Above: One of several homecomings for the Glass family while stationed in Japan; Hadley is 7 months old and Henry is 4 1/2 in this photo from 2020. Glass family photo
Staying ‘home’ while Dad Alex lives in Norfolk and on an aircraft carrier
Despite orders from the Navy to another duty station for the next three years, our family continues to call East Greenwich home, as we’ve done for the last two years. No one’s AWOL. In fact, this decision has been made to support my husband in his hard-earned, well-deserved career as an active-duty Naval aviator, while taking into account other influencing factors for our family. Anticipated deployment schedules, time together, time apart, stability, schools, safety, support, spousal employment, access to quality health care providers, access to transportation, housing and real estate, and quality of life were the ultimate factors we weighed in coming to our decision.
Brows furrow when we describe our current living situation to those that haven’t been read into it yet. My husband and I have known each other for two decades and have been happily married for more than one while being proud parents to two young kids together, yet we have opted to live nearly 600 miles apart for the better part of the next three years. My husband is just one active duty service member amongst the less than 1 percent of the U.S. population (roughly 3 million men and women) who is active duty in our armed services, but he is far from alone in having made the difficult but necessary decision to live apart from his family while executing official orders. Recent years’ hardships related to the pandemic and the widespread housing crisis has made this an even more common choice. Although official numbers have not been made available by the Dept. of Defense, policies reflecting the increased desires of families to have more flexibility in the timing of moves alongside their service member have been revamped in recent years.
We know that my husband will be deploying again. His deployments mean 7 to 10 months (or more during Covid!) flying off and living on an aircraft carrier in the middle of an ocean halfway across the world with relatively limited means of communication by today’s technological standards. Not moving doesn’t mean not as much time together as a family, because he wouldn’t be home, regardless of where home is. It’s also a reflection that he’s done seven deployments to date; we are no strangers to the incredible upheaval experienced by military families and the unpredictability that comes along with the requisite training deployment necessitates. Getting a family through workups is a feat in itself; in fact, we spouses joke that by the time a deployment comes around, we’re all so exhausted from the unpredictability of the pre-deployment schedule that deployment is an improvement for everyone’s mental health; it takes the uncertainty out of things which can help kids get back to positive routines even with a parent deployed. A front office/leadership role in an aviation squadron means long nights, early mornings, and the constant carrying of a spare cell phone battery without much opportunity to bow out for our family’s favorite things: family dinners, youth sports, time with friends, and on the water.
Luckily, we’ve got Breeze Airways for nonstop flights between us for now, and our children have yet to complain about the travel this lifestyle requires. Every so often, my husband’s ship will dock to resupply, perform diplomatic duties, and offer the 5,000+ member crew a chance for a break that the 24/7 operating schedule of an aircraft carrier simply cannot accommodate while under way. You can bet we’ll be doing our very best to drop everything and meet the ship whenever and wherever it happens. In our recognition that children are resilient and would likely be “fine” whether we chose to endure another move or remain here, we’re counting on that…
Read More: Navy Family Leans Into EG Community – East Greenwich News