My Military Family

The Military Family has been one of the themes for Armed Forces Week 2021 and my immediate thoughts were to my heritage of military service - father, mother, grandfather, great-grandfather etc…it goes back generations! All volunteers, all professional soldiers.

But then I had a re-think.

My military family has grown so much so that if I named everyone I would be sure to either bore you senseless or miss someone out. All I can do is perhaps illustrate what my military family does.

The shared experience is priceless. The military community it is about finding that mutual place where you can laugh, compare, laugh again, reminisce and reflect. We have not all been on the same operations, lived in the same places but there are cross-overs because we belong to a great community.

The joy is that this can be with all members of our community. I sit and listen to wives of older veterans (only women due to regulations at the time), and their stories make my life seem content & secure. Recounting their stories has been a great way for me to see how our community has evolved around the core beliefs.

In our community I have always found a 5 degrees of separation or less - when I can remember names! The joy of seeing someone again makes any years disappear into the air as you catch-up, giggle and yes…gossip! Needless to say life is not always rosy and there have been moments where I wonder ‘why?’, were the comments really necessary?

Much of what I know as a military family stems from being abroad for most of my life, predominately Germany. For the 16 years I lived there with my own family we saw constant deployments. That is when the military family becomes its strongest.

It is the knowledge of shared values that makes life so much easier.

I had 4 children under 5, we had just moved into our house in Osnabrück and my husband had deployed on exercise to Oman. At 3 o’clock one morning I knew I had to get my 1-year old to a hospital as she had breathing difficulties. I knew no-one.

I knew that there was one family where the husband had not deployed. I locked my children in our house to cross the road and knock on their door: ‘I know we haven’t met but I need to go to hospital. could you look after my other 3 children.’ There was no hesitation, on either side.

There are not many communities left outside of the military environment where you can do that, ours is one where you can. It is so crucial to know who our neighbours are. The military life throws many things at us that we cannot plan for, that people cannot understand. What may seem trivial to some civilians is actually our way of life. There are unwritten codes which we live by: the values and standards; the integrity; the courage.

Many who do not come from a tradition of military life feel this life is thrust upon them, some feeling they have stepped into an alternate world. It is not for everybody, you marry the person you love not the army life, but when the strengths can be seen then the rewards can be reaped.

My military family sometimes has no name, just actions. In the words of Maya Angelou:

“I've learned that people

will forget what you said,

people will forget

what you did,

but people will never forget

how you made them feel”

My military family makes me feel secure, supported and safe in the knowledge that I can ask anything from anyone at anytime and they will be there.

Thank you all for continuing to be there.