I have heard it said that military families do nothing but complain, that we are ungrateful, and that we are all just a bunch of whiners. I've heard it said that we have everything given to us and our lives are so easy because we don't really have to work for anything. Our salaries are a set amount and we never have to worry about how much we're going to make this paycheck or where the money is going to come from. We have free healthcare and we can get discounts at certain stores just by flashing our ID cards. We don't have to pay taxes at the military stores. We get groceries at a discounted rate. Blah, blah, blah...
Now, do military families complain? YES. Do civilian families complain? YES. People are the ones who complain. Most people are never satisfied, nor will they ever be. It doesn't matter if you are a Soldier, work at Pizza Hut, or are Bill Gates, there is always something that you would change and something that just rubs you the wrong way. In my opinion, a military family has every right to 'complain' when their Soldier is gone for weeks, months, and years at a time. Should they complain every moment of the day? Absolutely not. I am an Army Wife and even I will say that it's irritating to listen to somebody's sob story about their Soldier being gone. We can all identify with the misery of it and we know how much it hurts BUT, it's not any worse for you than it is for me. Every family is different and each has their own struggles with their Soldier's absence, none of which are comparable.
Being an Army wife, I do wish to defend our 'complaining' because I do believe that most people simply do not understand military life and all they see are the benefits that we are 'given'.
My first argument is that my Soldier works very hard for his money. There are times when my Soldier works 80 hours a week for absolutely no reason and, trust me, he doesn't get paid over-time for it. The only thing he gets for his extra time is lack of sleep and frustration. We get a set amount of money, no matter how long his work hours are. I bet most of you have no idea that a Soldier's civilian counter-part makes 30% to 40% more money than he does. Not to mention that we get paid by a government that is currently billions of dollars in debt. Trust me, we don't always know that our next paycheck will be in the bank when it is supposed to be nor do we know if it will be for the right amount. Believe me, you'll need the hand of God to get it fixed if it's wrong!
Also, I've heard that we shouldn't complain about how much money we make because we get so many benefits. Well, let's talk about the most obvious benefit of healthcare. While we do receive free healthcare, it does come at a price. You are either assigned to a doctor at random or you can wait in line for at least an hour, usually longer, and randomly pick one off of a list that gives you only their name and address. Oh and did I mention that, whether your doctor is military or civilian, you have no chance of getting in to see them quickly? There are so many of us stationed here and more pouring in, that the doctor's offices are completely over loaded. The average wait time to see a doctor for something as simple as a mild ear infection or a cold is 3 weeks, if you're lucky. Do you know what option that leaves you? Absolutely nothing...until your child's infection gets so bad that you end up at the Womack ER at 3 a.m., where you sit and wait for hours on end because 10 of your neighbor's have been there since midnight. Another aggravating thing about our healthcare is that, when you're assigned to a military care facility, you rarely, and I mean rarely, see the same doctor twice, which sets you up for conflicting opinions and you rarely get an actual diagnosis or treatment.
I will stop here because I do not want to be seen as a complainer myself. There are frustrating things about our 'benefits' but, at least we have access to them. I simply want to say that, in my opinion, we do, on occasion, have the right to complain about these 'benefits' because sometimes, they are not a benefit at all.
