Making it in the MilLife

In 1984, then-President Ronald Reagan proclaimed the Friday before Mother’s Day to be designated as Military Spouse Appreciation Day. I hope you all know that your service member could not do his/her job without your support.

I was privileged and honored to attend the Military Spouse of the Year Awards held yesterday in Virginia Beach. Honored because too often, the contributions and sacrifices of military spouses often go unnoticed and unheralded. For one day, local businesses, media, military leadership and national sponsors such as MOAA joined together to participate in an event to highlight and celebrate the “Heroes at Home”. The awards program was conceived by the Military Newspapers of Virginia and they say it has grown every year – yesterday’s luncheon drew over 300 people.

It was amazing to part of an event to celebrate the contributions of all spouses. Regardless of whether or not you were a nominee or an attendee, every spouse understood that they were part of a very exclusive “sisterhood” with its own culture and lingo. (I put sisterhood in quotations because there were some male spouse nominees whose phenomenal contributions to their military communities remind us that the selflessness of military spouses knows no gender.)

The keynote speaker, Deb Kloeppel (President and Founder of MSCCN – www.msccn.org) kept us all in stitches when she outlined the differences between civilian and military spouses. I can’t do her speech justice without the visuals, but suffice it to say, the bottom line was that when our servicemembers are out there doing their duty, they’re not concerned with the pay parity, diminishing benefits or the increased ops tempo. They’re thinking about you, their spouses and their families. The fact that you hold it all together while they’re gone and do it with such style speaks to the amazing person you are…to the amazing people all spouses are.

I do remember one thing Deb said that really resonated – “For all the spouses who have fallen apart and then put themselves back together again to continue on…” She touched on the thing that I marvel at most. Military spouses are the most genuine group of people you ever hope to meet. We don’t pretend to have it all together. We let the world see our flaws and our shortcomings. We do fall apart when that deployment is extended, or when that next deployment comes way too soon. But, I think what sets us apart is that we do put ourselves back together, better than before, steel ourselves and soldier on. Because we know what we do is important, it matters.

Military spouses make the mission possible and deserve far more than one day to recognize their contributions and sacrifices, but it’s a good start.

Happy Military Spouse Appreciation Day. Thanks for all you do.