Sarah Smiley is the
wife of a Navy pilot and the mother of two
young boys. Her syndicated column "Shore Duty"
appears weekly in newspapers across the country,
and her
website is a hotspot for uplifting stories,
spouse-to-spouse tips, and a refreshing new
spin on military life.
Sarah also appears monthly as a military-life
expert on a local Florida television station,
and will begin her own hometown talk-show
this summer. She is up for election for the
Board of the West Florida Literary Foundation
and does volunteer guest appearances and public
relations for various different military spouse
organizations and local businesses.
Sarah has been a Navy dependent for 28 years.
She is the daughter of a Navy pilot and
spent most of her upbringing amid aircraft
carriers and Navy bases in Virginia Beach,
Virginia. As a Navy daughter and spouse, Sarah
is in a unique position to see the military
from many different angles. Her delicate balance
of humor and sentiment has a special appeal
to military wives who identify with her lifestyle,
but has reached the hearts of women and families
everywhere.
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Sea bag...spouse club...duty...DITY..."det"
If this looks like Greek to you, you're not alone. Deciphering the strange and often confusing jargon of the military takes time and patience.
To make life easier, here's a brief crash-course lesson in military terminology.
Let's start with "sea bag". Ask your spouse and he will probably tell you this is a standard-issued bag used by military personnel to transport clothes and uniforms. And he would be correct...kind of.
For the sake of clarity, I like to describe the sea bag as a deployment "time capsule" your husband brings home and dumps on the living room floor. Open the bag and you will find undershirts that are smelly, wrinkled and gray (even though you could swear they were fresh and white when he packed them six months ago), and an assortment of gifts -- knick-knacks and tacky clothing in all the wrong sizes -- lovingly handpicked for you in a foreign port. (I've heard legends about women opening the sea bag and finding lavish jewelry, but so far this is just a myth to me.)
Now let's tackle "DITY". DITY is an acronym for a "do-it-yourself" move, which technically means you pack and move your belongings by yourself, without the aid of a moving company.
You will recognize the DITY move when your husband asks, "Honey, can you spend the next two weeks sorting through all our belongings and begging the grocery store for boxes while I cleverly and conveniently disappear to finish up my important check-out procedure on base?"
Which brings us to the word "duty". On the surface, it seems that duty is straightforward and simple: a position of watch filled at regulated intervals by military personnel. And this is what your spouse will want you to believe. After all, HE believes it!
Soon you will learn, however, that "duty" is actually an unavoidable work commitment that pops up "unexpectedly" on weekends, anniversaries, holidays, and your son's first day of school. How these "scheduled duty shifts" always sneak up and surprise my husband, I do not know.
The title "CO" is an especially important acronym to learn. This stands for Commanding Officer, and he/she is your husband's boss -- the head-honcho. In front of the CO it is advisable not to call your spouse "pooky" or "bear", or to mention that he threw-up on his first T-34 flight.
Another common abbreviation used in the military is det (a.k.a.: detachment). This, your husband will tell you, is a scheduled, brief period of time in which his unit/squadron leaves the homebase for training.
Don't be fooled.
Look for the meaning of "det" under its more common name: "impossible unpredictability." When your husband claims to have a det in one week that will last "only 5 days," be prepared that he will probably actually leave tomorrow and be gone for two weeks. Never trust the det schedule, and be leery of anyone who claims to "know" the det schedule.
And finally, there is the spouse club. Your husband might refer to this group as the official military "rumor mill". The spouse club, however, is an essential refuge from loneliness when your husband is deployed, and then a reasonable excuse to escape from too much together-time when he gets back.
The spouse club also is an excellent source of information (such as why the squadron really calls your husband "Dancing Bear"), and a means to clarify facts (like the truth behind that questionable picture of your husband in Greece).
[WARNING: Anything you reveal at a spouse club meeting may be used against you. Use discretion!]
As you can see, husbands and wives have been arguing for years over the meaning of most of these words. For the most part, his definition and your perception will eventually vary greatly.
There is one exception, however, and that is the term "orders". Husbands and wives unanimously agree about the cut-and-dry nature of this word. "Orders," unfortunately, means exactly what you think it means: Your spouse is being ordered to do something. It will often be used in sentences like: "Yes, honey, I thought we'd be moving to Virginia too, but now I'm being ordered to Japan", and "My orders have changed; we're moving next week."
There's just no getting around orders, no matter how you define it.
Good luck, stay flexible, and don't believe everything you hear...especially about the det schedule.
