Half pay is not okay!

April 8, 2011

To Whom It May Concern:

I am a Nevadan and Army wife stationed with my soldier husband in Fort Hood, Texas. My husband is enlisted, and makes about $3200 a month, before taxes. He is the sole provider for our family.

My husband has been through a year-long deployment to Iraq, and after a year of togetherness, will be deployed again this year. This is the Army life. It’s hard, but we do it. This lifestyle, which as consenting adults we knowingly signed up for, does not include many things that people take for granted. The Army lifestyle does not always include family time. It does not always include guaranteed attendance of births, anniversaries, holidays, and deaths. For that matter, it does not include hugs, waking up together, eating together, pictures together, laughing together. When he is gone, I miss him and he misses me. Sometimes the only way I know that is the ring on my finger, because he can’t call and tell me.

They call us Army wives the Silent Ranks. But I tell you that tonight, we will not be silent. We endure excruciating situations year in, year out, silently, often happily, because we know why we do what do. We know why we are what we are. We know what we must do, for ourselves and for our husbands. But we don’t do any of that, for free. We pay a price and we expect to get paid. We truly do not ask for a lot, and to have not only our husbands, our lives, our loves, and our peace taken away, but also our homes and food? That is too much.

Wake up. You do this budget every year. You have nothing else to do. It is shameful that you have taken this long only to fail at meeting a deadline. Provide for the military and military families, now. If you want to fight, there are several wars to choose from.

HOOAH.