Uniform chasers are the worst kind of girls. Military men are wonderful, but going after a guy just for the glamour of the uniform is low. Yet that’s exactly what an article in Yahoo is encouraging women to do.
Conviction and courage wrapped in a crisp uniform with a patriotic ribbon on top? Yes, please. Dust off your patriotic heels and show our men in service just how much you appreciate their sacrifices.
Even though dating someone in the military can be incredibly challenging on many different levels, there are numerous reasons why a man in the service could be your ideal beau:
1. Conviction. Nothing says sexy more than someone who is putting his life on the line to protect your freedoms and rights. Joining the military is a choice; by serving his country, you know he has strong ideals and is willing to fight for them.
2. He is in great physical shape. Let’s not pretend that the fact he’s probably in the best shape of his life doesn’t turn you on. The rigorous training he is committed to is part of his daily routine, and you get to reap the benefits of his occupation’s strict physical and dietary habits. We’ll salute to that.
3. Potential for love letters. Since your relationship will probably be long-distance at certain points and for long periods of time, communication becomes quintessential. This means lots of emails, chats, phone conversations, and snail mail. The possibility of epic literary confessions of love is immense.
4. Independence and co-dependence. Since he is often in unfamiliar environments, you know that he can take care of himself. He is trained to survive hostile circumstances and protect his fellow soldiers, so he knows what it takes to work as a team. He knows how to work together for a common goal, but he can also assess a difficult situation and figure out a solution on his own. This can translate well for relationships. After all, love can be a battlefield too.
5. He takes directions well. The military is all about structure, order and rules. If he can survive taking commands from his superiors, you know that he won’t mind too much when you ask him to help you with the dishes every once in a while—or when you start ordering him around in the bedroom.
6. He can keep his room neat. Due to the discipline practiced in the barracks, you can count on him to pick up after himself and keep his personal affects in order. You can thank his drill sergeant for that one.
7. The uniform. It’s not just because the tailored cut of a uniform perfectly accentuates his physical assets. A uniform represents discipline, strength, courage, and fellowship—all traits that make for great partners. We are often attracted to men in uniform because of the message it sends to us: this is a person in a position of authority who can provide us with safety and whose job is to protect us from the dangers of the world.
How can we say no to that?
Let me just say that there are a lot of great things about being married to Matt. But it’s because I’m married to him, not being I’m married to just some arbitrary Marine. There are so many wonderful and awe-inspiring things about the people who serve in our military, but they aren’t reasons to date them.
And real military life? It is nothing like what this article talks about. I’ve never received a single love letter from Matt, not even while he was deployed. I asked some of my other friends, also married to Marines, and received similar snorts of indignation. Love letters are plenty romantic, but it’s probably you who will be sending them. There also isn’t a whole lot of reliable internet service, so web cams and e-mails aren’t happening all that often, either. And best physical shape of their lives? Most Marines are in decent shape, but plenty of them aren’t, too — dating someone in the military does not ensure you get chiseled abs and a sculpted six-pack.
And while the independence/co-dependence part is somewhat true, they leave out the tendency of military men to come home and still talk to you like one of his soldiers or Marines. It took me about a month at the beginning of our relationship to, A.) realize that he wasn’t being mean, he was just talking to me like a Marine and, B.) to then break him of that habit. This is another thing that I’ve spoken to other wives about, who had noticed the same thing happen.
Taking directions? Keeping his room neat? This is a person-by-person issue. Matt is as stubborn as they come. He takes directions from his superiors, sure, but from me? Hell no. And Matt’s pretty tidy, sure, but I know plenty of Marines who aren’t.
Being in the military doesn’t guarantee you’re going to get this whirlwind romance, complete with Richard Gere straight out of An Officer and a Gentleman. The only thing that you really can attest to out of this article is the uniform… which is pretty damn sexy.
What bothers me about this article is that it leads to uniform chasers. These are the girls who fall in love with the idea of dating a soldier or a Marine or a sailor, the girls who saw Ben Affleck and Josh Hartnet in Pearl Harbor and thought they’d pick one up for themselves.
They’re the ones who swan around town wearing Marine Corps everything. You know, because when you walk around Camp Lejeune with a young-looking guy who’s got a fade, no one knows you’re a Marine Corps wife or anything. They’re the ones who won’t work, who live off of their husband’s paycheck, and yet are the quickest to whine about how hard their life is. These are also the same girls who crack under the pressure as soon as the first deployment rolls around and start sleeping with every guy they see at a bar. You always know which girls they are. They walk into the bar wearing their wedding rings, sit down on a bar stool, slip their wedding rings into their pockets, and go to town.
You know which girls they are because they’re shallow, who married their men for shallow reasons.
Being married to Matt is wonderful, and I’m so proud to be a Marine Corps wife. But it’s hard. It’s not this romantic, glamorous life that Yahoo paints it out to be. It’s totally worthwhile, of course, but only if you get into it for the right reasons. Finding some random dude and dating him just because he’s in the military and has a sexy uniform is not one of them.
Cassy Fiano » Military life is not all love letters and clean houses
June 3, 2010 at 10:10 pm
[...] newest post at Hard Corps Wife takes on a Yahoo article that encourages women to date men in the military, and for all of the shallowest and most unrealistic reasons. And real military life? It is nothing [...]
kudzu35
June 3, 2010 at 10:16 pm
Ding. You hit the nail on the head w/ this one…even from a guy and Soldier’s stand point. I think Yahoo might of been having a little fun but I imagine there are plenty of naieve enough girls to take it to heart.
philmon
June 3, 2010 at 10:33 pm
Well .. 1 & 4 aren’t bad reasons. But the rest… yeah, I see what you’re saying.
And my daughter-in-law would totally agree with you. Though after his stint in Iraq, my step-son’s gone to inactive reserve. Still has that Marine mindset, though.
WayneB
June 4, 2010 at 10:43 am
I think this is an example of Good Intentions, but poor execution. The general tone of the article seems to be one intended to point out that the choice of joining the military, combined with the attitudes and skills learned, make for a man who would be a good catch for a woman.
The problem is that the author then uses poor logic and projects some of her desires onto the subject.
“Takes directions well”? Not unless you’re his superior officer, as you pointed out. He’s trained to take no $%^t from anyone, unless they have authority that he recognizes. Incidentally, as evidence of the poor logic involved, #5 is in direct conflict with #4, and I also think the author does not understand the term, “Co-Dependence”.
You can probably reach a meeting of the minds when it comes to keeping the house neat, but it should be approached in a manner of convincing, rather than ordering. See above.
I’m not going to really touch the item on Love Letters, since I wouldn’t know how to write one to save my life.
Overall, though, I think the author is just in need of critical thinking skills, and if this was written correctly, would have come off pretty well.
Instinct
June 4, 2010 at 12:25 pm
Yes, I know EXACTLY what kind of girl you are talking about. We called them WestPAC widows.
Soon as the squadrons shipped out they would hit the clubs and cause as much trouble as they could and would spend the money as fast as they got it in.
Mikey
June 4, 2010 at 2:43 pm
I sent plenty of love letters to my then-girlfriend-now-wife when I was deployed to Desert Shield/Storm. Back then there was no internet access because there was no internet as we know it today. Phone calls were very few and far between. The only way we could communicate was through good old snail mail, so that’s what we used.
Talking to her like she was “one of the guys” and not being all that neat…well, guilty as charged…LOL…but she got past all that, thank goodness, and married me anyway.
Perhaps the original writer should have provided the necessary caveats…like “he may be neat and in shape but you may forget about that the first time he leaves a cup full of Skoal spit on the coffee table, so get ready to take the bad along with the good…”
Badger Nation
June 5, 2010 at 8:38 pm
This list is so unbelievably stupid. WayneB is right that the list is all projecting prototypical female desires onto men in uniform, and then scrambling for reasons why his environment will make him that way.
I like and respect uniformed people as much as the next red-blooded American, but the military is a huge bell curve – there are some slobs, some alphas and a lot in between. There are philanderers, husbands, DADTs and more. Some guys are well-trained by military discipline – other men can’t survive without it and go to pieces in civvie life. There’s no special link between signing up and how you are.
“1. Conviction…you know he has strong ideals and is willing to fight for them.”
Maybe, or maybe he signed up to get college money. Nothing wrong with that; plenty of good soldiers/etc aren’t fighting for God and country as much as paying back a business deal.
“2. He is in great physical shape. Let’s not pretend that the fact he’s probably in the best shape of his life doesn’t turn you on.”
And what happens when he comes back from war and isn’t running PT every morning? Can you deal with that?
“3. Potential for love letters.”
They do their best to stay in touch, but our deployed personnel barely have time to brush their teeth.
“4. Independence and co-dependence. Since he is often in unfamiliar environments, you know that he can take care of himself.”
Total lack of knowledge of military units…unless he’s a Ranger, he relies on a tight network of people to keep him and the rest of them safe and secure. There’s something very untoward about a woman asking a man to co-opt his field brotherhood and transfer it to his lady. A soldier’s ties with his unit are inviolable, it’s disgusting to ask him to imitate that structure with other people in his peacetime life. BY the way sister, you have to EARN that kind of loyalty, he’s not just going to give it to you because you think he’s hot.
Speaking of co-dependence, she leaves out the very real possibility that her man will be injured at war and come home unwhole in body or mind. (Taking care of a disabled partner is probably beyond the capacity of anybody superficial enough to believe this list.)
“After all, love can be a battlefield too.”
The last thing a guy who has been to war wants is a battlefield at home.
“5. He takes directions well. The military is all about structure, order and rules. If he can survive taking commands from his superiors, you know that he won’t mind too much when you ask him to help you with the dishes every once in a while—or when you start ordering him around in the bedroom.”
What is it with dating columns that look to justify women being bitchy and controlling?
“6. He can keep his room neat. Due to the discipline practiced in the barracks, you can count on him to pick up after himself and keep his personal affects in order. You can thank his drill sergeant for that one.
Ditto above, total BS. Also as mentioned above, some guys need a sergeant to keep their sh** together and go to hell without him. And what is the obsession with neurotic tidyness in dating columns?
“7. The uniform. It’s not just because the tailored cut of a uniform perfectly accentuates his physical assets. A uniform represents discipline, strength, courage, and fellowship—all traits that make for great partners.”
So you don’t really want to get to know him, you just use the uniform as a proxy for how he _should_ be.
“We are often attracted to men in uniform because of the message it sends to us: this is a person in a position of authority who can provide us with safety and whose job is to protect us from the dangers of the world.”
More fantasy – military men are trained to kill. That skill has almost no usefulness stateside; the chance you’ll be faced with deadly assault where he is justified defending you is very small. To say nothing of the fact that the majority of uniformed people don’t fight on the front lines – the odds you’ll date someone who has killed another man in battle are not large.
“How can we say no to that?”
Well, obviously you can’t, since like most uniform chasers I know you want a man to make up for your own lack of substance and self-worth, but at the same time to be a programmable robot to your whims. It’s like you see this sh** in movies and think it’s real.
Cassy, good on you for understanding what a real military romance takes. To a nunnery with these checklisting hags.
Patrick
June 6, 2010 at 1:17 pm
Well Put Cassie, Well put.
Daniela
July 25, 2010 at 9:44 am
THANK YOU! Finally there is a woman who decided to write THE TRUTH!
My life is just how you described. My husband is in the NAVY and I HATE this kind of life.
IT SUCKS to be a Navy Wife and I truly believe that the NAVY COMES FIRST and there is NO TIME for the family.