Military Family Month

By: Holly Shively

November—the month that brings a sigh of relief to military families across the nation—not because of Veteran’s Day or Military Family Month, but because for many, Thanksgiving is the first hope of seeing their active-duty loved ones in months. And if they aren’t in the lucky group whose soldier is shipped home for a few days during the holiday, they stay strong and remember Christmas, an even bigger shot at seeing their child, spouse, parent or grandchild, is just around the corner.

It’s exactly for that reason that we spend an entire month dedicated to appreciating the selfless givers, who stand as a backbone while one of their family members is protecting these United States. And the month is especially important in an area like Dayton where Wright-Patterson Air Force Base is a staple in the community, where you can throw a pebble straight into the air and it would land on someone connected to somebody in the military.

In the five weeks since my fiancé left for Officer Candidate School for the Marine Corp., I’ve learned a great deal about the sacrifices that military families make daily. It means writing letters until your hands are sore for weeks straight until you get that first phone call. Then there’s giving up every Saturday night and Sunday afternoon to sit at home waiting for the call that may never come.

It’s worrying constantly, even when they aren’t on the front lines of battle, that they may not be eating enough or that they could be sick or injured. It’s going to bed at night wondering if they are going to bed too, things that wouldn’t even cross your mind if you could pick up the phone to text or call whenever you wanted.

“A lot of people are going to thank him for his service,” a friend of my fiancé who served in the Marines for several years told me before he left. “But it’s not going to be easy for you either.”

But I do have it easy right now in comparison to others who are constantly struggling with loneliness and raising a family without an important member present for major events.  I’m always the first person my fiancé calls when he gets liberty, and the one he spends the most time on. Yet his parents who raised him for decades get only a very small fragment of the little free time he has. And at least I know where my fiancé is, and that he’s alive and safe. Thousands of other military families don’t have the same luxury.

So every year the president traditionally signs a proclamation declaring November Military Family Month, a month to honor the backbone behind our honorable servicemen and women. The families that continue to encourage their military loved one when most people under the same conditions would quit. These families suffer, but will never show weakness as they move throughout their lives on their own internal battlefield, knowing that their loved ones’ duties to their country have transposed to their own duties to country and family.

And so while they’d never ask for it, we celebrate Military Family month for:

The grandfather who would do anything to throw a football with his grandson, but the child lives halfway across the country because his father is stationed there.

The high school senior who’s unsure if her mother will be at her graduation since she’s deployed.

The parents who haven’t spoken to their children in weeks after spending decades caring for their every move.

The wife who delivers her first child while her husband is stuck in an airport on a layover for his last-minute trip home.

Do something nice for the family you know that’s struggling in the absence of their soldier this month. Send them a care package, drop off dinner, offer to babysit for a night, open up as a listening ear, invite them out for a weekend or just give them a call to let them know you were thinking about them; it could change their whole year.