Matt and I met at the age of 12 at a friend’s birthday party in our hometown of Jacksonville, FL. We remained close friends through high school, and at 18, Matt joined the Army. We kept in touch, and in 2008, finally started dating, after over a decade of friendship. By then, he had joined the Marine Corps and was serving as an 0311 (infantry rifleman). He has now been to Iraq twice, Afghanistan once, and is gearing up for a fourth deployment next year. We got married May 8, 2010 and are currently stationed at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. We had our beautiful little boy, Benjamin, on March 29, 2011, the day after Matt got home from Afghanistan. We also have one dog, a retired greyhound named Knewton.

When it comes to life in the Marine Corps, I tend to blunt. There’s no sugarcoating the lifestyle for us Marine wives, and I don’t sugarcoat the reality of what we have to go through, either. If you are whining and crying and moaning about how hard it is, or how much you hate it, or whatever the latest thing you hate about the Marine Corps is, then my advice is usually going to be something along the lines of get over it. This is how it is. Deal with it. I don’t have a lot of patience for the crying and hand-wringing that I see a lot of wives exhibit. I hate the phrase Semper Gumby, but darn it if it isn’t true.

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