6 month west PAC
You might do this twice in a four year enlistment.
Plus the time your on base standing duty where you can’t go home.
Yea it’s tough on everyone involved with family.

The sailor would go away for their basic training and specialized training. Their spouse could not go with them for their basic training. Depending on how long their specialized training lasts, their spouse may or may not be able to go. It also depends on where it is at.

The navy has shore duty and ship duty (I forget the exact terms). During shore duty they would be home more often, but could still have long hours at work and have to possibly work nights and weekends. During ship duty, they could be away for extended periods depending on the mission and what’s going on with the ship.

The navy also has deployments. I believe their deployments average about 6 months. During that time, communication can be hit or miss depending on the type of ship they are on and where they are at.

As far as how life and their marriage would change, both people would have to adjust to the new roles. Both would also have to adjust to the amount of control the Navy would have of their time. They would have to most likely move from place to place over time (depending on how long the Sailor stayed in). You’d have to adjust to being away from friends and family. The sailor would have to get use to going away and focusing on their duty while the spouse would have to get use to spending time alone and possibly feeling like a single mom (if they had kids). The spouse would also need to have some independence in order to run the household while the sailor was away.

My husband is active duty in the Army, if you have any other questions about the military life, I’d be happy to help as best I can.

Let me how it would devastate everyone else around you instead. A career marine who had just upped for another tour of duty where I live just sacrificed his life…and for what? Not freedom, not democracy…but really for access to oil. He left behind a wife and three very young children. His wife was so distraught when they removed his casket in military ritual from the plane that she literally needed to be carried from the ground where she lay sobbing….her children could not be in attendance because of how young they were and how devastated.
It’s way beyond time that we find another pathway and other rituals for men to feel they are warriors instead of becoming pawns of the system.

@Joybird If the only part of service you think about is the service member dying during the war, you have a very jaded view. There are many more things that our men and women in the service do besides die in war.

The majority of men (and one woman) in my family have been in the Navy and most of them for a good 20 odd years. My dad was in the Navy for 25 years and, my mum blames the fact that he was away a lot for the break up of their marriage even though she met him whilst they were both in the Navy and so, should have known what military life entails.

During my childhood we were constantly moving from pillar to post and always having to say goodbyes as dad had to leave us for months at a time.

This may all sound negative but, it has to be said, that I have always been proud to come from such a strong naval background and believe that the problems in my parents marriage where down to my mum not wanting to work on the marriage enough.

If your love is strong you can make it work (my Grandparents did) but be aware that goodbyes don’t get easier.

Your tours of duty would range from two to three years. You would have to move after every tour.

There would be long (up to several months) separations.

Your kids would have to change schools, which is hard on them.

It is a lot to think about and hopefully everyone would get some input.

@Seaofclouds I don’t think my view is jaded at all. I believe it to be fairly accurate having sat amongst the abandoned families while men go off and play war games and then helping all of them deal with the fall out of their returns. I am laying it out there like it is. Soldiers are pawns. You aren’t defending this country. Throughout history soldiers have been pawns. We aren’t talking about a militia on US soil called to arms to protect against an intruder…something even the National Guard likes to protray in an effort to get people to up. And the damages to families ARE very real. Why do you think the majority of persons in the armed service aren’t part of the upper eschelons of society but instead from the lowest. People with less options in society take on risk. I just don’t glorify war like alot of people do and I don’t do alot of flag waving. And just for the record NOT ONE of the men who served in my family encourages anyone younger to up…in fact they blatantly discourage it…for just the reasons I’ve already mentioned.
I think there is something severely wrong with a society that pitches war as a way to get a free or reduced cost education with the knowledge that it might never happen as a result of death or because they end up with half their body blown away. This is the TRUTH of war and service that is the hand of war.

@Joybird I’m well aware of the truth of war. My husband is in Iraq right now. Saying the soldiers go off to play war games minimizes what they are doing (whether you support it or not) and is quite a bit rude in my opinion. Most of the soldiers would rather be home with their families rather than over there. But being in Iraq isn’t the only thing he does. This is the first time he has been sent overseas since the 90s. He’s done many other things and not all of them were based around a war. Yes, wartime sucks and it is hard on the families left behind, but that is not the only thing that being in the military entails. As far as which group of society they come from, it depends on the soldiers. I know quite a few officers that got in after completing their degrees. I know soldiers that could make double their military pay if they were to get a job in the civilian world, instead they choose to serve.

It’s not about glorifying war, it’s just about realizing that not everyone that is in the military will go to war (I know soldiers that have never deployed) and of the soldiers that do go to war, majority of them make it back home in one piece (meaning without sustaining a major injury causing them to lose any limbs). As a matter of fact, a soldier is more likely to die at home in a car accident than to die while in a warzone. Now that doesn’t make it any easier for the people that lose their loved one, but it is true.

As for as people that have served, I know many that will recommend it to other people. There are some really good things about being in the military. The separation sucks and definitely isn’t a selling point, but there are some good benefits of the military as well. Focusing just on the death of the soldier is only looking at one side of it (especially when the majority of soldiers do not die during war).

@Seaofclouds I call what you are doing is justification so that you can move through the realities of what is before you without really examining it in vast detail. I haven’t minimized anything about what is being done over seas by soldiers. Soldiers often have told me about the nationalistic, flag waving, lies they told themselves in order to stomach the life they had created for themselves…the reality they took on thinking it was gallant, honorable, and a whole lot of other glorious terms people muster up to make excuses for war. the truth of the matter is that these men have created their reality. They weren’t drafted. And everyone rallies behind it because to do otherwise seems unsupportive. I will never support anyone who is planning to up and I tell them straight out exactly what it is they are potentially creating for themselves and the other people who need to tell lies about what heros they are and how patriotic..how they are doing “god’s” work…yadda, yadda, yadda. It’s a boat load of crap that continues to be perpetuated by people who can’t say NO, No to waiting, No to continuing to support this mentality, No to this archetype of how to become a man. You are just as much to blame for what you will be teaching your offspring about this as he is. And if he gets killed in action I am sure there will be more excuses made. I will in reality have been a needless and pathetic loss of humanity. And misery always loves company…it some how keeps the denial system in tact. If you are all in the same boat denying the same stuff than you all must be the righteous ones. Guess again.

Can we please stop the back and forth? I’d prefer this thread be related to the question.

Please do carry on in private,

Thanks,

~squirbel~

I;ve never known of a sailor who was faithful.