In honor of Veteran’s Day, this week we’re hearing from our Bleeping Military Mom, Michele about their family’s experiences being a military family.

Written by Michele

Having a soldier in your family means that it isn’t just his job, but it is the whole family’s job.  We understand that it means frequent moves, him spending long hours away from us.  It takes a strong family and a strong marriage to support each other in those occasions.

Moving to a new state or foreign country with your family can be pretty scary. Heck being alone with no kids can suck too. I was still unpacking, enrolling the children in school and trying to find the grocery store.  Then my soldier comes home from work and tells me he’s deploying or going on TDY (temporary duty) for a month or longer.

For those that don’t know deployments, they could last anywhere from 4-15 months. It really depends on the unit and what is needed. TDY is a little different. A soldier could go on TDY for a few days or as long as 6 months. My soldier has done 15 month, 12 month and 9 month deployments during our 11 years of marriage. This year my soldier has been on TDY pretty much every other month.

In most cases, the TDY spots don’t seem very exciting.

This year Lucas came home and told me he had to travel on TDY to Key West, Fl for one month of work. I thought he was joking because who gets assigned to beautiful Key West for work? Oh and he gets to stay on beach front property! It turned out to be no joke.

Of course the girls and I want to go too. But they have school and I have my obligations. After much discussion and debate, Lucas “invites” us to fly out for a weekend. How nice of him. WTF. I wanted to go for the month! We’re getting our flights squared away when……the hurricane hits. Our little vaca is canceled.

We’re a military family.  We’re used to being flexible. And knowing his TDY was going to be even more work and less awesome helped a little.