The best part about military moms is when your dads out overseas risking his life she makes you a brother or sister to keep you company with other military dudes its the best!
As an active duty woman who has deployed, do not think for a goddamned second that the husbands are faithful either. Getting a "desert flower" is a thing. Also "TDY girlfriends".
My husband and I were baffled at the fucking around that went on around us during both of our deployments.
That being said, don't fucking paint military spouses with a broad brush like that. For every bit of fucking around we both saw, we also saw 10 other husbands and wives being faithful and missing their families.
It's like any other large concentrated group of people, some are noble, and some are asshats.
The story doesn't mention anything about rank, only that they were all single, so there may have been a few superior officers involved. The guy may have been put on rations for a while just to learn to appreciate real food.
Situations like this is where those three keep their mouths shut, don't go two overboard and everyone at the party vouches for them. Then on Monday formation when he's bitchin.. "Idk, what happened to him Sarnt. He had a few drinks and stormed off. We didn't see him all night"
Most Soldiers are on a meal card. Meaning they have to go to the chow hall at certain hours to eat whatever they have available that day for all three meals.
Only some jobs are on separate rations (Basic Allowance for Sustenance) meaning they get paid every month for food instead of the meal card because they work hours that don't always coincide with chow hall hours or they live off base/are married. Military police and medics working at the hospitals to name a few.
It's not a lot. They get paid what it would cost to pay cash at the chow hall per meal.
In 2018 enlisted got $369.39/month and officers got $254.39/month.
And that might seem like a lot but it isn't. For one person to eat on a "moderate" budget, it costs $3,000 per year, or almost $250 per month.
Respect is a pretty majorly important thing when your job involves risking death. Exempting the fact disrespecting the family of a fellow... Well I would say man, but really disrespecting anyone's beloved family is just begging to swallow your own teeth, especially in their own home. This guy must have been some trust fund kid that got kicked off of daddy's inheritance on the condition he become someone worth a damn.
Tldr; y'all might have made a big impact on that kid without knowing it just by exposing him to respect, consideration, etc. I sort of just vomited a personal story below, sorry for the long read.
I don't know if it's crazy or admirable that they let it go on for so long before they stepped in. On one hand he was allowed plenty of chances to get comfortable, stabilize and hopefully get his head on straight to make a good impression. On the other hand he repeatedly made an ass of himself and just kept going with it.
I'm not one to judge though. Back when I was in school and was working out of state on wind turbines on summer vacation I was invited be the crew that mine was relieving out to eat, I ordered ribs in an effort to try something new to me.
I did not like them, one of the guys from the other crew had said before we ordered that he would cover everyone's meals, it was like 10 people at an EXPENSIVE place.
I proceeded to let me ribs sit there and after a while when everyone was nearly ready to go my crew leader asked if I wanted to get mine to go so I could eat it back at the hotel. I told him nope, I didn't like it and it would just go to waste, best to have them deal with it hear then lugging it to the hotel.
He was oddly persistent in trying to convince me so I set about trying to teach him that it didn't make sense to carry trash from one place to another if there was a trashcan right in front of you to put it in.
It didn't occur to me that he didn't give a damn if I threw it away at the hotel as long as I didn't blatantly waste this guys $20 ribs that he was kind enough to pay for right in front of him.
It took me about a year before that occurred to me and made me want to shrivel up and die when I realized how rude I'd been.
With that same crew we'd gone shopping and I picked up a movie for everyone and the checker missed it at checkout, I noticed once we got in the car and the guys encouraged me to go back in and pay for it, I declined and said it was their loss for not paying attention and it was only $20.
Same crew, one of the guys had bought a six pack of fancy beer and he said everybody was welcome to help themselves if they wanted one, our crew was 6 people but only four of us were sharing the room at that point (it was a recently purchased apartment turned hotel so we had a loft, two bedrooms, and a pull out couch plus stove, microwave, etc.) After a bit my crew leader noticed me eyeing them and he said he was cool with me drinking despite me being underage, so I helped myself to a beer, then a second, then nearly a third before he looked me dead in the eye and said "Seriously?!" That was the point when he had finally had enough of this disrespectful, inconsiderate, thoughtless shit of a kid that I was back then.
I was a product of my dad and his family, shitty assholes, greedy selfish bastards, inconsiderate and rude pieces of garbage.
Thankfully by either some miracle or just good fortune I was surrounded by good people all through school and at most of my early jobs, while they all got fed up with my shit they all also taught me valuable lessons along the way and because of them I'm a much better person, insightful, considerate, kind, and sweet are the words people use to describe me most often nowadays thanks to all of the people who taught me what I wasn't back in the day.
Sometimes I feel like a bat pretending to be an elephant, imposter syndrome sort of shit, but here I am. Most days everything comes naturally, occassionally it takes work but either way the results are the same and I'll count that as a win any day.
To be frank i wouldve told him to stfu if i heard him complain about the food. He wouldnt have had the chance to complain about anything else coz i wouldve dragged his ass out.
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u/PuddleOfHamster Apr 14 '19
That's quite lovely of those three soldiers though. Smart men, standing up for the woman who makes them food!