Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Seagoon on April 19, 2006, 04:02:58 PM
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Hi Guys,
I know some of you have co-workers, friends, and family with husbands who are deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan and I wanted to make an audio resource available especially for wives going through their first or second deployment experience.
A little while ago one of the ladies in our church spoke to our Titus 2 women's group on the subject of "Surviving and Thriving Through the Deployment Cycle." Her qualifications for being able to address this subject include:
She served as officer in the Army herself including deployments to the gulf
She has been married for many years to a Green Beret officer
She is the mother of 5 kids
She has been the leader of an FRG (Family Readiness Group) for several years
She has been through dozens of deployments and TDYs and learned how to survive them
Hopefully it will have some tips that might be useful to wives going through the same thing.
Here is the MP3 audio link to the talk (http://www.providencepca.com/titus2/lisaburton.mp3)
- SEAGOON
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No one seems to worry about us Husbands that actually have to deploy. It sucks just as much on our end of it.:D I mean geez it's only half a year (at least in the Navy) sometimes more but not too often.
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My advise would be to send nekid pictures and not fool around while hubby is away.
I feel strongly about both points....sorry Seagoon.;)
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"fool around while hubby is away."
People who do that deserve to be stoned to death. Men too, for those men who have wives in the military.
J_A_B
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ASTAC, hopefully even the Navy gives you advice on what to do when you deploy. If not, try to look useful and remember not to leave without permission.
;)
But seriously, my experience has been that while even the greenest recruit has tons of training and information thrown his way about what to do when he is over there, very, very little practical information is given to the wives and mothers who are left behind. The assumption is often, "they aren't going anywhere, how tough can it be to just stay home for 9 months?" Few people realize how difficult those months of being without a husband and/or a father can be. Unfortunately, as a result, two of the most popular options are go home to mom and dad - which can be disastrous as far as maintaining a marriage is concerned, or simply stress out, then file for divorce.
You'd be amazed at the long-term effects this has on troop retention, especially when guys realize that re-upping will probably mean the end of their marriage. I know plenty of men who are more afraid that the result of their tour in Iraq will be that they end-up only being able to visit their children on weekends and holidays than that they will get killed or seriously injured. Statistically speaking, they are much more likely to lose their family than their life while deployed.
- SEAGOON
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Originally posted by J_A_B
"fool around while hubby is away."
People who do that deserve to be stoned to death. Men too, for those men who have wives in the military.
J_A_B
Not always just the ones that were left behind...On my last ship we had 45 females as part of our "integrated" crew..of that about half were married...but all 45 hooked up with someone on the ship...and most of the time with married men.
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Good point ASTAC, and I agree with you--those who go and fool around are every bit as bad.
J_A_B
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Originally posted by J_A_B
Good point ASTAC, and I agree with you--those who go and fool around are every bit as bad.
J_A_B
Carefull, you are going to upset the people on the board, who can't controll themselves and think cheating is perfectly fine. (for them I am sure they would feel different if they were the cheaty).
Cause we are just animals too you know? We can't controll urges any better then the animals and thats the perfect reason to cheat on your spose.
Your word, and not lying and honor mean little in the face of the animal urges of some.
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Hey thanks Seagoon, I have a friend whose husband is out there right now. I'll send her the link.
:aok
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Originally posted by ASTAC
Not always just the ones that were left behind...On my last ship we had 45 females as part of our "integrated" crew..of that about half were married...but all 45 hooked up with someone on the ship...and most of the time with married men.
I would like to meet this "someone" some day. He is one lucky dog.
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Originally posted by ASTAC
Not always just the ones that were left behind...On my last ship we had 45 females as part of our "integrated" crew..of that about half were married...but all 45 hooked up with someone on the ship...and most of the time with married men.
thats just the way it is. people get horny. a military occupation isnt good for a long term relationship. why do they keep recruiting married folks and wonder about the divrorce rate, its beyond me.
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Jodie's got yer girl:eek:
There would be no where to hide if i were in the military and my wife cheated on me.
It would be a death sentence for her the dude she did it with and everyone in his family i could find before the cops got me.
There is no excuse for any wife or husband of a military person serving this country to cheat period! get a divorce but dont cheat while he or she is out risking there lives for us.
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I get the weird impression from some of the posts here that it's tacitly ok for deployed military to have extra-marital sex, but not for the spouse at home.
Anyone else?
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As long as there's been a military, there's been military wives left at home. This ain't a 'new' condition.
But, in a touchy-feely weepy gutless kinda way; thanks to the terrific job we've done as parents and as a society in rearing our young, we've got a marvelous excuse mechanisim with a manual for wives on how to do what they should have the common sense to do from jump street.
So.. here it is.. my Rant of The Week:
"Dottie, quit feeling sorry for yourself, quit blaming your husband, quit blaming the Army, quit hanging out in bars and quit humping the neighboorhood. He's doing his job, and if you don't love him and can't remain faithful and won't give him your support and understanding while he does his thankless duty... a DUTY, you vacuous ditz; that men have been doing to preserve the saftey of their women and childern since history BEGAN...
.. then, you dumb spoiled whiney brat; WTF did you get married FOR?"
Sheesh.
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Originally posted by Chairboy
I get the weird impression from some of the posts here that it's tacitly ok for deployed military to have extra-marital sex, but not for the spouse at home.
Anyone else?
It's been that way for thousands of years, nothin' new here.
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Chairboy,
Actually, for a long time there have been illicit spouses "clubs" that spring into action (literally) the day their military spouses deploy. A famous one in the UK would place a garden rake or broom next to the front door, indicating that they were looking for a man to "take care of things".
That was just one example... Many bases have this sort of thing go on. In San Diego, if a guy wants casual no-strings-attached sex, all he has to do is go to some of the country bars right after the carrier group sets sail. You'll find all the young women looking for a no-comittment "good time" you could ever want.
Sad, but very very true. Lots of guys come home after 6 month deployments to find their wives are 4 or 5 months pregnant...
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edit (wrong button)
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Don't think it's anything new unfortunately. The world has allways been full of scumbags. I read once that in the 1930s the government began some sort of national blood typing program. They discovered that 15% of children from married families were illegitimate and they discontinued the program.
Last time I went to college, almost all of the married people were banging eachother, yet none of the single people hooked up with classmates. In the working sector it's just as bad, at least 60% of my coworkers are female. Good god talk about sexual harrasment!
One thing that I saw that lead me to believe that it is a cultural thing is that the married pillipinas, indians and pakis don't play that, and some of them are rather attractive. I haven't noticed the ruski women to be sluts either, maybe they're good at hiding it, they're generally kind of shy. The few aussie women I've worked with were as unabashed as americans, except they liked to joke more about it. But at least the aussie women know how to flirt like an adult. An american woman might start out flirting with you by doing something like playfully blocking your passage through a doorway, or something childish. An aussie woman will usually start by introducing herself. The only british woman I ever worked with was a lesbian nun, so I have no opinion yet of them.
I've noticed that it's very common in this region of the US. They'll mess around on their husbands and even joke about it, but they'd be shocked and offended when I make a disparaging remark about church, and downright huffy when I joked about the saints.
They military goes a long way to encourage people to get married and remarried. That's mostly for personnel retention purposes. No civilian employer would ever get away with paying employees who are married 25-30% more than their single coworkers, just because they are married. And yes in almost every field unit the senior nco's remind people to call home first when returning from the field. And there are lots of guys with stories about coming home and finding their exwife on the living room floor with some dude.
Another thing the guys would do was communicate with their Ho's via a barracks dweller's answering machine. Another trick was paying somebody else to do their all-night CQ duty and to tell his wife if she should call that he's out making his area checks.
They say that men cheat more, I think that's pure bs. One thing I've noticed about women who cheat is that they don't seem to feel any remorse, they have a sense of entitlement.
I've noticed that most women either don't belive me, or find it baffling, when I inform them that men respect prostitutes more than they respect adulterous women and sluts.
There are two types of people, one type feels that ultimate betrayal of your own family members is just an indulgent vice.
I speculate that in large this is passed down from their parents. If one of their parents messed around, they won't see it as such a big deal, after all, mommy/daddy was the best man/woman in the whole world.
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The talk that started this thread does assume that both parties don't want to cheat on one another and that the both consider it to be wrong (dare I use the word sinful?) The speaker does also give some sound advice on guarding the heart, I generally give the the same sort of advice to the guys going over there, including the necessity of being willing to be different from all the other guys in your unit on several levels.
Obviously, it is not easy to be separated from one's spouse, especially when there are overwhelming pressures both within the society and within the military culture attempting to tear your marriage apart. It used to be that society worked to a certain extent to keep marriages together, and in some societies that is still the case. Now exactly the opposite is true in the USA. We are awash in porn, no fault divorce, workplace affairs, low views of marriage, and a spreading amorality regarding sex.
I commented to one maternity nurse that when my parents had their last child my father received a wrist band from the hospital that said "Father," now I receive a wristband saying "Significant Other." The nurse replied, "well honey, you have to understand around here, a married couple where the husband is the biological father of the baby isn't the norm." And from our observation she was right, the place was crammed full of young girls with useless and uncomfortable looking gangsta "boyfriends" who hold the baby as though it was an alien, spend their time watching their girlfriends TV, and then cut out as soon as possible. One maternity nurse apologized but said that if she and the staff got their way, the wristband for them would read "Sperm Donor." She said that she has learned to treat the Grandma in the way she would the father, because in her experience is that it's grandma who ends up "raising" the child anyway.
But, I'm told this is what "progress" looks like and that it's much better than biblical ethics or the kind of marriage and child-rearing that the bible teaches. Apparently progress means that we look and act more and more like a pack of wild dogs every day. Well society, no thanks, I'll pass on progress and stick to the old paths.
As I said, it is difficult, and near impossible for military families to stay faithful and raise up children, but it is possible. I've seen it done and can point to families that have succeeded in spite of careers spent in the military. My experience has been that here as in salvation the key is contained in Matthew 19:26 (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matt%2019:26;&version=50;).
- SEAGOON
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Dang Seagoon....reading your account sure does sound like a lot of judgements you make of people based on appearence and knowing nothing of their personnal circumstances. Hmmm...now what was that thing the bible says about judging others??...can't remember the verse, but pretty sure it is in there somewhere.
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Hello BigGun,
Originally posted by BigGun
Dang Seagoon....reading your account sure does sound like a lot of judgements you make of people based on appearence and knowing nothing of their personnal circumstances. Hmmm...now what was that thing the bible says about judging others??...can't remember the verse, but pretty sure it is in there somewhere.
The verse you are looking for is Matthew 7:1 "Judge not, that you be not judged" which has replaced John 3:16 as the best known verse from the bible in all of America. That's the one verse from the bible which, when taken out of context, everyone likes. Its far more popular than say: "Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. which comes only twelve verses later.
Anywho BigGun if I gave you the impression that I came to a snap decision based on appearances, or that I think I have a right or duty to feel superior to others, please forgive me. I assure you that neither of those are the case. I should have mentioned that any comments I make on dogpack morality are being made by an ex-member.
The comments regarding the hospital are actually not based primarily on my observations. They are based largely on three long conversations with experienced nurses (including the RN in charge of a maternity ward in a Philadelphia area hospital) who work there and from having spent a lot of time in hospitals, either for the birth of my own children, or visiting members of my congregation. I also get to speak with hospital chaplains and other pastors who visit frequently, so I assure you my conclusions weren't based simply on a desire to go and judge others and then come to snap decisions.
The other observations come from several years of pastoring in a military town, and the data that I get from speaking with troops, chaplains, officers, JAG lawyers, and reading stats. You can of course feel free to differ with my conclusions, I understand we live in a time when the only thing that cannot be tolerated is an unwillingness to tolerate everything and accept that there are no absolutes and that everything is relative. But hey, my experience is that there is a narrow way that leads to life, and a broad way that leads inevitably to destruction.
- SEAGOON
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"Now exactly the opposite is true in the USA. We are awash in porn, no fault divorce..."
I don't think porn has any effect on whether people cheat on each other, at least not among people who are happy with each other deep down. Granted, if you married an ugly person and don't really like him/her, it's possible that stuff like porn might make you all that much more aware of your own dissatisfaction, but then the porn isn't the root cause. Of course, if you ARE happy with your spouse, that porno has little to no appeal; I find that porno is so boring and silly it isn't even worth my time (I'd rather watch C-Span) and the "actresses" aren't any better looking than my wifey anyway.
No fault divorce probably hasn't affected extramarital affairs, but it doubtlessly contributed to society's generally low opinion of the institution of marriage. Even I have that opinion--as it stands in current society, marriage no longer serves any purpose. Two people simply living with each other share as much commitment as a married couple has these days.
I suspect another major contributor to the decline of the traditional family unit is how badly most courts always screw over the man in any sort of breakup. We have one judge in my own county who ALWAYS assumes the man must be at fault no matter what (eg. if the wife was cheating on the guy, it's still his fault somehow). Unsurprisingly, the marriage rate has been sinking like a rock here, and it's the same story across much of the country. A lot of men are deathly afraid of forming any sort of commitment with a woman due to the legal threat, and it's that much worse if the woman already has a kid.
I think, to an extent, the issue of marriage sort of gets in the way of the truth that cheating on someone is wrong. It's wrong when you're married, but it's wrong when you're not married, too--and it's also wrong for single people to knowingly sleep with married men or women.
J_A_B
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Originally posted by Chairboy
I get the weird impression from some of the posts here that it's tacitly ok for deployed military to have extra-marital sex, but not for the spouse at home.
Anyone else?
Not in my book, a cheater is a cheater, currently serving, or a wife or just a normal husband or wife.
When you get married you give you word you won't cheat, if you are to much of a slimey pile of dung to stick to that... you are worthless scum.
You want to **** anything that moves, don't get married. You are married and want to **** around get a divorce. Don't use the same excuse childmelestors use.
You want to get married but cant keep it (dick/or girlparts) in your pants for you spouse only, please do not reproduce, cause your kids will be worthless just like you.