The military things on my blog are for those of us that have husbands, fiances & boyfriends that have a dual role as a soldier/firefighter/EMT/etc. These are for you..

1) Like watching OLD late night MOVIES, while HE is again at 24 hr DUTY, and that Bed just seems too empty to be in it AGAIN.

2) Know how to just plan things for at the most 2 to 3 days in advance, and always SUBJECT TO CHANGE!

3) Be able to say everything that happened in the past month in one 5 minute phone call while saying I love you every other word and listening to him give you a request list for the next care package and NOT crying until the call is done so he won't know how badly you miss him.

4) Be able to hide your disappointment when you've gotten all dressed up for a date, only to get a call from your soldier saying that he can't make it cuz someone lost something and they are on lock down till it's found.

5) Be able to put up with ignorant people who can't understand what it's like to be in love with someone and not have them around.

6) Be completely independent when he is gone and when he is there being able to ask him for help so he thinks you still need him

7) Be able to understand that you will always come second.

8) Know when to be quiet and listen, because you never know when he will open up.

9) Be able to smile when you're around other couples when yours is miles away.

10) Be able to stay up all night when he comes home after being gone for what seems like an eternity to catch him up on all the fine details

11) Be proud of everything he does.

12) Be able to translate 2300 hr to 11pm (which both always seem LATE)

13) Have a good memory, so when you shut your eyes you can still see his face.

14) Never worry about being a good cook, because ANYTHING tastes better than MRE's!

15) Constantly make sure the children don't forget him in their daily doings

16) You must be able to be a thousand miles apart from your soul mate and not even think once about straying (How many civilian wives could say that if they were apart for a year?)

17) Find the courage to support other army wives, who always seem in a worse situation, even though you may feel that your world has fallen apart.

18) You have to be patient.

19) You must be able to give up control (especially hard for us control freaks) because you really have little or no choice what the Army decides to do.

20) You have to be multi-tasked, tireless, and strong mentally and physically.

21) You have to be mother AND father sometimes.

22) You have to remember that just because he's acting tough and "manly" doesn't mean he doesn't hurt too.

23) Being able to keep your self busy & Squared Away all day long.

24) Learning the Different Time Zones; having multiple clocks set in the house one marked "HOME" the other Marked "IRAQ".

25) Learning how to vacuum around ALL that ARMY Gear that sits in the spare bedroom that originally was meant to be the TV/Craft room, but the ARMY gear found its way into there and among other parts of your home!

26) You must never forget you are never in it ALONE and why you are in it in the first PLACE!

27) Behind every AWESOME SOLDIER, Stands an AWESOME WOMEN!

28) Helping out with ironing BDU's & spit shining boots.

29) Be able to decipher all the Army jargon so you have a clue what he is talking about

30) Be able to stay up all hours helping him study for the promotion board and tell him how proud you are of him and that he will be great.

31) Be strong enough for the both of you because believe it or not at times they need us more then we need them!

32) Be able to wash your hair, shave your legs and clean up the kids and the house in less then 15 minutes when he calls to say he's coming in from the field earlier then expected!

33) Not caring that he hasn't showered in 8 days - you're just happy he's home and you can touch him!!!

34) Hauling around 15-year-old Army gear through your various moves, you never know when he may need those old paratrooper boots again!

35) Re-teaching him the English language when he comes home from deployment and can only speak in grunts and acronyms.

36) Being very very careful if you have to wake him up - he could forget where he is and come up swinging!

37) Enjoy being loved and cherished by the toughest, craziest, smartest, most honorable type of man there is - an American Warrior.

38) Always being prepared for a goodbye that could last a few weeks or a year!

39) Accepting your friends outside the army..will never understand.

40) Grinning and bearing it while your soldier is away and he talks about everything that's happening that you are not a part of.

41) Knowing to the world he's a defender of the Country, to you he's a little green teddy bear who happens to be a hero!

42) Erasing homesick from the vocabulary..

43) Adding " Hooah" to our vocabulary.

44) Knowing despite the lonely hours, work on our shoulders, and constant fear..we'd do it all again in a second, just to be able to call our soldiers, the men we love..our husbands!

45) Feeling that camo can be the sexiest color on a guy!.

46) Making friends with woman you may never meet only because they understand everything you are going through.

47) Spending birthdays all by yourself and knowing that he never forgets.

48) Rooting them on when the become depressed, even when you wanna say "hey dumb a$$ this was your decision in the first place. lol!

49) New respect and love for country!

50) A new love for the United States Postal Service (when your wait for letters, like you've won the lotto)

51) You sometimes have to be the wife AND husband while giving birth alone for the first, second, sometimes third time because the husband is away.

52) You have to be able to translate military time to civilian time.

53) To lovingly rearrange your personal goals in life in order to make sure he can live out his.

54) After him being in the field for 30 days, no shower and a pair of BDUs that could walk its way home. You still run and hold and kiss him and don't even realize (at First) that he only had BABY WIPES to freshen up with while he was gone. But you DON'T CARE!

55) When having to say good bye when he is in full battle rattle and boarding a bus to deploy for a country at WAR and not knowing when or if you will see him again, being able to keep your chin up and Not just stand behind, but by his SIDE!

56) Cherishing even 5 minute of seeing him in his day, and in them 5 minutes you are able to fill every ounce of love he carries for you and you carry for him!!

57) Excepting that you are 2 to the ARMY and what he stands for. Because what he is in the Army, makes him the MAN you FELL IN LOVE WITH.

58) Being HAPPY to wake up at 2:30 in the morning just to hear his voice, when he is away!

59) The feeling you have of love when you are wrapping up a package to send him overseas!

60).Your heart pumping hard and feeling those butterflies in your stomach when you have waited weeks for that call and he finally calls

61) Holding up the baby monitor to the phone so he can hear the baby that your love together created and hear the joy in his voice

62) Go to a football game where your alma mater college is playing football against Army and wishing Army will beat them. All for your love and support of your husband is way more important then anything else.

63) After months of being apart and when you are together feels like you were never really apart

64) Knowing you are truly never ALONE even when your SOLDIER is gone

65) Being able to tell a car MECHANIC what is wrong with your car, and not ALLOWING him to TALK down to you because you are a FEMALE. Because your SOLDIER taught you how to Be STRONG and STAND UP!

66) Keeping the HOME going daily as if your man is HOME!

67) Raising INDEPENDENT children, that have a deep love for others, because why else would their Father be gone to protect people he doesn't even know

68) The ultimate requirement to loving a soldier is to BE A SOLDIER! All those things we describe in our soldiers we must also have to fight our battles here in the homefront

THANK YOU CARRIE MY SIS FOR GIVING THIS TO ME YOU ARE MY STRENGTH WHILE HE IS AWAY AND TO MY SIS KARRIE SINCE YOURS IS HOME AND WAITING LUV YAH TOOO MUCH!