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A year ago today I dropped James off at his battalion, hugged and kissed him goodbye, hoping that the next nine months would fly by and he’d return home safely from his deployment. He returned in November and while we’ve been living it up we made a big decision in the last few months: we bought a house. A HOUSE! Our own freaking house.
About five years ago I took the train from NYC’s Grand Central Station to Garrison, NY on MetroNorth for the first time. Little did I know that the trip would become a regular occurrence over the next few years.
I dated James throughout his time at West Point, from plebe (freshman) year through graduation. While we did not qualify for the 2% that make it from high school through graduation, we were pretty darn close having met in October of his first year. Continue reading “West Point through the Eyes of a Girlfriend”
When James returned from deployment it was pure joy. But we’ve both had to give and get from each other to make sure that living together still goes well. Things have definitely changed in our lives since before deployment so figuring out new schedules and chores can cause some bumps in the road. Here are some things we’ve been doing to ease those bad days and make them all good:
There are good and bad stories about FRGs. I was nervous to join ours at our first duty station, mainly because I just hoped I would like the other ladies and make friends, and fortunately my first experience was fantastic. From our Battalion Commander and Sgt. Major’s wives on down we had a welcome and opening support network. The other spouses are funny, honest, and down to earth. And I count some of them as my best friends. I served as a POC (Point of Contact) for nearly a year for about 12 spouses in our company, as well as helped out at a number of social events, and attended memorials. I got really involved in our FRG and throughout the way I saw and heard a ton of stories, and learned a lot. At one point my friend joked that I was an FRG Leader in Training since I was such good friends with all of our FRG leaders. It really just happened that way but it was funny. Of course the FRG wasn’t perfect, and there were days when I got frustrated, but here’s what I have learned about successful FRGs and what I think they should be, during a deployment or not:
