Military Friends Are Our Chosen Family

I was given a quote this week by my new friend, Susan: “Friends are your chosen family.”

This is when I started to really think about how military families socialize differently.

It’s true that friends are our chosen family. I’d bet that most of your friends are your military friends. Mine are. I choose them; they choose me. Somehow, in this odd and challenging lifestyle, we bond as if we were always together, like family.

I find it funny when I look at the past ten years I’ve spent as a military spouse and think of the friendships I have made.

They are untraditional, some unlikely, and most by chance or out of necessity of companionship. There is a certain “challenge” to meeting friends as a military spouse.

First, you’re faced with a new location every few years. You’re also faced with the diversity of the people you meet and finding someone with whom you can relate. The best part, though, is that you have an instant “common thread” of which to rely on.

You’re all in the same boat.

You’re all fighting the same “battle,” and there is a certain necessity of friendship that makes the bonds much easier to form than they are in civilian life. The worst feeling in the world to most military spouses is being far away from family, only having the service member, and then, the service member gets deployed.

In my experience, the fear of that happening gives me the courage to venture out and put myself in uncomfortable surroundings so I can eventually make this world we live in a comfortable, livable place.

We have our friends from Reserve Officers’ Training Corps and college.

Those friends knew Kevin and me when we were 21 and 22. They were the before-you-had-kids friends, he ones you went out with on Friday nights, the guys I cooked for because I was the only “girlfriend” (bear with me as I paint you a picture of dorky single ROTC guys all hooah about military life—needless to say I cooked a lot of dinners), and the ones that attended our wedding (and maybe tried to talk Kevin out of taking the plunge). It’s funny to see all of them grown up with families now. We still email to keep in touch and, of course, spend moments reliving the past.

Then we have our friends from our very first duty station, Fort Hood, TX.

I remember the day I met Erin and Clay. Clay and Kevin were “butterbars” (also known as second lieutenants) in the same unit together. Erin and I didn’t know what we were getting into with military life, but we decided we’d venture through it together. That made a huge difference in our ability to “brave” the whole new world. They, too, were before-you-had-kids friends, but since Kevin and I were the first ones to have a child, they were our cheerleading team when we entered parenthood. Now, they are one kid ahead of us and still going strong.

Then are the friends I met while standing in line at Walmart. 

My best friend Cindy, I met at the Hinesville, Georgia, store to pick up pictures. She had her son in the cart; I had my daughter. We were both about ready to pull our hair out. Turns out after the kids started eyeing one another we started talking. They played, and we learned that she and her husband were from the Midwest as well. I’d complain that the WalMart picture line was long, but it gave me one of my best friends. So how can I? To this day Cindy, her husband, and her son visit us every weekend (well, when he’s not deployed). We have formed a nice little family. We even ended up getting pregnant about six weeks apart with our second babies. It’s a bond we know will last a lifetime.

Then there are those friends you wonder how you ever lived without and know that you couldn’t make it if you hadn’t found them.

These are the kinds of friends you can count on when a storm starts to blow. They are the kind you know would be beside you to celebrate an accomplishment or an occasion. They are also the ones that will love you for being you, even if you aren’t being that loveable. Those friends are my Tina and Luke. Tina and Luke were our neighbors at Fort Stewart. Our relationship started with me going across the street to invite them to dinner, only to get caught up in traffic coming back from Home Depot and missing my own dinner date. They showed up at our door and no one was home. It’s a good thing they can be forgiving. Through two deployments, a move, and even meeting each other’s families, we remain the best of friends.

These are the people that I would consider my family. They are chosen. They came from cookies, a simple hello, a trip to WalMart, an FRG meeting, or maybe even by chance, but they are family all the same.