Here’s a word we should probably also strike from our military lexicon: Dependa.

It is mostly directed at women and if used towards a man it insinuates he is weak because his wife is the service member as opposed to him. 1/

I watched what I thought was a pretty lighthearted post turn pretty nasty last night. While it was directed at WAGs (another derogatory term for wives and girlfriends) it showed a little bit of a dirty underbelly of how some of the #miltwitter crew views military spouses. 2/

For the most part military spouses are just like any other. They didn’t marry for benefits or stature or some sense of glamour. It’s likely they didn’t even know what it was they were getting into. Many have careers of their own. 3/

Careers they will have to decide to continue and be apart from their SM or quit and start over every 3 or so years. Dual income households today are almost a necessity. Especially for our young enlisted and officers corps. 4/

However a lot of companies are slow to hire military spouses because they know their shelf life is short lived. Even if they get a job, it likely won’t be exportable from post to post. I’ve heard people say, “Well, they should’ve picked a more transient vocation.” 5/

Clearly this misses the point. When we decide to make the military our career, we make a decision for our family. In many cases our spouses are just along for the ride. The requirements that we, as an Army, levy on them is unlike almost any other job. 6/

I know my wife loves Soldiers. My sons want to be Soldiers. We are an Army family. I depend on her much more than she depends on me. So maybe we adjust the narrative on our spouses and not degrade them just because they chose to be married to us. We are better than that. End/