The Struggle:Dual Military

This is my perspective of being dual-military:

Every dual military couple has a story to tell. I am a hundred percent sure that mine is not the worse, but here goes.

My husband and I were both your typical Airman straight of basic training. We met and married within 3 months of meeting, everyone said we were doomed from the beginning. Now 4 years and two children later we are stronger than ever. This does by no means say that we are perfect and do not have any problems. Being Active Duty is not a cake walk. We have the contend with our long work schedules, two diffferent units, sick children, errands, bills...the list is endless. This creates for a hostile environment.

But what makes it even harder is not having the support we need to manage our family life and our military one. Our youngest son is 6 months old and from 2 1/2 wks we have been in the hospital more times than I can count. ER visit after, ER visit, 4 hospital admissions, endless office visits, 3 specialist appointments (one in a different state). After all of this they concluded that he has severe asthma. At one point we were up to 13 medications a day to try and keep his symptoms under control.

So at first when this whole process started there were no issues with work because I was on maternity leave. Which meant that my husband did not need to take any time off to help take care of the little ones because I was already off of work anyway. But when I went back to work and he needed to request time off to help with the children is when it all started. There were a lot of comments but the one that hurt the most was, "Can't your wife take care of them." You know what I can, I am their mother and I will never say that I can't but after being up for nearly 72 hrs straight. I needed help. After they pretty much refused to give him the time off we had to meet with the first shirt about getting the time we needed to take care of him. They agreed to give us each two more weeks but after that we would need to look into other options. Well two weeks came and went and he was not getting any better. So now we needed that other plan. After many visits my husbands unit finally decided to switch him to a shift that better suited his family needs. But just remember that they were doing us a "favor" by moving him and we had better be grateful. My supervisor and unit were floored. They could not believe that they were being so openly blatant about their sexism.

Apparently after talking to other women who are dual military, this is very typical. While the units acknowledge that your husband is married and they are dual military they still regard the mother as primary caregiver and there for expect you to always take the time off to take care of the children. Again let me state that I have never missed an appointment and always try my best to be there for all of their important events. I accept the fact that I may not be able to ALWAYS do that. I work as well, I have a job that requires me to be there everyday. Why am I not as important as my husband? Why am I expendable? I work just as hard. I have NEVER been in any trouble. I have been awarded and commended for my work more times than I can count. So I ask again, Why am I not as important?

Maybe with a change of scenery and a different base things will be better. I can only hope.....