Today is POW/MIA recognition Day. Thank you to all that have served, who do serve, and have made the ultimate sacrifice for this country. This goes out to those who were KIA. May they rest in peace.

And next, I'm going to add a little insight to my life, and the life as a military spouse. Enjoy :)

We don’t have ranks. We don’t have badges. We don’t fight fires, chase bad guys. We are not heroes. We carry no weapons. We do not drive government vehicles.

We are a hidden society, living amongst you. We serve you food. We wash your laundry. We answer your phone calls. We are not hidden at all. What we are is only known to those who are us. We are those who wait months. Years. All for a phone call. We wait for letters. E-mails. Texts. The presence of those we yearn to smell again. We are always remembering. Always thinking. Always fighting. We never forget. We carry our hearts on our sleeves for fear that if we can’t see our emotions, they’ll disappear into the evening wind. We do not mourn. We cry. We weep. We sob. We fight. We never forget the emptiness in our hearts that we wait to be filled in time’s come. We are the women who fight for our men who fight for our nation. We do not share families. We do not share leases. What we share is beyond comprehension, beyond what words can say. We stand tall and fight hard. We have nothing to fear but fear itself, and that is our greatest fear of all. What we do and who we are is everything you wish you were. Everything you wish you weren’t.

We entered this society not knowing if we would make it out alive. But we fight, and we fight hard. We fight every day. We fight every second of every minute of every hour of every day for years. We don’t know when we will stop fighting. We just keep fighting.

This is our tale of our wars.

There is much to be said of a Marine spouse. Some of us entered these relationships knowing that we would be facing a difficult task in our future. Some of us entered blindly, knowing of the existing fight, but not knowing what it means until it’s too late, until we look to our shoulder and see the blue cord hanging from the threads of our hearts. Some of us entered these relationships before the war, before the fight. We supported, and we were proud. We welcomed our PFCs home with open arms, not realizing that those arms would soon be empty. Some of have been at this for days. Some of us for weeks, and for our veterans, years. We have lost many women to this war, for it takes a strong heart and a willingness to fight and stay alive. We support each other when a soldier returns home to the one he missed most, yet we are jealous, because we want our soldiers home too.

I am here to share with you our stories of our lives, as true as we can be. Why? Because we do not live a fairytale by any means. We stand with our backs straight and our eyes forward for we are proud of what we wait for.

This pride is what we hold dear, because when you’re standing behind enemy lines, the pride that you carry inside is what pushes you through.