Tomorrow is Military Spouse Appreciation Day

May 7, 2009 By Claire
Posted in Spouse and Family

The following letter was originally found on the Stryker Brigade News blog on June 17, 2004. The letter was written by Ben Stein and was addressed to a military spouse. I have exchanged a couple of emails with Mr. Stein, and he is a superbly kind man, to say the least. He has been a wonderful advocate and unofficial spokesman for troop appreciation.

The letter is poignant, beautiful and full of appreciation from a non-military citizen to a specific military spouse — but it rings true for all military spouses. I can no longer claim that titles since my husband’s service has officially ended, but now I get the blessing of supporting my daughter in law as she deals with the joys and stresses of military life. So far, she’s  champ!

This is for all of the awesome military spouses who sacrifice so much and have given much of their own lives also serving, albeit unofficially. Research shows that soldiers who have families and supportive spouses do better and stay in longer. Military spouses are a very important and vital part of maintaining a good fighting force, when you think about it in sight of continuity and the job performance of soldiers. Thank you always feels so small in light of the sacrifices given, but it is always necessary to say and mean.

Thank you!

The letter below I found at Gazing at the Flag, where I read it for the first time 2-years ago.

Ben Stein, a television personality and writer, wrote this for an Army newsletter, The Strykers, out of Ft. Lewis, Washington. It was addressed to one of the wives of the soldiers.

Dear Karen,

I have a great life. I have a wife I adore, a son who is a lazy teenager but I adore him, too. We live in a house with two dogs and four cats. We live in peace. We can worship as we please. We can say what we want. We can walk the streets in safety. We can vote. We can work wherever we want and buy whatever we want. When we sleep, we sleep in peace. When we wake up, it is to the sounds of birds.

All of this, every bit of it, is thanks to your husband, his brave fellow soldiers, and to the wives who keep the home fires burning while the soldiers are away protecting my family and 140 million other families. They protect Republicans and Democrats, Christians, Jews, Muslims and atheists. They protect white, black, yellow, brown and everyone in between. They protect gays and straights, rich and poor.

And none of it could happen with the Army wives, Marine wives, Navy wives, Air Force wives – or husbands – who go to sleep tired and lonely, wake up tired and lonely, and go through the day with a smile on their faces. They feed the kids, put up with the teenagers’ surliness, the bills that never stop piling up, the desperate hours when the plumbing breaks and there is no husband to fix it, and the even more desperate hours after the kids have gone to bed, the dishes have been done, the bills have been paid, and the wives realize that they will be sleeping alone – again, for the 300th night in a row.

The wives keep up the fight even when they have to move every couple of years, even when their checks are late, even when they have to make a whole new set of friends every time they move.

And they keep up the fight to keep the family whole even when they feel a lump of dread every time they turn on the news, every time they switch on the computer, every time the phone rings and every time – worst of all – the doorbell rings. Every one of these events – which might mean a baseball score or a weather forecast or a FedEx man to me and my wife – might mean the news that the man they love, the man they have married for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, is now parted from them forever.

These women will never be on the cover of People. They will never be on the tabloid shows on TV about movie stars. But they are the power and the strength that keep America going. Without them, we are nothing at all. With them, we can do everything.

They are the glue that holds the nations together, stronger than politicians, stronger than talking heads, stronger than al Qaeda.

They deserve all the honor and love a nation can give. They have my prayers, and my wife’s, every morning and every night.

Love, and I do mean love, Ben.

2 Comments »