A popular military tradition is collecting “challenge coins” from the various commands you work with throughout your career. There are a few unconfirmed stories about the origin of these coins involving bravery behind enemy lines, but there is much more certainty about their use to determine who has to buy a round of drinks.
In general, they are given in recognition of good work that does not rise to the level of receiving a medal. Each has a story. In the case of the coins shown here, a story about a lawyer in the military.
For example, the coin on the bottom right is from the Navy-Marine Corps Appellate Review Activity Defense Division, where Elysia worked on the appeals of convicted service members. It has a picture of a snake and ducks and the Latin phrase Latet anguis in herba, anates ad aquae, which translates to Like Snakes in the Grass, Like Ducks to Water.
Apparently this has something to do with the defense lawyers finding errors in the trial records like finding snakes in the grass, and taking to the civilianization of military justice like ducks take to water. I could not make this up if I tried.
The other coins are from COMPHIBRON FIVE (Commander Amphibious Squadron FIVE) in Bahrain, two from the Navy JAG, one from the Naval Legal Services Command, and one from the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for POW/MPA. For everything from escorting a Real Admiral on a trip, organizing the JAG Corps holiday party, and participating in policy discussions on POW/MPA issues.
Yesterday, Elysia brought home a coin for me. I believe this means the next round is on her.
The weather was perfect today so Citrus and I went to the National Zoo and had a little breakfast picnic of scrambled eggs, apple slices and some cinnamon buns Elysia made last night. No bacon because someone took every last slice to work. (Supporting our troops, in this instance, is overrated.)
As long as you get to the Zoo before the summer camps, it is a fairly peaceful place to be.
Thankfully they have not added a McDonald’s or Taco Bell, as a recent zoo survey seemed to suggest they were going to do. They seem to have added carts with good quality snacks, although they have also installed hot dog vending machines. Those generally scare me — how long has that hot dog been in there? — but the vendor was fixing the machine and giving out free “test” sausages. It was good and we shared one before cooling off in a mist of water being sprayed on the crowd.
Citrus was also pretty excited to go visit her Mommy at work and will undoubtedly not forget that there is an ice cream shop inside the Pentagon (only 14 out of 31 flavors available). On our way back to the car two Chinook helicopters flew overhead and I pointed them out.
Oh, I’ve seen those at school.
Not impressed. It’s not like we knitted her such things when she was an infant.
It was part procrastination, and part concerns about privacy that delayed my launching this blog for about a year. Until 1992 I participated on a lot of USENET listservs, spouting off about pretty much anything under the sun. At the time you couldn’t really search for much and there was no real understanding that what you posted was out there forever.
Then in 1995 Deja News came along and archived all the posts, and Google now owns those archives. Everything I wrote pre-1992 became available through a search, and without context other than the year of the posting. I had to make more than 150 individual requests to Google to remove all the miscellaneous junk I posted.
Now, as has been the norm for for well over a decade, I don’t write anything without the understanding it could be accessed by anyone at any time. So I work at AARP but I generally do not write about the organization, erring on the side of caution. I do volunteer work with service members who need financial education, but client conversations are kept confidential. And, like other military/milspouse bloggers, I am always aware of OPSEC (operational security) issues and watch what I say even about mundane things. Loose lips can sink ships etc.
Besides, it was established early on in our relationship that there will be things Elysia cannot discuss related to her work. I still listen for interesting things but not much is tossed my way. This week, for example, all I learned is that she has to bring in breakfast foods tomorrow morning and there was a request for a plate of bacon.
You heard it here first, folks: some JAGs apparently do their best work fueled by bacon. And for inquiring minds, my contribution to the mission was cooking about four pounds of it.
Here is the challenge:
What is a good, short, name for “civilian husband married to a woman in the military?”
Orange card men?
Hommes sans chapeaux?
* The ID card for military dependents is orange.
Brainstorm away in the comments or email me.
First prize for coining the best term is a t-shirt I got in the goodie bag at a spouse symposium in Virginia Beach:
Front: Every Woman Counts
Back: Lifetime
Extra credit if you are a guy and post the comments you get when wearing it.
I am not sure what is wrong with me, but I seem to be back in the grind of studying. I see part of it as being useful to my current employment, and then there is the part of me that feels it never hurts to have a Plan B.
One major downside of being a military spouse is that employment can be feast or famine largely because of the constant moves. According to a RAND study about 10 years ago, 1 in 4 military families move across county lines in a given year, compared to 1 in 12 civilian families.
For military wives, the implications can pretty much be summed up by the report’s heading “Fewer Hours Worked and Dollars Earned.” And as for civilian husbands like me, the findings are usually summed up with “husbands were not studied because there were too few observations.”
I really cannot complain much. Back when we found out that Elysia was going to move to Norfolk at 7 months pregnant, I shared a little self-pity at a hail and farewell party. A Colonel quickly reminded me that a geobachelor tour was not a hardship compared to what other families were facing.
And he was right. After all, it was my choice not to move to Norfolk. It was almost guaranteed I would be unemployed, or underemployed, only to quite possibly move back to DC later for another round of job searching. So we made the sacrifice of living apart for two years so as not to repeat my experience in Seattle: five months of being unemployed and then moving to Washington DC eleven months ahead of Elysia. Undoubtedly, other military spouses would say “so what”. Such circumstances are quite common.
Speaking of observing civilian husbands, here I am in our little Seattle apartment on Capitol Hill reading the help wanted ads. As you can see, I no longer bothered to get fully dressed after 12 job interviews and four months of looking. Some may argue nothing has changed eight years later despite being gainfully employed.
About nine months ago I cut down my work hours from full-time to a 60 percent position. I now get to spend more time with our daughter and have also enrolled in two certificate courses: The more rigorous one is to be a Certified Financial Planner ™ professional, and the other is a military spouse fellowship to become an Accredited Financial Counselor.
My primary goal is to volunteer in the military community, where unbiased financial counseling is very much needed, but it should also give me some good experience working with individual clients. Ideally I will ultimately combine my strategic planning background with this experience. If this story has a Washington DC ending, I will eventually earn $300,000 per year talking about how the other half lives. I hope things turn out more exciting than that.
Worst case scenario, I have my cake decorating skills to fall back on.
Living near Washington DC means you get to hear a lot of radio ads lobbying members of Congress and their staffs for various pet interests. Recently Northrop Grumman has been running ads boasting about an air tanker they have available, and criticizing their competitor for the contract. The ads often get very specific and are not of much interest to people who do not work on Capitol Hill.
Last week I heard a long ad assuring listeners that Citgo stations are owned by people in the community and help people in their community. Giving and Community was mentioned a lot. Of course, this is to counter complaints that Citgo gas is supplied by Venezuela.
Citgo gas stations are on many military installations, but we noticed during our last trip to the Little Creek base in Norfolk that the Citgo sign is gone and has been replaced by a NEX (Navy Exchange) logo. Does this mean that Citgo has been thrown off base? Not exactly.
It turns out that the contracts do not expire until about 2009 or 2010. Only the signs are being replaced, presumably wherever customers have complained the most.
The Navy is testing new service dress khakis, reminiscent of World War II uniforms. Elysia now has about $4,500 worth of polyester, and apparently more to come.
On the car ride home today, Citrus announced that she was going ”get a pink uniform, with stars and stripes and ribbons, so that I can go to work.”
I think she was referring to this prototype for our Lady Sailors.
Elysia says that the khakis sometimes make her look like a brown paper bag. Perhaps she would prefer to be sherbet?
From left to right: Sue Hoppin; Sally Pressman (”Roxy” on Army Wives); Mitja Ng-Baumhackl; Tanya Biank (author of Army Wives); Brigid Brannagh (”Pamela” on Army Wives); Nicole Alcorn. As I was going to St. Ives, I met a man with five wives….
This photo and others are posted on the MOAA Spouse Blog.
General Casey does not watch Army Wives. Or at least would not admit it to a reporter who was standing next to him.
Tonight we attended an exclusive screening of Army Wives at Walter Reed. It was held to kick off the Fourth of July weekend and to honor America’s servicemen and women and their families. Two of the show’s stars attended — Sally Pressman, who plays Roxy, and Brigid Brannagh, who plays Pamela.
I was invited a few days ago to escort the stars to the red carpet and to be available to any reporters who wanted to interview real military spouses. It sounded like a fun night so I jumped at the chance.
When I called Elysia and asked her if she wanted to hear something funny, she just said “uh oh.” I guess I’ve earned it, but she did agree to attend and we gambled and took Citrus with us.
They showed next week’s episode in the old Red Cross Building at Walter Reed, and invited wounded warriors, their families, and other servicemembers. The place was packed.
Lee Woodruff, wife of news anchor Bob Woodruff, gave an amazing speech about what she went through when her husband was almost killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq and her understanding of what military families experience. If I can get a transcript, I’ll post it.
Brigid Brannagh then addressed the audience and barely said a sentence before being overwhelmed with emotion. She spent the day at Walter Reed meeting with soldiers and their families, and then being in front of a packed audience was too much. She regained her composure and made it through, as did Sally Pressman. Both of them couldn’t say enough how much they appreciated being able to represent everyone’s stories on the show.
Only in the past few days have I realized how many people watch the program, both military and those with no connections to the military. It is the highest rated series in Lifetime’s 23-year history, and it is because the scenes are very authentic.
It was quite something to watch the episode with several hundred families and wounded warriors. There are sappy moments and silly moments — which make it fun – but at its heart it manages to capture quite a lot of how families cope with war.
If there ever was a tough audience with a critical eye for the facts of military community, this was it. By the end most of the audience was wiping tears away. Wives, husbands, wounded soldiers, survivors. Everyone except for our 2 year old daughter, who has been particularly enamored of one character (Trevor LeBlanc, Roxy’s husband) and talked about him through most of the screening.
We mingled afterwards and Citrus chatted a bit with Sheila Casey while her husband – General George Casey, the Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army and former command of the forces in Iraq — was elsewhere in the crowd.
The episode will show next Sunday at 10pm. I did not take many pictures, but will undoubtedly receive a few from Lifetime in the next few days and will post them then.