Spouse Blog

So, I was watching the drama packed [read scandalous] season premiere of Army Wives when it occured to me that civilians watching the show must think it’s way over the top.  They probably dismiss some of the scenarios as improbable.  But, little do they know, that those dramas don’t just play themselves out on the small screen. 

• After all, how many military families do you know within your own circles who have lived apart because of different circumstances.  Okay, so it may not be because their underage daughter is trying to marry a soldier, but I know plenty of families who have let mom or dad move on ahead while the family stayed behind to finish off the school year so that the kids didn’t have to move in the middle of a critical year.
• Civilians might scoff at the possibility that poor Frank would find out about his wife’s indiscretions from a fellow soldier over in the desert, but little do they know about the power of the spouse network.  I remember a story one of our friends told us about the time her husband was TDY to Panama (ages and ages ago).  The crew was down at the beach when they noticed a woman who was under the weather and vomitting.  Ever chivalrous, her husband helped the woman back to her room.  After he got her settled in, he figured his day was shot anyway, so returned to his hotel room to check in with his family.  When he finally got through on the phone, my friend’s first question to him was, “So what is this that I hear about you heading off to a hotel room with some drunken woman?”  In the time it had taken him to help the woman to her room, one of the other crew members had already called his wife, who had called my girlfriend to “fill her in”.  Civilians may question the probability of getting “bad” news in the middle of the desert with questionable connectivity, but military spouses know better.
• And Denise, facing swirling rumours about her infidelity, being confronted by her friends and then being turned away from the home of her best friend, literally left out in the cold…. would civilians view that as callous?  Could they possibly understand how conflicted even best friends can become when faced with infidelities or any transgression that might split the focus of the deployed servicemember? 

Do you think civilians get it?  At our symposium in Virginia Beach, Tanya Biank who is the author of Army Wives invoked Alfred Hitchcock who said, “Movies are like real life with the boring parts taken out.”  When asked by someone in the audience if she really thought the show did a good job of portraying our lives, Tanya had a great line, “A drama can’t be a drama unless there’s drama.”  I thought of that when I was watching the show, because underneath the drama of a lifetime soap opera, there were kernels of our military lives.  I’m excited about the upcoming season…..

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