WOW is the only thing I have to say about this post, in doing research on Integrity for a blog post I came across the USAF core values and it opened up a whole new can of worms so to speak.
Many Air Force spouses have heard of the core values, Integrity first, Service before self, and Excellence in all we do. We also know all to well how those core values transform our lives as a married couple all three of those are the reason we spend so many nights alone and days raising our families on our own, knowing our husbands hold those traits to high importance is why we know the answer to the never ending question of "I don't know how you do it?" However so many spouses believe that those are our husbands values not really ours to live by. But let me ask you this... How good does an Airman look if his life lacks even one of those value and as a spouse are you or are you not a MAJOR part of his life, am I right? I mean isn't it the spouse who raises the kids, makes sure that everything and everybody look and acts right, and isn't it also the spouse who fixes the numerous things that seem to go wrong as soon as his feet hit foreign soil? So why is it not also the values we should live by? we are a reflection of our husband are we not?
Now how do we apply these values to us as spouses?
"Integrity" I have to be honest I actually had to look up the definition of integrity, I wasn't really sure on the meaning and this is what I found
Integrity
/in'tegrite/
Noun
1.the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles; moral uprightness.
2.the state of being whole and undivided.
Again WOW is all I can say to me it's all right there, as an Airforce wife we need to practice all of these qualities not only to make our husbands look good but also to gain the trust of fellow wives especially those that are younger and less experienced, a military spouse is a rare kind of person, it is so extremely hard to kiss your loved one goodbye for who know how long and still be able to carry on busy as usual because no matter how you feel your kids have to know you are ok and when you have a younger spouse watching you they are doing so to learn how to handle things as they arrive. How many times has someone asked you "how do you do it?" That also means that they too are watching you so why in the world would you want to show them anything less the qualities listed in the definition of integrity? You are not only representing the USAF, and your husband, but you are also representing the family that is the military spouse and to frankly honest with you nothing makes me angrier then for ONE spouse to give ALL the rest of us a bad name, you may not want to give it all you have but the rest of us do EVERYDAY, in the same situation you are in we just choose to handle ourselves with "high moral values"
"Service before self" any mother is going to understand where this one comes into play, how many times in the middle of the night does the baby cries and you automatically get out of bed and go to fix the problem, that right there is service before self. However in for a military spouse it goes farther beyond that. When our husband is deployed they constantly have to have their mind in the game and it is our job to keep things running in working order back home so that they are not at work worrying about what is going to happen if the house floods no offense but that is NOT their problem it is ours, there is absolutely nothing they can do there to help the situation, that goes for everything the last thing they need is for ANY drama from home to hit them there, this is a great place for integrity to come into play, show integrity on the home front and there is no drama to hit the deployed location therefore making for a smooth and safe deployment and homecoming. Seem simple enough... Right?
"Excellence in all we do" to me this seems like a simple math equation, 1+1=2 kind of thing if you live by the first two this one should fall into place in my opinion, does that mean we need to be perfect, not at all, to me excellence means to give it your all, I am not a perfect mother but I wake up everyday and give it all I got and I feel like I am a excellent mom and so does my husband. If you give your career (and yes I call it a career for obvious reasons) as a military spouse all you have then not only will your family benefit from it but so will your marriage and your husbands career, you want to be know as that great spouse who welcomes people to their home unannounced and always has things in line rather then that spouse who is constantly causing drama or keeping your spouse from putting the mission first. I learned about 3 years ago that although my husband loves me and our family more then life itself the mission WILL always come first, I like to think of the mission as his other wife. It's hard to accept but the sooner I did that the easier it made life for Josh (the husband) maybe it didn't make my life easier but understanding his train of thought made it an easier pill to swallow so to speak.
Now tell me this, we all want the honor of having the bumper stickers and car tags showing support for our husbands career but why is it that not all of the people sporting those accessories aren't also showing off their ability to live life by the same core values our husband are honored to live by?
