100 Ways You Might be A Milspouse

Welcome to AWN’s Monthly Recon Rendezvous link up! We are so glad you are here. Just as the name implies, Recon Rendezvous is a place of community and connection. It’s an opportunity to explore and learn about our fellow military supporters’ lives, victories, trials, and experiences.

Each month, we “rendezvous” here to provide information, resources, and encouragement. So do some “reconnaissance,” link up, swing by your “neighbor,” and leave a comment. 

1. You know where your ID card is but haven’t seen your driver’s license in ages.
2. You seamlessly integrate military lingo into your every-day conversation including, but not limited to, the following: Roger, tracking, more to follow, standby, copy…
3. You are currently unpacking and breaking down unopened boxes from your last move so they can get new boxes and stickers for your current move.
4. You (and your kids) know your sponsor’s social security number but not your own.
5. They ask you for your social security number, yet you still respond with your sponsor’s.
6. You think making plans is a good idea, but deep down you know it’s impossible. #AlwaysOptimistic
7. You have a driver’s license issued in one state, car registration and tag from another, and you currently live in yet another state.
8. You have to sit down and calculate civilian time before making an appointment or sending an email.
9. 550 cord has taken the place of duct tape in your life.
10. You have to think about it every time someone asks for your zip code.
11. You cringe when you have to fill something out that requires your addresses from the last 10 years. #ThanksAmazon
12. When asked, “Where are you from?” you feel like grabbing a cup of coffee and drawing them a picture.
13. All of your kids were born in different states.
14. Your furniture still has stickers on it from the previous two moves.
15. You’ve decided that finding three local emergency contacts mandated on a new school registration is as easy as parting the Red Sea.
16. Your service member announces that he’s going to be deployed, but says it’s only for three months and you’re relieved.
17. Your pets have names like Ranger, Ambush, Stryker, etc.
18. Your kid has ever confused a random service member for their parent.
19. You can speak in acronyms and interpret for your civilian family and friends.
20. You’ve ever run to cadence during your workout.
21. You know not to even attempt getting on post between 1130-1300.
22. You label as much stuff as possible as Pro Gear to increase your weight limit.
23. You know that during a deployment, there’s no such thing as “weekends.”
24. You recognize random area codes from around the country or world.
25. You randomly stop your car, get out, and salute the nearest flag at 5 p.m. every day, no matter where you are.
26. You don’t have to think about the different times of day for your deployed service member, family, or friends living in various parts of the country or world because you’ve memorized all the time zones (or have a clock that depicts them all at the same time!).
27. Forget A is for Alligator—your kids learned their ABCs as Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, etc.
28. You cannot describe what your service member’s job really is but have learned to default to the answer of “doing stuff with things.”
29. You don’t go to the grocery store, you go to the commissary…
30. …but never on the first or fifteenth of the month.
31. You plan outings around installation traffic.
32.  You can decode the following sentence without a second thought: “Sorry babe, dates for the TDY changed. Seems the BDE and BN weren’t tracking, but CO, 1SG, or XO will let us know soon.”
33. You have ever purchased milk, looked at the expiration date and gotten excited because you realized your service member would be home before it expired.
34. Even though no one else knows, you know exactly which uniformed person belongs to you from a distance.
35. You live with no-plan-plans… and even those get rearranged.
36. You are hungry and want to go out for lunch at the PX, but decide to eat at home because it’s a weekday… At noon.
37. You hear the “Army Song” and “Stars and Stripes Forever” in your dreams.
38. Your service member working a 12-hour day is a “short” day and means they’re coming home “early.”
39. You mistake fireworks at Fourth of July for mortar practice.
40. When your decluttering criteria are less about “joy” and more about weight. Grandma’s sewing machine or your daughter’s crib… something’s gotta go…. Meh… She’s used to sleeping on the floor.
41. You discuss retirement with your kids and the first thing they ask is if they can finally paint their bedrooms.
42. You’ve been married for 10 years but have only spent one anniversary together (and you are mostly okay with it).
43. You have perfected the art of “Keep Calm and Soldier On.”
44. Your kid still asks about the “yellow house” and puts in his request for the color of the next house upon receiving PCS orders.
45. You have successfully restrained yourself from inflicting bodily harm on your civilian friend when she complains to you about her spouse being gone on business for a whole week.
46. You calculate how long your service member will be gone by what birthdays and holidays they be miss.
47. An earthquake happens, and you don’t bat an eyelash at it because you thought it was just a heavy artillery training day in the field.
48. You know how to truly “embrace the suck.”
49. You feel naked if you leave the house without your military ID.
50. You know not to really start planning a PCS until you have orders in hand, and even then it’s iffy.

Readers, did you dig it? Which one was your favorite? Chime in and leave a comment below! (You can check out the next part of these series here.)

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