Common sense

This is stuff you should already know, but some people need to be told anyway.

1) Talking bad in public about your husband's battalion (company, platoon, brigade, etc) will always come back, and will never reflect well.

2) Those mean old NCO's get their way for a reason. Do you honestly think they were treated any better when they were new? Similarly, do you think they tried to get people in trouble for treating them like lower-enlisted soldiers when they were lower-enlisted soldiers?

3) The Army never claimed to be family-friendly. Where do people keep getting this idea? By what stretch of the imagination would something that sends at least one, sometimes both, parents away for a year at a time, repeatedly, be considered family-friendly?

4) You are what you marry.

5) It really doesn't affect you if your neighbor is cheating on her deployed husband. Ratting her out to the chain of command really only makes you look nosy.

6) Yes, a lot of people's marriages are train wrecks. No, they do not want your commentary on it. Also, what you think is vital to a good marriage may not be important to everyone. Remember that although we all live under a microscope, especially those who live on post, we are still all individuals.

7) Everybody gossips. This is only a problem when a person acts like they're friends with someone, and then talks bad about them when they're not around. As long as they don't put up any false fronts, it's harmless. Just admit it. You do it, too.

8) At the same time, the mature thing to do when dealing with people you don't like, is to be cordial, and find your way out of the situation at your nearest convenience. This does not equate being two-faced. This is called being an adult.

9) If you are not currently a soldier, stay out of soldier business.

10) The Chain of Command does not exist for your convenience. They will help you because they are required to do so to some degree, but only ever use this in life or death emergencies.

11) This is no place for control freak wives. Your husband will need to deal with most things. Not trusting him to do this will make him (and therefore you) look bad.

12) What you do at one duty station will follow you to your next, and the one after that, and the one after that. The higher your husband is in rank, the more your reputation will precede you.

13) There comes a time to walk away, retire, be done. This usually comes at about 20 years, give or take 3, but the surest cue of it is that you start to hate absolutely everything about the new Army from your perspective. These are the crusty senior wives who snip at the new ones and tell them how they never would have survived 20 years ago. These are the leaders who think every new one they're given is a piece of garbage because training isn't what it used to be. If the whole Army has started to suck, it's you. Just realize it's time to go, and find the door that applies to you. There's no shame in it. My own husband has just reached that point at 18 years of service, so I know this well. I also know a lot of people it applies to who haven't gotten the memo, as we have, that it's time to move on.

14) The closer to the Command Suite you are, the better your information. Along with this one, always consider the source.

15) Nobody's going to ever love your favorite duty station (especially if it's your hometown) as much as you do, and nobody likes it rammed down their throats. On the other side, nobody likes the person who complains constantly about how bad the duty station is.

16) You can either pretend to know everything, and get lost big time, or you can learn from the ones who have been there and done that.

17) When you get corrected by senior personnel, smile, go along with what's being said, and make a mental note not to do it again. Don't make excuses. It is more respected to fix your mistake without giving anyone a hard time, than it is to try to justify it.

18) There is no one right way to do a deployment. As long as someone is doing their honest best, and not making horrible decisions (blowing money, cheating, doing drugs, etc), then they are doing it right. It doesn't have to work for you. You're not the one living with it.

19) It is really poor form to tell someone that her husband is going to cheat on her if she doesn't do X, Y, or Z. For one, how would you know? For another, even if he does, let her figure that out on her own.

20) Your family's concerns are not more important than anyone else's family concerns. Men deploy all the time, leaving behind wives with extremely high-risk pregnancies, children with innumerable medical conditions, and tenuous housing situations. Your situation is not unique, and the Army probably isn't interested. (See #3.)

21) The Army has no say in where or how you give birth. Your bank account may, but there's no such thing as "not allowed" because of the Army.

22) Rank has its privileges. However, those privileges come at a cost.

23) AAFES is totally trying to make money off you, but the conspiracy theories about price gouging at payday are kind of ridiculous.

24) It (whatever "it" may be this time) absolutely CAN happen to you.

25) And finally, it's all temporary. Even 18 years go by in a flash. Ask Thak if you don't take my word for it.