A new blogger friend

I got an email the other day from a sewer asking permission to use some of my BOMs for a quilt along on her blog.  She included her blog address so I checked her out.  She’s a young military wife with two small children who quilts in her free time while her husband is deployed.  Reading her blog and emails has brought back many memories of my days as a military wife and as a mother of two small children.  I feel a bond with this blogger that only a military wife would understand, and a quilting connection too!

Unlike Katie, in my 22 years as a DW (Dependant Wife) I was rarely separated from John.  We were so fortunate in that, something we were extremely thankful for.  John went to basic training alone, the longest nine weeks of my life.  He called me often, but I missed him so much.  He kept telling me he was going to be stationed right there at Lackland AFB but it wasn’t official so I couldn’t join him until it was official.  One day I got tired of waiting for it to be official and packed up the car as full as I could pack it with “things” including our two cats.  Then I called John and said I am coming and hung up, locked up the house and got in the car and started my drive to Texas.  He was pretty mad at me when I called him that night from Virginia to tell him where I was, but there was no turning back… I made it safely all the way from NJ to San Antonio and only got lost on base trying to find him. 

There were schools he attended, I stayed home and worked and they really weren’t that long.  One school was almost three months long and one of his sisters moved in with me to keep me company, so time went faster.   When he went to OTS (Officer Training School) I was lonely without him, but managed.  I drove down from Delaware to San Antonio for graduation.  The next separation was school for his new job in England, but this time I had to stay home, we now had two little boys who kept me busy.  When John went to another training session of some kind for eight weeks before we moved to England, the boys and I visited family in SC and DE.  In England he was home most of the time.  In Germany at first he was working long hours… war time.. then he was home but we couldn’t bother him as he studied for his masters degree.  But he was home with us.  Our final assignment before retirement was at the Pentagon and the only thing that kept us apart was traffic and we waited dinner for him every night. 

One of the main reasons we retired when we did was to stay together.  After 22 years in the Air Force and not one remote assignment, we knew it was coming.  We either retired or were separated, so we retired.  Yes, I was a very lucky DW unlike so many DWs these days, whose husbands go off for years at a time.  I admire those families, I know how hard it must be.  I thank each and every one of the men and women who serve our country.  For those who are active duty now, and for all those who served before them, I can not thank them enough.

And Katie, thanks for jogging the memories.