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I think the Army needs a mentoring program. Most jobs, you have on the job training, In professional jobs, you often have a mentor. I think we need a mentor program for military spouses – especially for first deployments. A program that hooks up the brand-new wife (or fiancée) with an experienced one; that connects spouses who have gotten through a combat deployment with people whose soldier just got word a deployment is coming up.
Wouldn’t it be great if, as a brand-new spouse, you had an assigned battle-buddy of sorts? A fellow spouse who was not only knowledgeable but who had also maintained a good attitude and a healthy marriage in the current op tempo, who’d been through at least one combat deployment…. Someone not from your unit, so you could ask without worrying about the gossip tree being involved. Someone you could ask not only ‘Where do I find this on post?’ (which you could ask a sponsor, if you were lucky enough to get one) but also ‘How do you deal with resenting the Army for taking your husband away when you need him? How do you deal with the fear and loneliness? How can I do this Army wife thing successfully?’
I suppose I’m preaching to the choir. After all, this blog functions as somewhat of a mentoring program – so does a bulletin board I post on. And there are books – like Jacey Eckhart’s ‘Homefront Club’ or Hillary Martin’s ‘Solo Ops’ – I love those two books. But it isn’t the same as having a person who you can call, or go to coffee with, or whatever. I wish the Army did had a program, maybe through AFTB classes (which I think need more publicity.) I also wish the Army did a better job reaching out to fiancées – I think if you snub a woman before the marriage, she’s not likely to put on a perky face and start being a joiner when she’s finally ‘official’ and eligible to ‘join’. We just get thrown into this life, a lot of times it is sink-or-swim… and I think we would have happier, more stable families if we had some sort of mentoring program to help ease the transition.
So, in the absence of an official mentoring program… Kudos to us, for being the unofficial one!
Here Here about snubbing the fiancé’s. I have been the victim of far too many snubbings. We take on just as much responsibility during deployments, or at least I feel like I do!
I think you have a handle on something important My mother was an army wife and said this is what used to happen in her day. They would go to a new post and right away were invitied to a get togther where the older spouses took the younger ones under their wing. She thought maybe this was after my father attained a certain rank, she was not sure, but she was appalled that my daugher in law did not get any of that when my son was deployed. Is it that there are too many, or that more women work outside and are not available to mentor the new ones? Good questions to ask, since that would really help so much to have what you have written about!
I second that notion! I have read countless website articles, books, and Army acronym cheat sheets (which I still keep readily handy). LOL
Can I just say, YES! What a great idea. And I’m just a girlfriend!
I do have a battle-buddy and she means every thing to me. We were neighbors at our last post and now live about three hours apart. She is on her fourth deployment and me on my first. I can call her for all of those things and it has made a huge difference for me. On my blog I refer to her as my Army mentor. I go visit her for long weekends and we just have wonderful girl-time.We might not have programs for it so you just have to find your own.
t, I started as a girlfriend – I was an FRG leader as a girlfriend because nobody else volunteered. I didn’t mention girlfriends because they are difficult for the Army – it can be difficult to know how committed girlfriends are to the soldier and vice versa, at least at the level of info the chain of command typically has!
But anyhow, hang in there. I do agree you have to find your own at this point – I’ve educated myself enough and been through enough that I feel I could mentor someone. So it is partly that the new folks have to look for a mentor- but those of us that are ready need to look out for mentees, too. I just think it would be so much easier if ACS or AFTB or the family resource centers or somebody got involved. Maybe we should all talk to the military family life counselors and AFTB folks nearest us and bug them about it! And see what happens.
Well….First of all GREAT RESPONSES! I am so happy to see that you guys would participate in something like this and think it’s a great idea!Secondly, I have to say “What are you psychic?” Star and I were just talking this over for the plan on the new network coming out hopefully this fall and we had this exact topic running through our head trying to figure out how to make it work! YEAH!In researching, the Army has something similiar — Star found it on I believe http://www.myarmylifetoo.com. I’ll let her respond with the links etc. Of course, I had never seen it before so I am not sure how utilized it is. These are the kinds of ideas we want to see!
Thank you!!!!
Great minds think alike, LOL!
This is completely my cup of tea.I think you all are right, and as Kathie and Holly say, “If we were meant to go through this life alone, we would have been put on this earth alone.”Not so…we have young, seasoned, experienced, emotional, rational, all kinds of folks to help us survive and thrive.Tara’s right. I did come across a mentoring program at MyArmyLifeToo, but have not gone beyond just taking the short training session for mentor want-to-bes. You can sign up to be a mentor and a mentee. Here’s how:Go to http://www.MyArmyLifeToo.com.You must sign in with user name/pw.Click on Army Basics and in the 1/2lower right corner, there is a “Self-development” section where you will find the link for“Army Mentoring Training.”Should bring you to here: https://www.myarmylifetoo.com/skins/malt/display.aspx?moduleid=9e6c4688-af33-4425-baec-d1b113132dd9&mode=user in order to start your profile, find a client (mentee) or to match with a mentor.Let us know if you try it out.And, like Tara said…we have some ideas in this realm that we’ll be trying out for Season 3 of Army Wife Talk Radio.
Do you know if it is an Army-run program? There was a non-profit in DC that they had a link to at one point, supposedly hooking up mentors and mentees, and I sent them my stuff and never heard back…. But I think I’ll give this a shot while I’m ignoring the lecture in my next class.
Yes, Army run. I didn’t know about DC. Makes me wonder if it’s not a viable thing. I can’t imagine that it IS NOT but if they didn’t get back with you???? Do you remember the name?
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I’m trying to figure it out. I went to the site, and it says ‘training’ but I can only find the spots to sign up as a client or a mentor; it seems to think either a) I’ve already had the training, or b) if I’ve found the spot I must have. Only thing I can think of is maybe the AFTB classes I took through the site count? I’ve sent a feedback inquiry, and I’ll let you know what I get back… unless Star can answer the question. I think the program itself is viable IF they get enough publicity out there about it. Right now I don’t think anybody knows it exists – that makes it hard to keep it going. I sent them a note about that, too.
Okay — here it is.To get the mentor TRAINING — click on ‘LIfelong Learning’ along the left side on the home page (after you’ve signed in, and you must be using Internet Explorer – so I have to find time to do it on another computer, since I bought a Mac.) To BE a mentor (or mentee/client), go to Army Basics, along the left side after you’ve signed in.
Okay, so I did the Mentor Training – I was right, it is based of AFTB Level III, so I think if you’ve done that you’re good. But I did the training anyway. So then I went to Client Locator (Army Basics > Mentor Training > Find a Client (or something like that)). I filled out my mentor profile and saved it. And then I ran a search for people in Oregon…. nada. Okay, Oregon’s not much of a military state so I tried Washington… nada. So I left my profile on there and I’ll just wait and see what happens. I think the major problem is that nobody knows about the program! We have to get the word out.