I'd love to be able to say that, yes, Army Wives is a correct representation of what we army wives go through on a day to day basis. It couldn't be further from the truth. I watch Army Wives every sunday night but not because I feel connected to it. In fact, I feel very disconnected from it. It's all fantasy. We don't have drama that clears itself up after a couple of weeks then we're magically ok with very little there to scar us. You will never catch me hanging out with the post commander's wife. That just does NOT happen. For several reasons but the most compelling reason is because you would never catch us in the same circles. Not dissing what Army Wives is trying to achieve. I think that the show gives civilians a glimpse into what it's KIND OF like. But the truth is much harder than what they are willing to put on tv. I think that's my goal here. Even when things get bad, I won't sugar coat it and tell you that it's ok because that's what we army wives go through.
To pick up where I left off last time, when my husband came home in September of '03 and we got married he had to turn around 2 weeks later and go back to Korea. I had to return to college and pretend I was ok. I played the role of pining wife really well. Everything revolved around him being in Korea and me being here. Oh pity me. This was a year or so after things had started getting really bad in Iraq, but him deploying to Iraq wasn't really a thought in my mind. I was so focused on him being in Korea that I wasn't thinking he could be in any other place. Much less an actual war zone. In the middle of my fall semester, he came down on orders for his next duty station. We were being sent to Fort Lewis, Washington. We would be moving to Washington in the middle of my spring semester, so I wasn't going to be able to finish my junior year of college at Murray State. We decided that I should fly to Korea the week before Christmas and spend two weeks with him in Korea. By this time we hadn't spent more than two consecutive weeks together in over a year. I thought it was brilliant. However, before I could even get there he was already accusing me of cheating on him with one of my very best guy friends. That doesn't really bode well for a new marriage. All of the guys he was friends with in his unit had him convinced that I was cheating on him. After the 18 hour flight to Korea I was exhausted and in no mood to do anything but sleep. I was going to be staying in the barracks with him (with special permission from his higher-ups) so I unfortunately had to be introduced to everyone that we came across. I got very, hm how do I put this, not very nice looks from a lot of them. Some of them were very nice to (which I found out later is because they wanted to have their way with me). One friend in particular decided to tell me that if I ever did anything to hurt my husband I would regret it. Great. What a way to start off the trip. Over the next two weeks I got a crash course in barracks life. Not only was is barracks life, it was OVERSEAS barracks life. There was more drinking than you can imagine. Everything revolved around going out to the "ville" and getting drunk. A great majority of these guys were married and you wouldn't have known it to talk to them. I was an oddity in Korea. A white girl that wasn't a slut. Not only that I wasn't military. In those barracks, if you were female you were more than likely having a relationship with more than one guy. I hate that that is the case, but it's the truth. On top of that, they were even MORE likely to be making fun of them for it behind their backs. The " Barracks Bicycle". Everyone's had a ride. So after everyone getting to know me and realize that I was NOT the type of person to cheat on their husband, I became a target. My husband's friends got very protective of me. I wasn't allowed to go anywhere alone. And this is where I met Jenny. Jenny's husband was in my husband's unit. I wouldn't really say they were friends but they were friendly towards each other. Jenny's husband was a real piece of work. She was there "against the rules". She wasn't just there for a visit, she was living outside the post in town in a very very crappy little apartment and she was working on post. She wasn't allowed to live in family housing on post because her husband wasn't an officer so she wasn't sponsored there, just like I wasn't. She and her husband were also newly married so we got to be very close friends. A couple of days before I was supposed to leave my husband begged me to not go back home. I mean literally begged me. I don't even really know why. We had been fighting about EVERYTHING. Money mostly. But he liked to keep me close to him. I think he was so insecure about our relationship that even though he knew I wouldn't cheat on him he still worried about it. He was (and still is) a very insecure guy. So I purposefully missed my flight and stayed in Korea for another two months. We were constantly broke. My husband had gotten $5000 as a sign on bonus after he completed AIT in March of 2003. To this day I have no idea what he spent it on. My only guess is alcohol and movies. It was gone by July. It was supposed to pay for our honeymoon but it was gone, so our honeymoon got put on THREE of my personal credit cards. He didn't pay for anything. The 2 1/2 months I spent in Korea is a blur of alcohol and fighting. I don't even have any pictures of me IN Korea. How sad is that? The most beautiful thing I saw in Korea was the plane I got on to leave.
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