Are you a lifer? Let's think about it.

It's no secret that I have a bit of a pet peeve when it comes to people on their first enlistments, saying they are career soldiers, lifers, or whatever term they are using for it this time. To me, that's something you can claim if you're at least looking at an indefinite reenlistment, or are over the 10 year mark, but honestly, before that point, it's just not a legitimate thing to say. Of course, there's nothing wrong with saying, "I intend to stay in for 20 years." or "At this point, the plan is for my husband to do 20 years Active Duty." but to say, "We're lifers." implies something entirely different than reality in a lot of cases. When you say that, people assume you've got some experience, that your husband is probably someone of some influence by now, or that you've at least been through a deployment or several, and that this definitely isn't your first duty station. When this assertion comes from a PFC's wife, who cannot claim any of these things, it is erroneous. It is not malicious, of course, and we all know that, but with enlistees getting older and older in recent years, it is confusing. If a woman in her 30's tells you her husband is a career soldier, it's natural to think that he is a senior NCO or some variety of officer, and a bit confusing when you finally meet him and he's a PFC with not quite a year of service. This creates awkward situations for the husbands involved as well.

Thak and I have never really swallowed the lifer pill, to tell you the truth. He's retiring in 2013 from the Reserves, at which point he'll have 20 years of service, including 14 years Active Duty and 3 combat tours. By definition, the shoe fits. It feels weird to put it on, though, because it's just so inadvertent. Thak has been planning to get out of the Army from about a year into his first enlistment. He just never did it. Although you will never hear this from his mouth, on some level, Thak loves the Army, and that's the real reason he just kept reenlisting and reenlisting over and over again. That's how we find ourselves at this juncture. It's not because a million years ago, some 17-year-old grunt named Thaksin, fresh off Ft. Benning, declared himself a lifer. This is how it is for the vast majority of people who end up doing 20+ years. Thak's dad was like that, too. He was a draftee, and went on to serve 23 years. While there are no more draftees, if you ask ten soldiers who are within 5 years of retirement if they ever planned to get to this point in the Army, or if they thought they'd be out by now, 8 or 9 of them will tell you they had no idea it was going to end up like this. Career soldiers are born. They don't choose it. It chooses them, and most of them never intended it that way.

At the same time, Thak and I are in a rather interesting position as a couple when it comes to actual career soldier families. I married him 12 years into his Army career, so six years ago. That means that most of these really really really senior lifer wives consider me quite the rookie still! Some don't since I'm prior service, but most think I'm a total wet-behind-the-ears newbie! Thak is seasoned, proven, tested, and looking retirement in the face, an I'm a newb. It's interesting. I never go around saying we're lifers, or that I'm a career Army wife, because I don't identify with those terms on a personal level, but it does put me in a bit of a strange position.

I also think it's important to mention that just showing up, and just living my life and being here, oes not mean I'm claiming credit for Thak's years of service. I was a little kid when he enlisted. I didn't even know him then. When Thak enlisted, I was in the 4th grade. While he learned to be an Infantryman, I mastered long division, and scraped together pennies to buy Lisa Frank erasers at the school store, and wore my orange Safety Patrol belt. OK, I'm in no way claiming credit for Thak's service, and I make that really clear. No, I wasn't with him through Basic or AIT, or when he went to fight the flood in North Dakota. When he became the first Asian-American soldier to carry a Commanding General's colors on horseback, I was studying for AP exams, and had no idea he existed. When he was promoted to Sergeant, I was on a plane to St. Louis, and later, a bus to Ft. Leonard Wood. I had finally begun making my way to him, and it was a long road. I still had no idea he existed, and it would be another year, almost to the day, before we would ever meet one another at Ft. Hood. I KNOW I had no part in the majority of Thak's Army career. Just because I'm here doesn't mean I'm trying to claim credit. I'm just here.

I am grateful that I will not have to give up decades and decades of my marriage to Uncle Sam. I know we're lucky to have to only do this for 8 years total, as a couple, that he got the first 12 out of the way single. That was really nice of him. ;-)

So are we lifers? Well..... no. We have our whole lives ahead of us after his retirement ceremony in 2013! Our kids will be 9, 4, and almost 2 years old. We're still young. We gave some years to the Army, but not our whole lives, so if someone tells me we're not lifers, I'll just have to agree with them! If they want that term, that's ok with me, too.... just wait until you or your husband has been in for at least 10 years before using it.