Tis' The Season!

Now that summer is here, PCS season is upon us. PCS (Permanent Change of Station) means LOTS of moving to and from bases all over the world. Summers can be happy or sad. Happy if friends are headed your way or sad if they are leaving. Happy if you are PCSing and are excited about your next assignment or sad if you are dreading it.
It's hard to say goodbye when you leave but I think it's much harder being the one left behind.

We went to a cook-out for some friends who are leaving in a few weeks. We will miss them...and all of our friends who are moving this summer.

It's going to be really sad in the next several weeks. I hate goodbyes.

So, to all my "Sisters" who are PCSing and to those staying (Thank God)this summer:

Sisterhood paraphrased by Debby Guisti

I am a military wife- a member of that sisterhood of women who have had the courage to watch their men go into battle, and the strength to survive until their return. Our sorority knows no rank, for we earn our membership with a marriage license, traveling over miles, or over nations to begin a new life with our military husbands.

Within days, we turn a barren, echoing building into a home, and though our quarters are inevitably white-walled and unpapered, we decorate with the treasures of our travels, for we shop the markets of the globe.

Using hammer and nail, we tack our pictures to the walls, and our roots to the floor as firmly as if we had lived there for a lifetime. We hold a family together by the bootstraps, and raise the best of "brats", instilling in them the motto, "Home is togetherness", whether motel, or guest house, apartment or duplex.

As military wives we soon realize that the only good in "Good-bye" is the "Hello again." For as salesmen for freedom, our husbands are often on the road, at sea, or in the sky leaving us behind for a week, a month, or an assignment. During separations we guard the home front, existing until the homecoming.

Unlike our civilian counterparts, we measure time, not by years, but by assignments- married at Knox, a baby at Portsmouth, a special anniversary at Yorktown, a promotion in McDill. We plant trees, and never see them grow tall, work on projects completed long after our departure, and enhance our community for the bettterment of those who come after us. We leave a part of ourselves at every stop.

Through experience, we have learned to pack a suitcase, a car, or hold baggage, and live indefinitely from the contents within; and though our fingers are sore from the patches we have sewn, and the silver we have shined, our hands are always ready to help those around us.

Women at peace, we pray for a world of harmony, for the flag that leads our men into battle, will also blanket them in death. Yet we are an optimistic group, thinking of the good, and forgetting the bad, cherishing yesterday, while anticipating tomorrow.

Never rich by monetary standards, our hearts are overflowing with a wealth of experiences common only to those united by the special tradition of military life. We pass on this legacy to every military bride, welcoming her with outstretched arms, with love and friendship, from one sister to another, sharing in the bounty of our unique fulfilling military way of life."