A story by an Army wife is not from a TV show

Real military life is not what you see on TV.

"The Unit" (2006) Covert warriors. Unsung heroes. Plot:Hour long show which looks at the life of American super-secret operators.

"Army Wives" (2007) The army has its code... the wives have their own.
Plot:
About a woman who marries a soldier and moves her family onto an Army base, where she becomes friends with other women whose husbands are in the military.

The lives of veterans after war become America's secret. The civilians are under the impression all is well until a report comes out proving everything they think they know about how this country treats veterans has been wrong. Usually reports about what is really going on cause such an outrage by the American people, the government manages to make swift changes because voters will not let our veterans be mistreated by anyone. While the bureaucracy in Washington manages to muck things up, the American people are fiercely loyal to the troops when they serve and to the veterans they become.

Things changed since Vietnam veterans came home mistreated but they changed for all generations of veterans because these Vietnam veterans refused to surrender to the powers of the government and they forced them to act on addressing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as well as Agent Orange and the rest of what was wrong with the way our veterans were treated. Things also changed because the Internet linked them together so they no longer felt isolated, discovering the power of their united numbers could move mountains and those mountains did in fact move.

Fast forward thirty years and we find reports online about PTSD, suicides, homeless veterans, divorces, suffering and we also read about healing because they shared their stories and made it all personal to the rest of the population. Things changed because they had the courage to speak out. The current members of the military and their families however, do not have the same ability to speak out without paying a price for it.

Carissa Picard spoke out and paints a picture of military life few others will ever know. Do all marriages end up like her's? No but considering the divorce rate in the military it's obvious these marriages are in trouble for more than just the usual reasons people have when getting divorced. They have to live where they are told to live for however long they are told to live there. Their kids end up going through different schools in different states so often they have a hard time making friends because they think they'll end up moving again. Wives end up not being able to work because there are only so many jobs they can hold close to base allowing them to be able to pick their kids up from school while their spouse is deployed. Yes, it's even hard when both parents are in the military.

Maybe things will change in the military because people like Carissa show there is a big difference between watching TV shows making us think we know what military life is about. Lord knows they need more support than they are getting and this can come when we are able to understand some of what they really face.

Please read what she has to say about her life as a real Army Wife.

Invisible Casualties of an Invisible War
Carissa Picard
http://sites.google.com/site/carissapicard/