Yes, I was already married when I enlisted. I went in with a six year enlistment and got to sew on E-3 half way through basic training. With that bump in advancement, I sewed on E-5, Staff Sergeant, in only three years and nine months. Our daughter was born overseas. My wife and I have been married 45 years now.
Just between us, my wife really didn't like playing softball with the jocko wives in my duty section overseas. The NCIOC's wife and the wife of a guy promoted with me were real sports jocks.
My 1st husband was an E-4 -Air Force when we got married, and even though my mom taught me how to be a proper military spouse, she had almost always remained on the ranch with us kids and other family whenever my dad was stationed someplace outside of Texas, my husband expected me to bring our cub and be with him-so like your wife, I gritted my teeth and smiled a lot-my pet peeve was the wives who were like giggling 14-year-olds, always talking about clothes and hair, organizing shopping trips, etc-seemed like a total waste of time to a girl used to jeans, boots and ranch work...
When I married MrT5, he was a LTC, and within a few years of retirement, so I didn’t have to observe the protocol of military wives as much...
About half of the women out here have been military wives-including the wife of a retired general who is a ranch store owner-she got together a group of women-all former military wives-to gather once a month to play bunco and have snacks and drinks at one another’s homes. The 1st get together was at her home-a country estate that none of the rest of us could afford-we found ourselves being directed to the dining room table and being seated according to our husbands’ former military rank-the local dentist’s husband had been a LTC, so I found myself seated next to her-we were both really annoyed, and she said to Ms general-look XXXX, our husbands are civilians, we all have civilian jobs now, but if you insist on following that protocol of rank, then seat us by the spouse’s civilian “rank”.
She pointed out that the sheriff’s wife should be seated at the head of the table, because even though he retired as a Senior Master Sergeant, he was now the head of local law enforcement and outranked everyone else-Ms general was not amused, and the get-togethers did not get off the ground because we were all only too pleased to be civilian wives now...
When I was coming along, a Staff Sergeant was an E-6. Have things changed?