Just Another Reason...

Why I absolutely can't stand when the Obamas claim they care about the military so much.

I complained about it a few times during the campaign, especially when he would bring it up in the debates and then there was that clip where he said he would cut funding and another where he said he thought about joining the military once but didn't think it was important. And I would cringe every time I saw Michelle having a "town hall meeting" with spouses at military bases. It always seemed to disingenuous.

But according to Michelle military families are going to be one of her "issues" as first lady:

I would be honored to be first lady. I would work daily on the issues closest to my heart: helping working women and families, particularly military families.

Fast forward to the present day and the Obamas want to move into the Blair House (guest house across the street from the White House) early because their kids start school January 5. Unfortunately for them it will not be available until January 15, which is the traditional move in date for president elects.

OK, as part of a military family all I can think is cry me a river.

But it gets better! On Friday's Good Morning America they had a segment on this story and David Wright tells us the this little nugget of information:

The White House kindly offered up temporary accommodations on a nearby military base. The Obamas politely declined.

HA! Michelle dear, by either moving to Washington on the 15th or staying on the military base you'll finally have one thing in common with a military family: Uprooting your family at a not so convenient time for you school aged children or living in military housing (although you'd be staying in a much nicer house than most other military families). But I guess you are too good for either. I really get a kick out of the fact that they declined to stay on a military base when she says that military families are an issue close to her heart. I guess we are like a charitable novelty. One of those things that sound good in theory but god forbid you have to live where they do for 10 days (horrors!). She always seemed so insincere when talking to these military spouses, bored even. She never cared about them before but all of a sudden they are dear to her heart? I always thought she was trying to repair her image after saying she was proud of her country for the first time in her adult life and that America was a downright mean country. And now I believe that even more.

So next time I hear her or Obama try to tell us that they support our military or that the military families are dear to their hearts I'm going to think about him saying he didn't think it was important to serve, that as president he'd cut defense spending and that they declined to stay on a military base when the Bush administration was trying to accommodate them in their desire to move to DC early and then I will throw up in my mouth a little.

Inevitable

As we get closer to the inevitable (move) I've been asked to think about where I would like to move to next. We really do not have a say but we can put in our 2 cents (however worthless they may be) because he just came off the Drill Sgt. trail. So I've been thinking about where I would like to live next.

For some reason I've wanted to move to the DC area since we were getting ready to leave Germany, that's almost 6 years now (time flies). So 4 of the 5 choices I came up with are in the DC area and then there is Ft. Hamilton in NY. That one deffinately didn't go over well but how cool would that be? I'm sure that got scratched off the list as soon as I turned my back. Yesterday I did my homework and checked out all these posts for things that I think are important, like housing, and the more I checked into it the more I thought should I be doing this?

Mom has always said that things happen for a reason, and I do believe that's true, so I'm thinking what if we do end up moving somewhere I want to go and we don't like it, or what if things would be better somewhere else and I just don't want to give it a chance. Should I try to go to one of these places or should I just go with the flow (which has worked out very well for us so far). My husband says that I just don't want to take responsibility for putting us somewhere we hate and that is partly true, but the other part is that I feel like I'm gambling on where we are going to live.

I know this sounds so wierd. People move everyday. People make up their own minds and decide for themselves where to move everyday. Maybe I'm just so used to being told where I'm going to move that I can't handle that decision on my own. I'm stuck in my own comfort zone here in Georgia and I don't want to screw up our comfortable little life with the unknown. I don't know what it is but I'm sure I sound totally irrational to any normal person. There has just been so much going through my mind in the last few days. I almost wish they would delete his current assignment and put him on assignment to a place that we haven't been thinking about but that sounds cool so we could just be happy with that.

And another thing that has been bothering me is the housing. Housing is not important to my husband, but it's very important to me. That's where we are going to live, everyday. I don't want to live in a dump. When we moved here we bought our house and we plan on renting it out when we leave and not buying again. So I know we are going to live on post where ever we go next. I was looking through housing for these different posts and I kept thinking to myself if I get stuck in one of their dump units I'm going to be so upset.

The army segregates living quarters, officers and enlisted and even then by pay grade and the higher up the better housing is afforded to you. They have also privatized their housing so there is an outside company that you pay your BAH (Basic allowance for housing) to this takes care of rent and utilities. OK so here's my beef, there could possibly be someone living next door to me that pays less rent for the same quarters. Socialist. And if I can afford (because I always work) to pay a little more a month in rent why can't I get a better place? Isn't money, money? Personally, I think that when they went to this privatized deal and made it to where you were handing over the money to a private company to rent these houses they should have made it an open market. Each different type of unit has a value the bigger and nice the more you pay and you pay what you can afford not what the government decides you should pay. I just don't want to end up living in a dump. If we can afford to live in a nice place (and we can surely do that) I don't want to end up in one of their old units that's falling apart (unless it's an old historic unit that's like 100 years old), we've been there, done that, and have moved up. I know before that happens we'll probably just move off post.