By Tony Lentini, USMA ’71
Instead of Christmas cards, my good friend Dave Higgins and his wife Jane annually send 12 days of emails featuring Christmas Carol videos. The one I received on Dec. 19, was the best of the lot and very special to me: Home for Christmas, sung by Military Wives Choirs. It’s playing in the background as I write this.
I grew up an Army Brat and served in the Army myself as a young man. My late mother and late first wife were Military Wives, as were all my friends’ moms while I was growing up. I love Military Wives. They are a truly special breed.
When your father is just a framed photo of a man in uniform atop the TV set, as mine was when I was just a toddler during the Korean War, it is your Military-Wife Mother who ensures that you always keep him foremost in your mind.
It was my Military-Wife Mom who took us to a recording studio in downtown New Orleans to imprint our voices on vinyl to send to my father in the war zone overseas. It was she who read me the letters she received from Dad.
And it was she who, when Dad returned home from the battlefields, taught me my father was the flesh-and-blood man holding me in his arms, not just the soldier in the photo.
As a military family, we moved frequently—every one to three years. Including Kindergarten (a German one in my case), by the time I graduated high school, I’d attended 13 different schools (and that included three years in the same high school).
I’m not complaining, because no matter where we went, no matter how foreign or isolated the assignment, my Military-Wife Mother made it home for us.
We were seldom around extended family, but our Military-Wife Neighbors and their husbands in uniform always ensured that we knew that extended families do not necessarily have to be blood-related. They looked after us as though we were their own kids, and we were.
Military Wives serve just as much as their husbands do. They are the ones who must pack and unpack everything—furniture, clothing, dishes, flatware, knick-knacks, and precious mementos—every time the family changes duty stations.
They are the ones who have to establish new “extended family” ties or reconnect with old ones at every new locale. They have to pick up new languages, learn new customs, find new schools and activities for their children, and support their husbands’ careers even in the most remote regions.
When I was stationed in Nuremberg, Germany, in the mid-1970s, we lived in a small farm village some 20 miles from my barracks. Until I could afford a second car, my Military Wife would have to walk down to the village’s small “downtown” to shop or drive me to and from the local train station when she needed the car for commissary visits or doctor’s appointments.
At that time, the dollar was falling against German currency, so my Military Wife created a program on American Forces Radio to teach financially struggling military families how and where to shop to save money on essentials.
That sometimes meant buying on the German economy rather than through post exchange facilities. (I was chided at first by my commander for some of her non-PX recommendations, until I explained that she was only helping military families keep their finances intact).
Looking out for one another is what you do as a Military Wife.
Because life in the Armed Forces demands full-time commitment, it can often create unusual circumstances for Military Wives.
Two assignments after our posting to Ft. Shafter, Hawaii, Mom’s best friend Dee Dee’s husband Maj. Dick Mankin received orders for the Pentagon and they moved just around the block from us in McLean, Virginia, to be close to “family.”
Mom and Dee Dee both became pregnant at about the same time and used to drive one another to and from medical appointments because their husbands had duties to perform. In their ninth month, Dee Dee started going into labor, so my hugely pregnant Military Mom drove her friend to the hospital. That night, Dee Dee was still in labor when Mom started having contractions. Dad took Mom to the hospital, and she had my sister Ellen before the friend she’d driven to the hospital delivered her child.
There are hundreds of stories I could tell of how Military Wives “earn their stripes” every bit as much as their servicemen spouses do. Think of them. Thank God for them. And if you get a chance, listen to the Military Wives Choirs.
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Tony Lentini graduated from West Point with the class of 1971. He served five years in the Army, attaining the rank of Captain. His post-military career culminated as Vice President of Public & International Affairs for two independent oil and gas exploration and production companies. He now writes on military and political affairs.
First published on Real Clear Defense
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