Second, obviously I’m not making their private posts public, considering they already posted them on a much more public forum than my blog. And if her husband is the one who put the ball together, then as far as I can tell, that’s even more of a reason to keep your mouth shut. It makes the humiliation of her husband that much worse. As far as expenses, let me break it down for you again, since apparently you didn’t get it either. We do not have “all the black tie events”. We have one. One, every single year, and for this one event, we were given seven pay periods — that’s SEVEN — to plan and budget accordingly. Somehow we, with my husband as an E4, and a mortgage, two car payments, a baby and another one on the way, were able to miraculously afford not only ball tickets, but a dress and a hotel room for the night. It is not that difficult to do. It’s called budgeting. If a family can’t budget with that much time in advance, it’s their problem, not the unit’s. Why should the unit NOT honor the birthday properly? Because some people can’t handle their money? That makes no sense whatsoever. This was the best ball I have ever attended. The unit did a fantastic job, and here they’ve got some wife giving them shit because they have it in a nice place (as they should) and some people can’t handle their money. And anyways, if they really couldn’t afford it, then they don’t have to pay for it. It is only mandatory for Marines, and if they only attend the ceremony, then they don’t have to pay. And transportation was provided for said Marines, so really, no one had to pay a dime. But hey, that doesn’t matter. Why let facts get in the way when you’re trashing the unit?

As for judging them on the internet publicly, again — they opened themselves up to this by posting their remarks on a public forum. If I had heard that they had, say, told the FRO about these complaints, I wouldn’t have posted about it. But they didn’t handle it privately and appropriately, they did it on the official unit page, which is monitored by the command. And this, by the way, is why I personally couldn’t have taken them off the official page. Why that was even brought up, I have no idea (like I personally have control over what does or doesn’t stay on the page), but let me reiterate. I am not personally responsible for that page. The people responsible for that page are the battalion command. As in, the battalion CO, and XO, and Sgt. Maj. Which is again why it is so humiliating to these women’s husbands for their wives to post such insulting things about the unit on the official unit page. They just trashed the unit to the unit command. And when the command sees those last names, who are they going to be thinking of? Who are they going to look down upon now? I’ll give you a hint: it’s not the wives. And if these girls were so concerned about what they said being made public on my or any blog — which, trust me, has far fewer people reading it than there are people reading the unit page — then perhaps they shouldn’t have made those comments publicly to begin with. Which was the entire point of this post. Don’t say stuff like this online on an official unit forum. Had they not, this post wouldn’t have existed. Believe me, plenty of people — wives included — noticed those posts long before I wrote about it. And not one person I spoke to agreed with them. Every single wife I talked to (and no, I did not bring it up every time, it was a topic of conversation when it happened and everyone was talking about it) couldn’t believe that these things were being posted. They made themselves look horrible, and their husbands as well, in front of everyone in the unit. If they’re upset and angry that I posted this on my blog, without even listing their names, then they need to get some perspective. I didn’t humiliate them on the internet. They did that themselves.

And as for me acting like a friend, I’m not friends with either of these girls. I don’t even remember the name of the second girl. However, if I saw them, of course I would be nice. In your world, if you don’t agree with one thing someone does, does that mean that suddenly you hate those people and are going to be a bitch to them forever? I don’t know, but that isn’t how it works in my world. (But then, in my world I also wouldn’t insult my husband’s command on a unit forum, or defend someone that did, but that’s neither here nor there.) I don’t have anything personally against either of these girls, so of course I would be nice to them. I don’t think they’re bad people. Am I supposed to run around being a bitch to every single person that I disagree with over something? That makes no sense. And believe me, if I was friends with either of these girls, then no, this blog post wouldn’t have existed. I would have said it to their face.

Tara L. Callaghan
Daughter of USMC Msgt. Robert E. Callaghan, Ret.

Well, we’re still not big fans of mushy. But Maxine has lost a number of fans with this posting.

While I have never lost anyone, personally, in war time, I am the daughter of a WW 2 vet and have friends who served in Nam. Thanks to this issue, I can no longer support Hallmark!