So, as some of you may have read in my introduce yourself, I'm a soldier in the United States Army. I just wanted to talk about life as a soldier. I don't know if there's any interest or if anyone will even read this, but I'm going to put it out there anyways.
For the most part, being in the Army is your normal 9-5 job. I wake up around 5:30am Monday through Friday. I go to PT (physical training) until about 7:30-8:30am. I go home and get ready for the work day and am back at work by about 9:30am. Then I do daily tasks at work that get put out by the people who are higher ranking than I am.
My job in the Army is an Infantrymen. For those of you who don't know what that is, we're the ground force that goes out and assaults the enemy. The simplest way I can put it! In my previous paragraph I talked about our daily routine, now for the non-regular day. When we're training as infantrymen, we call it going to the field. When we're in the field I would describe it as playing war games. It's a simulated war scenario and we train up what we would do in each scenario. We're given a mission and have to successfully accomplish that mission. There are long nights and days of being up for hours on end. The longest I've personally been awake on mission is about 36 hours.
Those long days and nights are filled with battling the urge to nod off for a few minutes, physical exhaustion from walking miles carrying all your gear, and my personal favorite: thinking about the shower you're going to have when you get home. Didn't I mention that yet? Yeah, no showers for up to about a month at a time. When we're in the field that is, deployments are a whole different story. My baby wipes have become my best friends at times! But what makes it all worth it in the end? Knowing I get to come home to my beautiful wife.
I'm personally not a military spouse so I can't speak for her, but those long weeks of me being gone have to be hard especially when we as soldiers aren't allowed to have our phones on certain missions. Without my wife I seriously don't think I could make it through those times. Being married to your best friend while you're in the Army makes you appreciate each other so much more. Possibly because the time we get to spend together is sacred at times. I never know when I'm going to get thrown on a 24 hour duty, have to go to the field, or be deployed. The sacrifices she makes are more than I could ever do. She's left her family to come half way around the world (we live in Germany) to a place she knew nothing about, but only knowing that I was leaving again and she'd be on her own. That takes courage. Thank you Kels, I love you!
Thank you for reading! If you have any questions I'd be more than happy to answer!
Written by Mike