The Heroine’s Journey: A Story of Service as a Military Spouse

As we near Military Spouse Appreciation day this Friday May 11th, 2018.....here's a story of Love, Distance, Strength, Compassion and Resilience.

Amanda Bosco, my sister in law, is a Military Spouse. Her story, shared here, will hopefully inspire others in a myriad of ways, create a space for vulnerability and encourage other military spouses to share their story too.

Amanda reminds us of how incredibly powerful this concept of teamwork is in a relationship and how it can have an impact on community. Alex enlisted the Marines after graduating from the University of Iowa because wanted to serve his country. Amanda is equally strong-minded and passionate about serving her country. The two of them are inspiring. Enjoy their story.....

(Amanda Bosco's story as told to Nicci Bosco)

Well first things first, as far as Military Spouse experiences go, I believe everyone's perspective is so very different. For me, it felt like Alex was gone all the time, even if he wasn't on deployment. There would be 6 to 7 months of deployment plus 6 months of training beforehand. We'd go months at a time where I'd only see him a few days a month. We were looking back at photos we posted to facebook, the times he wasn't there it was evident, he wasn't in any of the photos! And, that was hard.

It was definitely always interesting, really never a dull moment. I mean, I never knew when they were going to be able to call or when I was going to hear from him. During the 1st deployment, I went over 2 months without hearing his voice. When he called one day, I didn’t even recognize his voice .

You just do it, you just go through the motions, you either figure it out or it figures you out.

 I usually had demands with work, I was so busy that I didn’t really get to consider that he was gone and just kept moving forward. That didn't mean I didn’t miss him or wasn’t sad…..maybe there’s resiliency in that, I’m not sure. But, I did what I had to do. I realized a life where you learn to be very good at being independent. It was important for me to find activities and learn to keep myself occupied. I found I did a lot of reading, a lot of creating and I set a lot of goals for working out. Maybe I did that as a way to make sure my world didn’t fall apart, out of pure necessity I guess.

There was a lot I did out of pure necessity. On his 2nd deployment, I was living on base at Camp Pendleton and we were in the process of buying a house. I had the power of attorney, but even with that, they wanted him involved in the process. There were a lot of asks around financial documentation that I had to go get, for example, to have his command writing statements and documentations as proof of finances. These things took a lot of effort, time and there were a lot of things with him being deployed that made it tough for him to actually get. It was also hard to simply find a house that we both liked! Having these types of conversations in the middle of the night also made it interesting. You don't really get the option to talk about it, and if you do, you have 50 people in the background chiming in. I can't remember a quiet-private conversation. And, with finances, on the 1st deployment there was a time when I knew he was out of money and he wasn’t able to call anyone. I wanted to add money to his card and was told I couldn't because I wasn’t a spouse (yet).

Obstacles like that, I had to figure it out and get creative.....go up, over around, through the issue—I never gave up.

We also planned a wedding while he was deployed, imagine that! We'd have conversations around wedding planning and it’d be the middle of the night for me and I’d be grumpy and he’d only get a few minutes on the phone, then internet would drop. Nothing was easy. And, not really knowing the date he’d be home, made it tough to book anything. My family was supportive, but you know how it goes, they waned to plan and book things, but that just wasn’t the life.

 As far as learnings go......

You figure a lot of what you can handle.

I sort of fell into being a mentor to some of the younger generations of spouses on base. I got close to neighbors and wives in the unit. A majority in the unit were about a decade younger than I was and had little experience being on their own. There were questions and conversations about finances and how to better their relationships. Some didn’t have strong relationships with their family, or they weren't close by, and so they didn’t have support and would come to me for advice. And it’s tough, everyone is dealing with issues, again, everyone's experience is certainly different, I tried to help where I could.

The experience taught me a lot about myself and escalated a lot in our relationship. We had to figure out communication and what matters and what doesn’t. Because he was gone all the time, if we got irritated on something, figured out how to get through it and talk through it faster, hear it better from one another simply due to lack of time. It really helped me to be more thoughtful. I even see spill over of these learnings into my work life as well. There's a perspective I can tap into where there are a lot worse situations in the world, and a lot of times we get caught up in workplace drama, but our day gets to end at some point. Whereas, when they are deployed, they don’t get a break. I really keep Alex and what he sacrificed very close to me.

One of the more interesting things I learned was that hand written letters are meaningful, powerful and incredibly important.

During the 1st deployment we wrote letters, hand written letters to each other, a means we could rely on completely. Phones weren't a consistent option, Facebook messenger was there, but 6 computers for 1000 guys....he had to wait in line. The beautiful part is, if I go back and read those letters, they're all positive - supporting letters, talking about good things in life and supporting each other through it. It's a different way to communicate, but much more thoughtful. We like to bring those out and re-read them. 

In the end, what we went through, the many challenges during Alex's time in service really built a lot of character. We both learned a lot from it and it made our relationship stronger than I could ever have imagined it could be. I'm lucky to call Alex my husband and partner in this life.

Where are Alex and Amanda now? They're homeowners in Oceanside, CA. Alex is less than a year out of the Marines and will be starting an accelerated MBA program in Data & Analytics at California State University San Marcos. Amanda works for Forcepoint helping some of their largest clients with Cybersecurity.

They're a dream team.