Exploration 2

Now that I have my interviews done, I am able to see a difference in the different branches of military and time. My first interview was with my friend who has three young kids, and her husband was in the Army and is now in the Idaho National Guard as a Staff Sergeant. My second interview was with my aunt and she has been a military wife for nearly thirty years. Her husband has been in the Air Force since the beginning and is now a Lieutenant Colonel. Both of these women have had similar experiences but at the same time very different ones too. There are obvious differences between these branches. One that stuck out to me was that the Army does move a family more often than the Air Force. Army moves about every two years, while the Air Force moves around every four. I do think that up rooting a family would be one of the hardest trials to deal with.

I have found out that the main attribute with army wives is being independent, being able to stand on your own two feet with out having a husband around. Most women who can’t stand on their own do fall. That is what the Family Readiness Groups (FRG’s) are for. They help in pretty much every aspect of life that is needed when their husband is deployed. I also realized that there are many different types of support groups for the wives.

My aunt is one of the wives who made the decision together with her husband about him joining the military. Since they made that choice and he enlisted thirty years ago they have had eight children, and they have been fortunate enough to only move twice and he has only been deployed twice. Julianne did sound very humbled about the past few years, she is aware that she is one of the fortunate ones who haven’t had to move to different parts of the world. Her husband Matthew also made a bug effort to keep their family in the same area, only looking for the jobs in the area they have lived.

The communication has vastly improved throughout the years too. The soldiers maybe communicated once a month to their families and now can communicate everyday to their families. It is crazy to think that even a few years ago the soldiers weren’t able to text, or even have web camera to see their loved ones. As the technology improves in our country so does the communication for the soldiers.