The Sisterhood of the Traveling Wives

I have been so busy lately with work and tying up loose ends that I have not taken much time lately to have any fun. So this weekend I did just that. I was fortunate enough to spend the weekend with two very dear friends who came into my life because of the Marine Corps. We are all here at Camp Lejeune and bonded together because of our second job... being Marine's wives.

I have always had groups of friends that I was bonded to for various reasons whether it be because I have crammed for exams with them into the wee hours of the morning, acted like a belligerent frat boy with them until wee hours of the morning, gone through something tragic and life altering, been able to trust them, or just really loved being around them. Some friends come and some go and there are really very few friends that you can count on when you are down and out to be there for you. I was lucky at a young age to learn that some people have a deep sense of loyalty and friendship and some will cut and run at the earliest sign of need. I have also been fortunate to maintain some fantastic friendships with friends that I met before I married the Corps. However, this life has changed me. Drastically. Some friends get that and others dont. Quite frankly it isnt anyones burden to bare but my own and I am fine with that.

I suppose what I am trying to get at is that I have found a very small very bonded group of friends that I would trust with my life and it is because I have to and they would never let me down. I am 13 hours from any family. My husband is often thousands of miles away from home and I am left with friends to rely on when my tire goes flat, my dishwasher breaks, or God forbid worse. Lets be honest, some friends will hold your hair back and some will toss a rubber band at you and close the door on their way out.


Living my life as a Marine's wife has its ups and downs and often the ups far outweigh the downs. I consider myself so very lucky to have found friendship and sisterhood with the women that I have met along this journey. I have found friends that have opened their homes to me for holidays, driven me to the airport at 3am, comforted me when my husband has left on a last minute deployment and would never ever let me down. Friends that would never judge me. I will never be the same because of the experiences that I have been so lucky to have. Some day when I am an old women I will look back on this time in my life and know that I have made more than friends, I have found sisters.

The 4th of July is more than Lee Greenwood

I am preaching to the converted when I talk to a military spouse or her/his family about what the 4th of July means. This year however, I was brought to a point of reflection on this day that means so very much to so many people.
There is a framed photo of myself, my husband, and one of our dogs that sits in our living room from a 4th of July four years ago. It was the first that he and I shared together where his feet were on American soil. For me it was especially significant for that reason. Of course the picture is cropped at a funny angle and the dog is terrified, the picture is by no means magic. It is all that it encompasses that means everything to me.
My husband and I were dating at the time and hadnt been together all that long. He had just returned from nine long months in Iraq and I was obsessive about making him take me to see fireworks. We drove deep onto the Marine base and now that I look back I feel bad because as I oohhheed and ahhhhhed over each firework he cringed at the sound they made as they went off. It is now after five years together and four deployments that I now know those fireworks are more then the celebration of the birth of our United States. To a Marine they symbolize much more.
Each flash may remind of a flare, each boom of a mortar round, and each picnic a reminder that someone didnt come back. We have so much to celebrate and so much to be thankful for. One day can not ever be enough so we must look back on what we have every single day.
This year we are going back to watch fireworks in the same place that we did years ago and we will remember those that have fallen for freedom. We will take another photo, we will bring both dogs, and we will remember.  We can not thank you enough but we will do our best to live our lives to make you proud.