10 Common Military Life Questions: His vs. Her Perspective

New to military life? Non-military, but curious how military life works? 

As a military family, we get asked these questions ALL the time so I've put together an interview between my husband and I to share our perspective on military life. Join us to hear what military life is like for the military member and their spouse!

I am so excited to be sharing this blog post with y'all! As an unexpected bonus, doing this interview with my husband, Ben, was super fun and enlightening. I wrote out my responses before I asked him the same ten questions and I did not show him the questions beforehand so I could get the real and raw answers for you! I wish this was a vlog or a podcast so you could hear this conversation between us because it was just...awesome and real and so...us. Hopefully our personalities will shine through my writing nonetheless.

Disclaimer: Many of these questions are highly dependent on the military members branch, MOS, and career path (i.e. Active Duty, National Guard, Reserves) and therefore the answers are not accurate for everyone! Please keep in mind these are our personal opinions and experiences with military life - everyone's will be different! However, we do hope this information is helpful and inspiring to those just starting out their military journey, those in the civilian world and everyone in between! We hope it will serve as an insight to what our American heroes and their families endure throughout their service to this great nation.

Before we get into the good stuff, here's some helpful background information. Ben is Active Duty Army and has been serving for almost 6 years. He has deployed three times and PCSed once. We got married at 19 (Rachel) and 20 (Ben) and are coming up on our fourth wedding anniversary. We currently do not have any children.

1. What is the best part about military life?

Rachel: The best part for me has been being able to travel and see areas of the country (and potentially world) I never would have imagined living in. These adventures have led to me meet some of the most amazing humans, coworkers and friends. We were definitely blessed on the friend aspect here at Fort Hood.

Ben: "It's kinda like a second family. You get to meet people from all over, different backgrounds. And you all mold together, you go through the same things with each other."

2. What is the worst or hardest part of military life?

Rachel: This answer may seem ironic after question one, but the worst part for me is being so far away from family, especially during deployments. You miss birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, and moments that I grew up celebrating with family. This past year I missed the birth of our first nephew and Ben lost irreplaceable time with his Aunt who passed away. That broke my heart. Just knowing that you may be missing moments with loved ones you'll never get back is hard.

Ben: "Deploying and leaving family...You, and the dogs."

I can imagine service members leaving children behind for a deployment is an even more difficult aspect of military life.

3. How often is the military member gone versus home?

Rachel: It feels like we spend more time apart than together. But that is also due to the fact that we spent the first 2.5 years of our relationship long-distance while I finished school. We literally saw each other a few times a year and then once you throw deployments into the mix, it was even less than that. Also, Ben an Infantryman, meaning his job description is to defend this country, front line. Frequent deployments are a fact of life for us.

Ben: "Almost 50/50. When I'm "here", I'm training so I'm not really here...so I guess I would say 50/50."

4. What was it like getting married so young/eloping?

Rachel: It was challenging. I was 19 and Ben was 20. Nothing was really changing by getting married, meaning I was still going to finish school and not move to be with him. That made it even more challenging. We had to trust each other 100% which is the main reason we were able to survive that time apart. It made our marriage stronger for sure, but we struggled. I honestly feel like we are just getting to solid ground in our marriage now coming up on our fourth anniversary (May 22 ❤).

Ben: "Awesome." *I was so surprised by this answer, I asked him how it was awesome.* "I married my best friend." *Okay, BRB, crying! Then I asked him, 'But, wasn't it hard?'* "Yeah, you lived in NH and I lived in Texas, for most of it, and then you get down here and I go away for the summer and I come back for a couple months and then do training and go on deployment for nine months...we spend most of the time apart. But we try to make the most of our time together."

Fun Fact: Ben and I went skydiving with my sister, Alexa, on our wedding day! She had no idea were we planning on eloping later that afternoon. Surprise! Side note - why did no one slap me for this hair color?!

5. Is it hard being in a relationship when you're apart so often and/or being surrounded by single friends? 

Rachel: Our relationship has been long-distance from the get-go and military life is not much different. Is it challenging? Of course, but for us its normal. This lifestyle has helped us build a strong marriage and forced us to think outside the box to stay connected through times we are apart.

Ben: "No. You and I have gotten pretty good at it. We have been dating since I got in, so this is all we know." *I asked him to think back to when we were just dating and he was a Private at Fort Riley living in the barracks and the being surrounded by mostly single men.* "I never really fit into that type of click I guess. I mean we did stupid stuff, but not like relationship-related stupid stuff."

I think it's important to note that both Ben and I have been really great about choosing friends who are respectful of our relationship to hang out with during our time apart. We aren't big partiers so that helped keep us away from any potential inappropriate situations that could have negatively affected our relationship. Trust and communication in any marriage is extremely important but for a military marriage, it will make or break you.

6. How do you deal with deployments and/or times apart from your significant other?

Rachel: I focus on keeping myself as busy as possible. I like to set milestones countdowns to help the time seem not so daunting. For example, during our last nine month deployment, I planned an event or trip every 3 months so I had something to look forward to. I also find that setting a fitness goal for myself and having a competition between Ben and me keeps me motivated to stay on track. Plus exercise is free stress and anxiety relief.

Ben: "Trying to talk to you as much as I can while I'm gone. And video chat."

Video chat is hard when the Wi-Fi signals are horrible but I'd take a blurry, 2-minute lagged video over snail mail any day!

7. How do you manage your time pre-deployment? How do you make the most of your time in the days before your significant other leaves?

Rachel: We spend as much time as we can together just the two of us and visit all our favorite restaurants. One deployment we took a day trip to adventure in the mountains of New Hampshire and another we went on a cruise. Either way, we made each other a priority. We have learnt over the years it's okay to set boundaries with family both pre and post deployment. We have to put our marriage first.

Ben: "A whole bunch of date nights."

Ben wasn't super helpful on this topic. But after I told him my thoughts he agreed. Our three deployments have looked very different each time because of our long-distance relationship at the beginning. But the commonalities between them was always spending quality time with each other just the two of us before he left.

8. What is the best way to keep in communication and/or feel connected to your significant other during deployments and/or times apart?

Rachel:Technology is a blessing. There's Snapchat, Facetime, Skype, iMessage, etc. Beyond using those resources, I feel connected when I sleep in Ben's shirts and look at photos I have of us. And when I do get a phone call, I try my best to give him my full attention.

Ben: "I play with my wedding ring." *Then I realized he was not wearing his wedding ring! LOL. (Only because he can't wear it during his Air Assault training). Anyways, getting back on track, I asked him what helps him feel connected to me when he's gone, like what do I do for him that helps him feel connected to me.* "When you send me a care packages you always put a little letter, or note with it and pictures."

I also like a keep a deployment journal where I write about anything and everything going on at home. I don't always have the opportunity to write in it daily, but I do as much as I can. Sometimes we go weeks without hearing from one another and writing it down not only helps me remember, but it lets Ben catch up on what happened while he was away. It may mean more to me then it does to him, but it helps me feel connected.

9. What is the biggest struggle/challenge post-deployment?

Rachel: The reintegration process is difficult. It's emotionally and mentally exhausting because you don't really know what to expect. Every deployment is different and it's impossible to anticipate how your service member is going to react to being home. It's really hard for me to let go of control and to let Ben help me after doing it all alone for so long. That's the hardest part - letting him break down that wall I built up in survival mode.

Ben: "Trying to fit back into how you were doing things. Cuz I'm not trying to come in and ruin everything, you have a process and I'm just trying to move into your routine without messing it up." *I pointed out here its not about him fitting into my routine, it's about creating a new one together. He agreed to that.*

10. What is the best part of homecoming?

Rachel: Homecoming is the most exhilarating feeling in the world. It's better then wedding day jitters in my opinion. After months and months of worrying, stress, and drama, there is no better feeling in the world than that homecoming hug! We got our latest deployment homecoming on video and I squealed like a pig and cried like a baby but I don't remember any of that. I just remember feeling like I could finally breathe again. Literally I asked, "Is that me squealing?!?" when I watched the video later that day! 😂

Ben: "Sex..." *I give him a look* "What, I can't say that?!" *I was dying laughing because A) He didn't miss a beat answering this question - the fastest I've ever heard him answer anything. B) Our mom's are for sure going to read this blog. Hey, Moms! C) It is the most accurate answer you'll ever hear a man say, am I right? Especially a man who just got back from a deployment. Just keeping it real here. "Food...we'll go with food, how about thatt? Having real food is nice. Sleeping in a real bed is pretty nice."

There you have it! I know that was a long read, so thank you for taking the time join me! I hope you got a few laughs and lots of helpful tips out of it. Fellow military families, do you have any other recommendations for fresh military blood?! Feel free to share with us in the comments! And if y'all have more questions you'd like answered, I'd love to do additional blog posts addressing them so please let me know. 💓

- xoxo -