I am a military wife~a member of that sisterhood of women who have had the courage to watch their men march into battle and the strength to survive until their return. Our sorority knows no rank for we earn our membership with a marriage license, traveling over miles or over nation to begin a new life with our soldier husbands.

Within days we turn a barren, echoing building into a home and though our quarters are inevitably white walled and unpapered, we decorate with the treasurers of our travels, for we shop the markets of the world.

Using hammer and nail, we tack our pictures to the wall and our roots, to the floor as firmly as if we had lived there for a lifetime. We hold a family together by the bootstraps and raise the best of the "brats" installing into them the moto, "Home is togetherness," whether motel, guesthouse, apartment or duplex.

As Air Force wives, we soon realize that the only good in "good~bye" is the "hello~again". For as salesmem for freedom, our husbands are often on the road, leaving us behind for a week, a month, an assignment. During the seperation we guard the home front, existing till the homecoming.

Unlike civilian counterparts, we measure time not by age but by tours~married at Tinker, a baby at Elmendorf, a promotion in Korea. We plant trees and never see them grow tall, work on projects completed long after our departures, and enhance our community for the betterment of those who come after us. We leave apart of ourselves at every stop.

Through experience we have learned to pack a suitcase, a car or hold baggage and live indefinately, from the patches we have sewn and silver we have shined, our hands are always ready to help those around us.

Women of peace, we pray for a world in harmony, for the flag that leads our men into battle. will also blanket them in death. Yet we are an optimistic group, thinking of the good and forgetting the bad, cherishing yesterday while anticipating tomarrow.

Never rich by monetary standards, our hearts are overflowing with a wealth of experience common only to those united by the special tradition of military life. We pass on this legacy to every Air Force bride, welcoming her with outstretched arms, with love and friendship, from one sister to another, sharing in the bounty of our unique, fulfilling Air Force way of life.

Author Unknown

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