Taking A Stand

I really wanted to write this last night but I knew I needed to sleep on it first and wake up with a fresh mind and a better mood. So here goes…

I was in an angry mood yesterday. I was a little over tired, work was a little crazy at the end of the day, and I’m a litte impatient as we crawl to the end of this deployment. All of those little things, and a lady who doesn’t know how to drive, put me on edge. I even thought to myself, I shouldn’t be driving right now because I am that angry.

Fort Benning is transitioning to an automated gate system but the communication to the ID cardholders has been terrible. After being told by the FRSA that the system isn’t going into affect anytime soon (not his fault, that’s what he was probably told) a wife posted to our facebook page a link to a post by the “Military Housing Issues and Concerns” facebook page. For those of you who don’t know, housing is not run my the military and this is not an official military page.

That being said – they posted an announcement about the new system that is being implemented well, next month. In order to use the new system we are required to go register our ID cards, in person, on Fort Benning. Sponsors, aka the active duty soldiers, are not allowed to do this for their family members. The hours to do this? Monday to Friday 9-12 and 1-430.

I am overly opinionated and made a comment about the hours being too limited for those of us who work a normal work day (i.e, not a 3rd shift). My comment was not rude and I obviously understand that this announcement was posted on a page that has nothing to do with the new ID system. I was actually hoping to find a little agreement in the absurdity of trying to get thousands and thousands of people registered in a few weeks during only a 7 1/2 hour window in the middle of the afternoon on weekdays.

A back and forth started between myself and who I quickly found out is a former soldier who runs the page. I said a few things I should not have (the worst being “thanks for your smart ass response”) but I later went back and deleted those things I said out of absolute anger.

What I wanted to share out of this long-winded story is this:

We, as in the spouses, should not have to fight to have our own careers. It is 2013 and I thought we were beyond this. While I do regret responding so quickly and not thinking before I reacted, I am not sorry I stood up for what I believe is right. Women wouldn’t have the right to vote if we didn’t stand up and speak. This issue is quite petty compared to the profound women’s rights movement but it’s still something. 

Not a single person on that page came out and agreed with me. There are 715 people that like that page. To say I was a little shocked would be an understatement. I started to wonder if I was out of line, perhaps it was crazy of me to think that I should have to ask my boss at my civilian boss if I could have off for yet another thing for the Army. Not until I posted that same picture to my facebook page did I have someone agree that the man who runs that page was out of line.

Are you a working military spouse? Do you think we make sacrifices in our own careers because of what our spouse does for a living?

I’m Back!

Well, as back as one can be while planning a wedding, a trip to see the fiance next month, working two jobs (that’s not saying much tho), and trying to figure out what happens after June 11th 🙂 I just like to make myself sound busy, I was a busy busy busy college student and I sort of miss those 5:30am-9pm kind of days. Only sort of.

Having Eric home for the holidays was one of the best gifts I could have asked for. We enjoyed a wonderful 12 days of wedding planning, arguing about wedding planning, me telling him we need to do more wedding planning, wedding dress buying, tux rental picking out, registering, finding a ceremony site and officiant, arguing about wedding planning, and some more wedding planning. That was my Wedding Wednesdays all rolled into a short paragraph because I’m up to my eye balls in wedding and would rather not bore you all with the details 🙂

I can’t believe Christmas happened. I was never in the holiday spirit, and I like to think Christmas is my favorite holiday, and then it was gone! I think a big reason for missing the whole thing was my excitement for Eric to get home and the…sorry I have to say it again….wedding. I’m so excited to have next year to spend with him, in our own place, with our own tree. And of course the sweet soldier-in-his-class-A’s ornament I bought him. I also made him a huge Colt’s tie blanket that is quite amazing and I’m sad to have it gone because yes, I slept with it before he came home haha.

New Year’s Eve was…well, I was glad to have someone to kiss at midnight. I wish he had been a bit more sober but we’ll just leave it at that. He did pay dearly for that the next day though haha. Love you babe.

After Eric got back down to Georgia a friend of his told him about an apartment he went and looked at and I googled it and found out the company owns about ten nice apartment communities in Columbus. To prevent any stalker-ish activities from happening in the future I won’t mention the place we looked at but if you have ever lived near Fort Benning or in the Columbus, GA area I would love to talk to you. Eric and I are planning a trip for me to go down there at the end of February and because that might be the only time I’m there before I move down we want to get a good idea of what we will do for housing.

I did catch up on everyone’s blogs that I missed while I was temporarily MIA and I was glad to hear mostly everyone had a good Christmas and New Years. Hopefully 2011 brings good luck and happiness, and to those without loved ones, a wonderful homecoming 🙂

Eric was assigned to a platoon when he got back down to Georgia and was given a tentative deployment date so that kind of made me a little sad. It’s about two years away though and I know that date will change many times before it gets here. It’s also kind of too far away to really think about but don’t think I won’t be enjoying every moment him and I will get together when we are no longer a long distance couple.

Alright this is getting very long and due to my tiredness and recently diagnosed bronchitis I was too lazy to upload any pictures. Don’t worry though, pictures and something else very exciting are on their way!