I have had the wonderful opportunity to partake in a compilation of Army Wife essays thanks to Kate, Martha and Ginna! These three women have come up with the wonderful idea of collecting essays from across the globe to create a book of stories from actual Army Wives. I will keep you posted on the progress and success of this project. If you want to read more about these ladies, you can follow them on their Blog.
Below is my story about my first Army friends (the other 4 women in this blog!), and how WE came to be linked forever!
Army Roots
As a young child, I remember the ease of the school playground. When I was new to school, all I had to do to make my first friend was say, “I like your sweater!” And Angela and I became best friends for the next several years. As years went on, we no longer played on the little kid’s playground, but we gathered in the halls of our high school and were either popular or not just by image, clothing, or a specific social circle. I absolutely loved high school, my friends, boyfriends and my extracurricular activities. I basically “rolled with the punches” all through my high school and college days. Life was simple.
As a young child, I remember the ease of the school playground. When I was new to school, all I had to do to make my first friend was say, “I like your sweater!” And Angela and I became best friends for the next several years. As years went on, we no longer played on the little kid’s playground, but we gathered in the halls of our high school and were either popular or not just by image, clothing, or a specific social circle. I absolutely loved high school, my friends, boyfriends and my extracurricular activities. I basically “rolled with the punches” all through my high school and college days. Life was simple.
When my husband (then fiancé) and I decided that we were going to begin this Army life together, I was quite terrified. I had lived in a world of comfort and simplicity. I knew everyone, every place, and everything around me. When I heard the term “Army,” much like any other civilian, I immediately thought… DEPLOYMENT! Yes, soldiers in the Army do deploy, but there is more to Army life than merely deployment alone.
When I looked at the world around me, I realized that even though our immediate family and friends were not familiar with the military world, it did not mean that I was alone. Ok – so maybe it took me a while to comprehend that I was, in fact, not alone, but I did, very soon after my husband’s basic training.
In the letters that were written throughout basic training, I got to learn about what soldiers go through in preparation of serving our country. I read about my husband’s thoughts, opinions, and overflowing emotions, but I also got to know who his battle buddies were. It was through these letters that I realized somewhere in Dearborn, Michigan, another girlfriend was learning she was also not alone. This other girl and I crossed paths at Basic Training graduation (Fort Knox), but amidst all of the excitement of getting to see my husband, we were never introduced. She is, however, in the background of several of the pictures I took of OUR Soldiers, and we probably even bumped into each other while taking the same picture of our husbands and their friends.
I flew, several times, from Phoenix, AZ to Atlanta, GA, and commuted on GROOME Transportation from Atlanta to visit my husband at Fort Benning (Columbus, GA) while he was attending Officer Candidate School. Fort Benning changed my life. It was at Fort Benning that my husband and I and his battle buddies, along with their better halves (which included the girl from Dearborn!), were finally introduced. I believe all five of us women could feel the relief. We knew that from that moment forward that we would forever be friends because we were linked to this very special and new experience. This, in turn, also meant we were never alone.
That first night, at dinner, we all exchanged names, email addresses and phone numbers. I had never felt more thankful to finally have someone to email or speak with about how we felt in terms of separation, anxiety, future MOS’s, PCSing etc. Just to have someone on the other end who knew exactly how I felt was comforting. We even had the pleasure of returning to Fort Benning on many occasions to visit our Soldiers. We spent Thanksgiving together, and even lived near one another, though temporary, at Uchee Creek during OCS Graduation.
Looking back on the two years that I have known these four women, we have experienced engagements, weddings, pregnancies and babies, PCS moves, multiple trainings, deployments and every other thing that life handed us. We have stuck together through phone calls, text messages, vacation visits, emails and blogs. Maybe building these friendships was not as simple as playing on the playground and commenting on someone’s sweater, but either way you look at it, God intended for us to meet and I could not be more thankful for these four battle buddies of my own. They will forever define my Army roots.
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I hope you enjoyed it :) And P.S. I love my battle buddies :)
~Sapperette
