is married to a Coast Guard officer. As a lawyer, she’s been required to take the Bar exam in order to practice in Maryland, Florida, and Hawaii, and only avoided having to take Minnesota as well because she was hired by Legal Aid, which has special status in the Minnesota Bar.
Most lawyers only ever have to get admitted once, and military lawyers can practice federal law anywhere, but their spouses go through things the rest of us would never dream of tolerating.