tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-55206841662548767352024-03-18T21:13:59.944-07:00My Life as a Submariner's Wifehttp://www.mylifeasasubmarinerswife.blogspot.com/Submariner's Wifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11634065159982087047noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5520684166254876735.post-75748571579415849322013-11-08T19:11:00.000-08:002013-11-08T19:11:45.197-08:00We are missing our DI am aware that in most cases a D is not something anyone would miss. It's usually referring to a deployment, but in our case it is referring to our unborn baby. Our D completes the letters of our last name, Sanford. Until recently we didn't realize we were missing anything except time together. We have two boys and two girls so we have the perfect scenario of children. We just found out that we are expecting and couldn't be anymore ecstatic. It's true what they say, "A Baby fills a place in your heart that you never knew was empty." Baby # 5 will be here in July 2014!<br />
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Submariner's Wifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11634065159982087047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5520684166254876735.post-2167913566590649522011-09-23T18:31:00.000-07:002013-08-27T14:47:08.427-07:00Navy Wives 101The Navy is a never ending circle of Sailors coming in and Sailors getting out. A lot of times those Sailors coming in aren't sure what roles their wives are supposed to play anymore than the wives themselves. It's like throwing them a box full of information and resources, but not teaching them how to open it. There are materials in that box ranging from how to get into military housing to how to get a college scholarship. This being Navy Wives 101 I am going to give out the foundation and you can build from there.<br />
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You basically only need to know 5 things to be a Submariners wife!<br />
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#1 YOU LOVE YOUR HUSBAND AND HE LOVES YOU. <br />
You need to know it and you need to remember it! Lots of times the stresses in the Military lifestyle will leave wives questioning this and MOST of the time it's not warranted. The Submarine force is unlike any other force in the Navy. When our guys are gone- they're gone! We don't have the luxury of facebook, skype, or phonecalls while they are underway. We get emails and not the nice kind that you can attach pictures and videos to. We get Navy modified emails that are monitored for security breeches and "too personal" of information. By "too personal" I mean that if you write ANYTHING that could upset your sailor or cause him stress then he WILL NOT be getting that letter. For any other source of contact you have to pray they hit a port and get a little time to go to a liberty center for internet access. Keep in mind that the internet source is being used by everyone and overloads quite often. While they are gone the only contact is email and just because that's availiable to them does not mean they are going to have time to write! Some wives get more emails than others. It really depends on your husbands duties and what he has going on down there. The amount of emails you get does not show how much your husband loves you. <br />
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#2 NOT ALL NAVY WIVES ARE YOUR FRIENDS<br />
Before you go pouring out all of your feelings to a wife you need to feel out the situation and get to know just who it is you are talking to. There is no magic that automatically makes the Drama filled girls Drama free and there are A LOT of Drama filled girls amoungst the Navy Wives. <br />
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#3 Ombudsman<br />
What is the Ombudsman? You have probably heard this word and have no idea what it means! The Ombudsman can be one person or several people. They work with the Boat to get information FROM the Boat out to the families and FROM the Families to the Boat. The first thing you need to do when you get to a new boat is to make sure your husband gets you the Ombudsman contact information and that he fills out the Ombudsman Sheets that allow you to get information. If he doesn't do this then you will NOT recieve any information concerning the boat. Not even if you call! That is very important! The Ombudsman is who you would call in the case of an emergency. They can help you with getting intouch with exactly who you need to in a crisis. They can also help get you intouch with the FRG<br />
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#4 What is the FRG<br />
The FRG (Family Readiness Group) is a boat association for the families of the sailor. The FRG does things like hosting events for the boat families, Halfway bags for the Sailors, providing meals after a wife has had a baby, and SO much more. They are your support system. The FRG and the Ombudsman work hand in hand in making sure that you as a family are taken care of. The FRG is basically the "FUN" Group. Another thing that is VERY important that you should know is that inorder to get information from the FRG you have to give them your information as well. The Ombudsman are not allowed to give out your information to anyone and the ONLY way the FRG will get your information is if you contact them yourself. <br />
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#5 OPSEC<br />
<a href="http://www.armymedicine.army.mil/sfrc/OPSECTrifold.pdf">http://www.armymedicine.army.mil/sfrc/OPSECTrifold.pdf</a><br />
There is a saying, "Loose Lips Sink Ships." Never talk about ship schedules or where the guys are going! It isn't worth the risk! Do not post anything about the boat on facebook or anywhere on the internet. Also do not talk about it over the phone. If you MUST talk about boat movement then it is best to do it in person in private.<br />
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Those are the 5 things you need to know to survive the Submariners wife life! Remember them and you can build on them. Welcome to the Navy life- who knows, we might end up on the same boat someday!Submariner's Wifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11634065159982087047noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5520684166254876735.post-25248920339190211542010-01-01T20:34:00.000-08:002013-11-08T19:36:31.540-08:00Dear Deployment, I HATE YOU!!!<span style="background-color: white;">Deployment, that single word feels like a knife being plunged repeatedly into my heart. I get a nauseous feeling in the pit of my stomach and I just want to lay down and cry until it's over. I fight against my will to go lay down on my bed and commence my travels into the future via my queen sized time machine. "No," I tell myself, "be strong, it's one day closer to him coming home." Several people have told me to start a countdown and just mark it off everyday! All "counting down" does is make me want to throw things! I'm the kind of person that will keep looking at my clock and counting down to the next time I can draw a big, bold line across that stupid little box. That, or I'll go ahead and mark off a week and be like," OK.... on Friday we've only got 122 days left. Let's see 122 divided by 7 is what? 17 1/2 weeks left, OK, I can do that." Then I find myself struggling to survive. I start praying for the weekend and pretty much crawling with my head dragging the ground just to reach the end of that first day. Needless to say, it doesn't get any better from there. I push and shove my way through all the crap that seems to constantly be falling into my path, all for the chance to be able to draw 7 more measly lines on that stupid, STUPID calendar. I can not tell you how many times in that one little week I will hear "Don't worry, the time will fly by. He'll be home before you know it." My absolute favorite comment has to be, "At least he's not being shot at. It could be worse. He could be in Iraq or Afghanistan". After a while it gets really hard to smile back. Usually all I can muster up to say is, "So they tell me." My mind becomes a ginormous screen that plays alternate versions of me beating the crap out of them with my Coach purse. Of course I could never do that. How could I risk messing up that beautiful purse. My husband bought me that purse to celebrate Christmas early before his deployment. Still, that image seems to help relieve my stress. "I've got your fly by! You'll wish you were in Iraq!" Usually the people that have the nerve to say that are civilian and I don't believe they really understand just what the submarine force does, must less how it feels to hear that response. The only thing worse than having the deployment inexperienced tell you time will fly by is having a wife from another service start comparing your husband to theirs. The service rivals have been going on for years. You can tell the maturity and mental capacity of the woman who pursues this argument. Sure, the likelihood of my husband being shot at is very slim, BUT his job is comparably dangerous and just as important. .It doesn't matter what service your husband is in, we all have our hardships and we all hate deployments. I think we can all agree that when we are feeling down and pissed off that our husbands are so far away we don't need someone to tell us it will go by soon. We shouldn't have to listen to someone compare our husbands, all we need is someone to say, "Dang, that really sucks." We don't want an apology, we don't need one. We're proud that our husbands are serving our country, we just need to feel that someone out there understands and appreciates what we are going through. Deployments are hard and at times it feels like we are alone in our feelings of devastation, loneliness, and heartbreak. Somehow hearing those simple words of understanding and appreciation seems to help us to cope with that disappointment and move on. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"> I have three children. My oldest is 3 and my youngest is 9 months. I also have two Great Danes, Daphany and Dane. When my husband is gone, I, just like every other military wife, get all the responsibilities of the household. Just as soon as my husband gets on that boat and sails away into that beautiful, heart wrenching sea everything starts going wrong. A friend once told me, "Everything seems bigger now because he's gone." This is so true, things happen all the time, but we don't notice them as much because our big, strong man is there to help us. Just as soon as our protector has left us unprotected the assailants start attacking. I'll be honest with you, for the first couple of weeks he's gone I'm angry. I am furious because I feel like he chose to leave and he didn't want to be there with me. How could he do that? How could he willingly walk onto that boat and leave us without putting up some sort of fight. He puts up more of a fight when it comes to doing things around the house then he does about leaving for 6 months. That must mean he doesn't love me right? In my heart I know that’s not true. I know that really there isn't anything he can do. That is his job and I know I must support him. It might be easier for me if I didn't see the excitement radiating from his deep blue eyes. It's like his little mistress and I can feel the resentment burning a whole into my core. It takes me a while to get over that feeling, but eventually I do. I love him and I really do want him to be happy. No matter how much I would like to think he is completely devastated and crying himself to sleep every night, I know it’s better that he’s not. After all, I’m a better crier than him anyways. </span><br />
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One thing I do to try to get myself motivated and not thinking about him being gone is set goals. Now, for a lot of wives this might be a good thing, but not for me. I set these goals and I get all excited about them. I think, for me, the worst one is lose weight. If I was smart I would have already figured out that I should just forget about that goal and try another one, but I never do. I always go right back to that same destructive goal. I'm good for the first couple of weeks. I workout, eat healthy and start feeling good and then something happens. Some big crisis happens and I splurge. I go ape crazy with deserts and ruin a complete months worth of work. I get depressed and lose focus. "Why did I eat that whole pie?" You would think I would have stopped with the pie, but for some reason I feel I need to eat the cookies, and all the chocolate chips in my pantry too. Then, once it's time for him to come home I feel like a failure because I have gained 10 IBS and he's got muscles all over his gorgeous body. I’ll be standing there on the pier when he walks up like he’s just gotten back from winning the Olympic Gold Medal. Mean while, I look and feel like I’ve flunked out of fat camp. Yay for Goals! </span><br />
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Wow, I know this must make me seem like the most negative person in the world, but I truly feel this way. I hate deployments! My husband is currently deployed and I guess that's what a few months of being a deployment-ee can do to you. Deployments truly make you change your life. For some reason I feel like I have to add things to my life. Not normal things either, I always seem to add the most stressful things possible to my already stressful life. For example: Just since my husband has been gone I moved our family across the United States and adopted Dane, our second Great Dane. He was 3 months old and neither house broken nor potty trained. I also had my gallbladder removed, and have once again started the “lose weight goal”. It’s inevitable, that’s me. I work best under pressure. Somehow, I don’t know how, I am surviving. With each breath I take it‘s getting closer to the time I can reach out and touch those Gold Medal muscles and not have to sleep with a bazillion pillows on my bed. I won’t obsess over whether or not I have an email yet and I won’t worry about losing my phone nearly as much. Life will be great because he will be here, at least until orders for the next deployment come around. For now, I will continue to enjoy my ice cold glass of sparkling cider and relax to the beautiful sound of Billie Holiday singing “I’ll be seeing you”. Dear Deployment, I hate you.</span><br />
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</span>Submariner's Wifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11634065159982087047noreply@blogger.com0