In the latter part of that third year of marriage we found out that we would have the opportunity to live the active duty lifestyle. Let me tell you, I absolutely loved it! I loved having all my neighbors know what I was going through. I loved having a PX, a commissary, and a number of other resources designed just for ME within a few minutes drive! I had a posse of military spouse sisters that were some of the kindest, most helpful and genuine people I have ever met. I had all these wonderful things that I had been craving for so long, and then I came home. No more commissary, no more PX, no more support group. I started to lose that pride I had found.
After we arrived back home to normal life we experienced a number of things that sparked a transformation in me. Obviously, now that my husband didn’t have a day job anymore, he would need to find something quick. He applied at a company who eagerly expressed their anticipation in hiring him until they found out he would have to miss certain weekends and brief stints for National Guard training. We got an email expressing that the company just simply couldn’t work with my husband’s guard schedule. After receiving the email we were both pretty discouraged, mostly because this wasn’t the first time something like this had happened.
Issues with guard schedules and civilian jobs are definitely a widespread problem within the National Guard and reservist community. Luckily laws have been implemented to protect people like us from this kind of discrimination but that fact does not make it any more pleasant to deal with. Jobless due to the fact that my husband swore an oath to protect those very people who denied him employment based on his status as a solider; was a little hard for me to swallow. I was angry and hurt. Desperate to find a job, my husband applied at a mass grocery store (“My life belongs to Sam(s)”), which hired him almost immediately.
