Wherever You Are: The Military Wives: Our true stories of heartbreak, hope and love. The Wives Military

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СКАЧАТЬ are down is a phrase we dread: it means that something serious, a death or serious injury, has happened

      Contact Enemy fire

      E-blueys Email version of blueys, sent to a central email reception and then forwarded on

      FOB Forward Operating Base: a secured position away from the main base

      Headley Court The Defence Medical Rehabilitation Centre, where many of the most serious military casualties go after they leave hospital to continue their recovery

      Hive The welfare and information centre for wives and families on a military base

      March in/out The takeover or handover inspection of married quarters when we arrive or leave

      MERT Medical Emergency Response Team

      NAAFI Navy Army and Air Force Institute

      Patch Name given to any military housing estate

      POTL Post Operation Tour Leave: the time off the men get when they return from a tour

      Pre-Op The months of preparation before an operation, or tour

      PTI Physical Training Instructor

      R & R Rest and recreation: the break, usually two weeks, the men get in order to come home in the middle of a long tour

      REME Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers

      SAR Search and Rescue

      Selly Oak The hospital in Birmingham that hosted the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine, where injured troops are treated; now hosted by the new Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Edgbaston

      SSAFA Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association: a charity that helps serving and former members of the armed forces, their families or dependents

      TRIM Trauma Risk Management: designed to identify and help forces personnel at risk after traumatic incidents, delivered by trained people already in the affected individual’s unit

       UNDERSTANDING RANKS

      ARMY AND ROYAL MARINES

      Private

      Lance Corporal

      Corporal

      Sergeant

      Staff Sergeant

      Colour Sergeant: the same rank as Staff Sergeant, used in the Royal Marines and some regiments

      WO2: Warrant Officer class 2 (Sergeant Major)

      WO1: Warrant Officer class 1 (Regimental Sergeant Major)

      OFFICERS’ RANKS

      2nd Lieutenant

      Lieutenant

      Captain (LE Captain is someone who has worked up through the ranks; LE stands for Late Entry)

      Major

      Lieutenant Colonel

      Colonel

      Brigadier

      Major General

      Lieutenant General

      General

      NAVY (NON-COMMISSIONED RANKS)

      Rating

      Leading Hand

      Petty Officer

      Chief Petty Officer

      Warrant Officer

      ROYAL AIR FORCE (NON-COMMISSIONED RANKS)

      Leading Aircraftman

      Senior Aircraftman

      Corporal

      Sergeant

      Flight Sergeant

      Warrant Officer

OUR LIVES

       ‘He tells me I’ve got to be strong for the children, and he’s right. But who’s going to be strong for me?’

      We don’t just marry a man we love: we marry a way of life. Our lives are dominated by his career, in a way that rarely happens outside the military. We move home, on average every two years, as he is posted from camp to camp. Our children are uprooted; our own careers and ambitions go on hold. We live in houses we did not choose, we make friends who move on as soon as we have become close. It’s not an easy life, and that’s without the biggest challenge of all: our men leave home to go to the world’s most dangerous places, leaving us behind to nurse our loneliness and learn to be both mother and father to our children.

      When they go, we struggle to put a brave face on it. We don’t want to distract him: we’ve heard the saying ‘If his head’s at home, he’ll struggle out there.’ So we accept, and are even glad, that as he prepares to go he seems to shut us out of his mind. When he’s gone, we shake ourselves out of our misery and get on with it: we feed the children, walk the dog, go to our jobs, all the time blocking out thoughts and fears about what he is facing.

      Our men chose this way of life; they love it and thrive on it. We made a choice too: to be with them. We hear from civilian friends and family: ‘You knew what you were letting yourself in for,’ or ‘What did you expect when you married a man in uniform?’ But the truth is that most of us did not know what we were getting into. We had only the haziest idea of military life when we walked down the aisle and stood proudly next to our man, splendid in his dress uniform, at the altar.

      We are not complaining. Military wives are a stoical band: we get on with it.

      Here, in this book, are the stories of a few of us. We don’t claim to speak for all military wives, but we are a cross section: we are women of different ages, with husbands in different services, and of different ranks. These are very personal stories and, by telling them, we hope that all wives will find something they recognise and can relate to. We also hope that anyone who has no experience of military life will read this and understand more of what it is like to marry into the services.

Katherine Catchpole

      As soon as I heard his voice I knew something was wrong.

      ‘All right, babes?’ he said. ‘I don’t want you to panic, but I’ve had a bit of an accident.’

      My husband, Andrew, was phoning from Afghanistan, on his first СКАЧАТЬ