Real Army Wives

Try as they might, the Army hasn’t yet been successful in forcing me to become too chummy with many of the other wives in my husband’s unit. While I faithfully attend the FRG meetings (Family Readiness Group), Hail and Farewells (Dinner parties for coming and going soldiers) and other “mandatory shoulder rubbings”, I don’t go to make friends; I go because it’s expected of me. I’m polite and social, but, shh, it’s all fake. I don’t want to be friends with most of those women.

My lack of deep, lasting friendships with my fellow Army wives is primarily because of these three things. This post will focus on point C:

A) I am an introvert. If you’re an extrovert, you probably don’t understand. If you’re an introvert yourself, you totally get what I’m saying.

B) The Army segregates soldiers, and many Army Wives find themselves stuck “wearing their husband’s rank” (I say stuck, but some wives actually love it). Since hubby was, until recently, the only married officer in the troop, I had no “peers”.

C) 97% of Army Wives suck anyway.

Only 3% of Army Wives are non-sucky Army Wives (NSAW). They don’t generally go out of their way to make friends with other Army Wives. The only reason I’ve come to know any NSAWs is if hubby knows a non-sucky Army Guy of similar rank, who has a NSAW (and if I’m lucky, she’ll have friends to introduce me to, too!). I am lucky to have some good NSAW for friends.

How to spot a SAW (Sucky Army Wife)

If you are approached and eagerly befriended by an Army Wife, she is probably a SAW. If she’s that desperate for friends, it’s probably because no one likes her. As before mentioned, NSAW usually keep to themselves.

SAW are generally stay-at-home-moms who’s kids are often “oh-so charmingly” named after Army posts (Riley, Carson, etc). They usually their facebook status hourly, at a minimum, with exciting things like “Baby had a poopy diaper, oh, I being a mommy!” or “I need 2 clean the house, but I’d rather b on facebook, lol”.

The NSAW usually works, which is important, it means she has a life outside of being an Army Wife.

(Important to note: I’m not bashing on stay-at-home moms, Army or otherwise. I plan to be a stay-at-home-mom one day, but I won’t be posting my every movement on my facebook status, ok? Ok.)

The other thing about SAW is that some of them are not just sucky, but actually crazy. Like the one who, upon first introduction, said this “Is your husband coming (to the dog park)? Because if he is, my husband doesn’t want to be saluting him and SH*T the whole time we’re here”. (This is a good example of “wearing your husband’s rank”). She followed that polite comment up with this question, “How much does your husband make? It’s sure as H#LL more than mine does! We never have any money, it’s not fair! How much do you make? It’s soooo not fair that they pay him so much more!” Ok, first of all, that’s just a rude question; you just don’t ask things like that, especially when we’ve just met. Second, you can look that up. You know my husband’s rank, and yeah, they do pay him more. My husband spent 4 years in school, and then went through another year of training to earn his rank, your husband could have done that too, but he didn’t. Maybe you could work, and then you wouldn’t be broke. That’s working for us.

Then there are the affairs.

I am in disbelief at how many Military wives don’t seem to understand the term INFIDELITY. As I said, I don’t even know that many Army Wives, but I can tell you 3 of them that have had affairs in the last 12 months while their husbands were deployed, 2 of them had kids.

Ladies, this shouldn’t be so hard. If you’re lonely, call your mom. If you have, ehem, other needs, buy a vibrator. Don’t cheat on your man.

If you think you yourself may be a Sucky Army Wife, don’t despair, there are multitudes of SAW out there, you’ll be sure to find some friends who will like your wall post announcing that it’s great that your kiddo, named after the place they were conceived, is finally down for a nap so you can watch Oprah. Just don’t bother ME with it.