Military life can’t always been explained, but there are books that can help others understand.
My husband spent the first twenty years of our marriage as a serving naval officer. He was a submariner and we had the good fortune (thank you, American taxpayers) to live in all four corners of the United States and Hawai’i.
When he attended basic submarine school, the command invited the wives to spend a day learning about our husband’s career.
Unlike most of my peers, I did not marry a graduate of the United States Naval Academy. (Or, as my husband liked to say, he attended a “real university” not a “trade school.”).
While my father had been a naval officer during Korea, I had no practical experience with Navy life. So this was exciting.
We played with the equipment, stared up the dive tower, experimented with controlling ballast and had several talks from senior naval officers and even a seasoned navy wife. It was highly informative.
But also shocking.
How to become a good Navy wife
One admiral came in to address our room full of twenty-something women, most of whom had been married less than two years. “The most important thing you can do to become a good navy wife,” he said, “is to learn how to become a widow.”
An understandable gasp went up. We were married to handsome, daring, (tired) strong men in their youthful prime. Death?
He had been the CACO (Casualty Assistance Call Officer) when the USS Thresher sank to crush death during sea trials. He was just as traumatized as the widows when he returned from his visits.
“Too many of those women didn’t know anything about real life,” he explained.
“They didn’t know how to balance a check book, how to get the car repaired nor how to take care of themselves without their husbands. Do us all a favor and learn how to be independent.”
Independence has always been a hallmark of navy wives. His charge surprised me. But, like a good researcher, I went to work. Here are four books I found very helpful in my navy wife “career.”
Lynn Caine‘s Widow.
Published in 1974, Widow was a best seller at the time.
From Widow, I took a salient point I have shared countless times since.
The point of the first year of widowhood is to survive.
“Just get through it and don’t do anything rash. Whatever you do, if you can avoid it, make no big decisions.
“Just get through that first year and at the end, take a vacation far from home and think about what you really want to do with your life.
“You’re too emotionally vulnerable that first year and you don’t want to do anything that cannot be undone.”
James and Sybil Stockdale‘s In Love and War.
Oh, my, what an example Sybil Stockdale provides of a smart, accomplished woman who held her family together while her husband spent seven years in a Viet Nam POW camp.
Sybil’s life provided me with a role model, and I learned important truths:
- Remain focused on what’s important: your children and your husband.
- Keep your skills up so you can support your family if need be, but stay true and loyal.
- Be firm and respectful, but stick to the plan you and your husband put together in case “the worst” happens.
We developed a plan of what I would do if my husband never came back. (Thanks be to God, we never had to use it!)
Thomas Allen and Norman Polmar’s Rickover: Controversy and Genius.
When my husband became the chief engineer of the oldest submarine in the Atlantic Ocean, I knew I needed to understand the influences on his job, and thus his and my life.
It’s insightful to learn about how your husband’s ultimate boss thought and his work ethic.
It made a difference and helped me on nights when he simply could not come home because the boat (and its nuclear reactor) needed him.
Admiral Rickover’s attitude toward his personal life made me understand what he expected of my husband. (See my post, however, on his wonderful wife, Eleonore.)
Brats: Children of the American Military Speak Out by Mary R. Truscott.
This book was important later, as I raised children in a military life style. I hadn’t really thought through the consequences of moving every four years on their sense of “normal.”
I did a lot of reading about how to raise my children in their challenging environment.
One of the most interesting points from this book dealt with post-military life.
Children get used to the “rhythm” of military life.
Even after growing up, they tend to feel a need to make a major change every three or four years.
It could be where they live, what they do, what they drive, or where they take a vacation: think a big trip.
Oh, that explains a lot.
Other books have helped me in other ways, but these four were significant.
What books have helped you understand YOUR life better?
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klasko says
Michelle,
I went from Military Career to Military Wife to Military Mom in about a year and a half’s time time. Talk about adjustments. I was 21 when my daughter was born and spent my first anniversary getting out of the hospital from having her. And I lived in the military “island” of Berlin at the time. (103 square miles surrounded by barbed wire and East Germany. As Berlin was an occupied city, the US had to maintain troop quotas in the city. My husband was regularly told to take all the leave he wanted but he couldn’t leave the city. That made it interesting when we were living apart for the first 9 months of our marriage until I got out.) I was not as circumspect as you were about researching everything about married military life. I jumped in with both feet and it was either sink or swim. There were times when it was all I could do to tread water. I had no time to read. I didn’t know many of the other wives and they were all in the same boat as me. When my husband got to the city he was on a team of all bachelors and within a year they were all married and becoming fathers. there was a joke about drinking the water out of the team’s fridge. We were all winging it.
Then I went to Ft. Devens for 4 years and got an education about widowhood when my next door neighbor was killed in a motorcycle accident and I was one of her “go-to” people while she was dealing with everything until she moved out of quarters. In my military wife career, that was the first of too many soldier deaths.
in a 4 year tour, my husband was there a cumulative total of 18 months. I always said that the only women who can understand what it’s like to be an SF wife is a navy wife. SF guys are deployed more in peacetime than anyone else except the navy. In wartime, they’re always gone.
While I never read any “How to be a military wife” books, I’ve been threatening to write one of my own about the life of an SF wife. (Working titles: “Life With America’s Finest”, “Behind the Beret” and “Dad was TDY And…”)
michelle says
It sounds to me like you didn’t need a book, Karen, you learned from life! And you did very well. 🙂