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In December we posed the following questions to our site visitors:

• Q. How would you describe yourself?
• A. Independent; strong; resilient; loving; compassionate
• A. I'm a stay at home mother, I'm an army wife. I'm organized yet frazzled at the same time. I'm a tough cookie but I have crumbled. I stay as strong as I can for our kids and support their daddy with everything I do everyday.
• A. I am a Proud Wife to a CAVALRY Soldier, mother to a very active two year old, addicted volunteer, advocate for military children, domestic engineer (for the time being anyway) and educator on a break of undetermined length.  I'm just trying to keep the home fires burning without burning down the house!  - read more
• Q. How would you describe your home?
• A. Warm; cozy
• A. My home is clean, patriotic, warm, welcoming, full of kids and laughter. It's also crazy, hectic and wild at times!
• A.  Lived in and filled with love! - read more
• Q. How do you spend your free time?
• A. movies; reading
• A. Free time?? We have that? Well, when I find some I sit online and enter my own world, I watch a movie, I just lay down and zone out to my own world where my kids are angels and my husband is home everyday at 5 with a smile and flowers.
• A. Surfing the net or working on whatever projects I have going such as quilting, etc. - read more
• Q. Are you a college student or planning on going back to school, and if so for what?
• A. grad school
• A. I'm planning to take online classes to get my RN degree while my husband is gone.
• A. I would like one day to get my doctorate in Educational Technology if we are ever stationed in a place were I have access to a school with that degree program. - read more
• Q. Is there an area of your life you wish you could improve?
• A. health
• A. I need more patience!!
• A. Self discipline when it comes to food (eating less of the bad stuff) and exercise (doing more of the good stuff). - read more
• Q. If you could pay off all your debt today, what would that enable you to do?
• A. save for child's college, our retirement; and vacation
• A. Live more enjoyably, take things a little less serious.
• A. Save more money for when my husband gets home. - read more

Take the December Survey

In November we posed the following questions to our site visitors:

• Q. What do you do to prepare your family for deployment?
• A. "We have family dinners EVERY night. Each child gets special time with Daddy. We spend as much time as possible together as a couple and as a family." - Stephanie, Army Wife
• A. "Arrange Power of Attorney, Put bills in order, double check important addresses and phone numbers like military contacts in your husband's unit, learn how to light the water heater pilot light, Put all annual items in order (car inspection stickers, taxes, dog tags...) Find a handyman, Arranging items in boxes hubby may want you to mail to him later, Taking a family vacation (we went whitewater rafting with our sons and then hubby and I spent a week in Vegas!!!" - Lisa, Army Wife
• A.  "Prayer...lots of it....just staying positive, you have to." - Lexii, Army Fiancé  - read more
• Q. What do you do to help your children maintain a good relationship with their deployed parent?
• A. "I make sure they send an email everyday or every other day. I let them write whatever they want and I try not to read what they wrote, so they can have their own communication with their Dad. We also like to make cards, pictures and scrapbook pages to send to their Dad. They usually get to talk at least 2-3 times a week."
• A. "We had our first baby while he was deployed. I would put my husband on speaker phone so our baby could hear him. I would also show him pictures."
• A. "Email, video chat, cards, postcards, and phone calls."  - read more
• Q. How do you keep a strong marriage during deployments that are so long?
• A. "COMMUNICATION!!!!! Keeping it positive and not bringing up issues that usually can resolve themselves."
• A. "We make sure to communicate and no fighting. We value the time we do get to talk because you never know what might happen after the phone is hung up or when you will hear from him again. We also talk about all the things we have done and are going to do."
• A.  "We are just engaged...but to me just knowing the Man I love s fighting for my freedom makes the love stronger. I know no miles nor time can break the love I have. and again lots of praying and keep being positive"  - read more
• Q. What do you do to reconnect with your spouse after long separations?
• A. "A lot of communication and letting him ease back into the household. We also spend some quality time together."
• A. "It takes time, you have to give them time to readjust to being home with the family again. We talk alot, I try to remember that he needs, wants to be included in things I've done alone for so long."
• A. "That's never easy, but we took a family vacation and then take it one day at a time."  - read more
• Q. Recent studies indicate that the divorce rate has increased considerably in military families.  What are your thoughts on this?
• A. "Yes, I believe it has. I say again, as I said in an earlier answer, if your marriage is strong when they leave, your marriage will be just as strong if not stronger, when they return. People that get divorced "because of a deployment" had problems LONG BEFORE the deployment, they just come to a head and seem much larger when the spouse deploys, and feels, "out of the picture."
• A.  "When people feel like they can't do it anymore, they give up....YOU have to be strong. There is no greater gift than love and if you are willing to throw it away, you may never find it again, because if someone is willing to love you and stay faithful and you throw that away, you just threw away God's Greatest Gift. Love like there isn't a tomorrow...and if you know that you can't handle being in love with someone who CHOSE to fight for his/her country....then let him/her go before you break their heart."  - read more

Take the November Survey 

Comments from site visitors about R.A.W. Voices:

"I love this site and plan on checking it often - especially for the R.A.W. voices.

It helps so much to know that I'm not alone...that there are other wives out there who struggle to take it one day at a time, who can't watch the news, who have trouble relating to others who don't know what it's like to have a husband that you are involuntarily separated from for long periods of time. Only a
military spouse can understand and I take great comfort in those voices from the other side of the computer.

Thank you for this site. And thank you for supporting our families.
Army Strong."
-Allyson, Army Wife

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This site is great! I'm an Army wife and mother of five and we are about to do another deployment without daddy. Knowing there are so many people who care and so much support out there is wonderful and I love having a place I can go where others know what I deal with and go through. Thank you!
-Erin, Army Wife

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Thank you for providing such a great website.
-Shannon, Army Wife

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Click Here to submit your comments
 

In October we posed the following questions to our site visitors:

• Q. What do you enjoy most about military life?
• A. "I enjoy the opportunity it presents me to meet people of different cultures/situations and share lifes victories and challenges with. I enjoy the opportunity that it presents me to be an example of my faith through my experiences as well as words." Tamara, Army Wife
• A. "The best thing is the sense of pride I feel for America and all it's soldiers." - Kristen, Army Wife
• A. "I enjoy the many experiences that you can't have anywhere else. To have friends that are like family scattered all over the world." - Sara, Army Wife  - read more
• Q. What do you find most challenging?
• A. "I find that raising my kids on my own without my partner is probably the biggest challenge. They grow and change so much while he is away. I also find the roller coaster of emotions from constant deployments and training activities just as challenging. We as wives are asked to be strong and independent when they are away, to attack all the challenges that may arise, then when our soldier comes back, we are asked to step down and become wife again. A hard juggling act for anyone in this situation. It takes a lot of patience and understanding from both the spouse as well as the soldier."
• A. "Deployments."
• A. "The uncertainty and instability of deployments, training etc"  - read more
• Q. What is the one thing that you would like for civilians to know about the military?
• A.  "We are not lower class people and we are severely underpaid for the jobs we have to do. Just because we get medical services doesn't mean it is all good."
• A. "They shouldn't put in their two cents about what the soldiers don't need or deserve until they or a family has been put in their boots. Especially when it comes to them getting pay raises when they are already way under paid and I would say that if I wasn't a military spouse!"
• A. "Marrying a soldier is hard work, stressful, tiring, confusing, aggravating, but when all is said and done, absolutely worth every bit of it." - read more
• Q. What is the dumbest question you have been asked pertaining to the military?
• Q. "How do you do it?"
  A. "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me!"
• Q. "Don't you ever get lonely?"
  A. "No, I have Jesus with me in everything I do, and lots of friends."
• Q. "It must be hard for you that you're moving every 3 years."
  A. "Moving constantly is great and I can experience a lot of new adventures." - read more

Take the October Survey 

Check Back Again Soon To See What Real Army Wives Had To Say This Month!