I can not begin to tell you how many emails, letters, and voicemails I recieve from military spouses (both male and female) who are frustrated with their local and online military spouse networks.

Most recently, I received an email from an active duty Army spouse who resides with her soldier at an Army base in Georgia.   After arriving to the base, Melody decided to join a local group of spouses for their monthly luncheon.  In her email, she states feeling a bit awkward because the group was primarily made up of one nationality.  She is bi-racial and was used to being a part of multi-cultural groups.  She goes on to state that she felt alone, out of place, and in unfamiliar territory.

Another correspondence from a male spouse goes on to state that he is an attorney and his wife is an active duty officer on assignment in Norfolk, VA.   Since arriving to the base he has been unable to find other male spouses to connect with.  At a recent meeting, during the round table discussion, he stood up to express some of his concerns, hoping to gain support and input, he left the meeting feeling like his concerns were unimportant.

Carly, a nineteen year old spouse who came to the states from Japan where she met and married her young Navy soldier, was invited by another spouse to join an online spouses network.   Excited, she signed up for membership, received her approval, and on the first sign-on, she states she was extremely disappointed because the first couple of posts were from disgruntled spouses who were gossiping about another spouse, who was a member of a different online group. Disappointed, she closed her account.

While there is some truth to the old cliché, one bad apple spoils the whole bunch, I venture to say that in the military spouse community as with any community, there are good and bad networks.  Having served in the military and on the homefront as a military wife for over 20 years, I tend to see things from a different angle.  I too have encountered my own share of good and not so good experiences during our tenure on active duty, but I never allowed the actions of others to influence negatively on my decisions.

The lessons I learned from those experiences (both good and bad) empowered me to create positive outcomes:

• Built friendships that still flourish to this day
• Launched a virtual business which evolved into an online portable careers training initiative, which was adopted by the Department of Defense
• Volunteered as a business mentor to other military spouse entrepreneurs
• Established an online talk radio show for all military spouses

Military Spouse Networks have been around for centuries and are created to provide support, establish friendships, share information, and resources.

Today’s military is quite different on many fronts; the population of male military spouses is on a steady rise.   The military branches recognize this and are working to create programs and support systems to address the need.   From my own personal experience, military leaders welcome suggestions and input from the military spouse community.

In my online course, Starting a Virtual Business 101,  a great deal of time is spent teaching students about the importance of research.   I encourage military spouses who read this post to do their research before joining any military spouse organization or network.

The experiences shared at the beginning of this post are not representative of all military spouse networks. Take the time to learn about the leadership, the mission of the network, their goals, objectives and vision.  How long has the group/network been established?   What are some of their accomplishments?  And, most important, is the network involved in projects or events that you are passionate about?

Joining a network for the sake of affiliation, is fine, if you are only seeking to belong.  However, if you are looking for military spouse networks with substance (advocacy, impartial, family-friendly, support-focused), then research is key.

Share some of your favorite networks in the comments section below.

Some of my favorite Networks include:

Military Spouse Corporate Career Network

Military Spouses Career Network

Military One Source

Armed Forces Crossroads

Military.com

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I’ve always considered myself an Army wife convert, meaning I came into the army wife lifestyle by way of transitioning from active duty soldier to army wife. It just so happened that the man I married was a soldier also; so deployments, training exercises, TDY assignments were nothing new to me. Did they interrupt our marriage and family life? Absolutely!

The day after I came home from the hospital, from giving birth to our daughter, my husband was off to a long term training exercise. As a former soldier, I was used to long term training and field exercises, however as a new army wife, being left behind was no day at the beach, here I was with a brand new baby, no family around for support. Who was going to teach me how to care for this newborne? What was I going do?

I learned very quickly that life goes on and that the Army was not going to change it’s way of doing business, so I took on my former soldier mindset: adapt and persevere and it has carried me through 20 years.

Separations, especially the six to 12 month assignments do impact a military marriage. As with any marriage, each spouse carries a certain level of responsibility and when your soldier has to leave for an extended period of time, all responsibilities shift to you, the spouse left behind. My husband left for an unaccompanied overseas tour back in the 90′s for two years, everything that functioned so well when he was home, miraculously fell a part: the car tires went ball, the shocks needed replacing, i lost my ID card and forgot to get a power of attorney from him before he left, my daughter cried continuously because she missed and wanted her daddy and while trying to console her in McDonald‘s, I myself broke down in tears because I simply needed a calgon-take-me-away moment!

Sometimes, waiting for your soldier to leave can be just as stressful. I can remember getting up early with my husband at 3am, taking him to work, waiting around; finally traveling back home with my daughter only to receive a call moments later to pick him back up because they’ve changed the departure time to later in the day.

There were times as a young army wife where I would miss my husband until it hurt, I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t eat, I just felt blah. One day I came up with this really cool theraputic idea to dedicate one day a week as my “cry day” where I would cry until I felt like stopping, it worked so well, my daughter joined in with me. It helped me to make it through each week.

When my husband and I both served in the Army, long term separations did not have the same impact, we both understood the significance of our jobs and that the Army was our career of choice.

The first episode of Army Wives dealt with establishing friendships, if there was a time to surround your self with other supportive military spouse friends, times of long-term separation and deployment is one of them.

Deployments and long-term separations are a part of the military lifestyle, it is the career choice of your soldier, as a military spouse, you have to learn to adapt and persevere if you’re going to be a part of this lifestyle.

Written by: Victoria M. Parham, Blogger for Season 1 of Lifetime Television Series ArmyWives – Retired Army spouse and Producer and Host for Military Spouse Talk Radio, an upbeat 30 minute, information packed talk show segment for an about the lives of military spouses – www.militaryspousetalkradio.com, You can also connect with Victoria via her personal blog at www.victoriaparham.com.

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Today is another “Work at Home Careers” Segment and we’re talking about a growing industry called “Mystery Shopping”. Joining im just a few moments to talk about “Launching a Career as a Mystery Shopper” is LaDonna, an active duty Navy Spouse.

Note: Due to the nature of LaDonna’s job, we are unable to share her last name and will only refer to her as LaDonna throughout this interview.

If you would like to be a guest of our show, head over to www.militaryspousetalkradio.com and click on Be a Guest or click here to recommend a guest.

Tell us what you thought of today’s show by posting a comment below in the comments section. Access MSTR from your web-enabled cell phone and if you enjoy hearing my musings, be sure to follow me over on twitter.com/vparham.

Until the next time,

Victoria

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In my 19 plus years of being an army wife, I’ve met a lot of army wives but only a handful have become friends till the end.  There is an old saying, “to make friends, you must make yourself friendly.”  My friends were wives who were much older (seasoned wives) who understood the army wife lifestyle, the challenges, the sacrafices, and the burdens.  Initally coming in contact with these women, I felt intimidated because they were much older and more experienced than I but they embraced me, mentored me, and took me under their wings and taught me how to thrive and survive as an army wife.

I also built friendships with army wives who were not as seasoned in the army wife lifestyle, but they were mature women with dreams, goals, and purpose.  One in particular was pregnant right along the time I was pregnant with my daughter.  She and I became very close, she gave birth a few months before me and I baby sat for free as she went out job hunting.  Immediately after I gave birth, my husband deployed and I went through postpartum depression and sleep deprivation.  This woman came to my home, packed overnight bags for both me and my newborn, took us to her home and allowed me to get some much needed rest.

No day is ever the same for an army wife, one moment you’re running around like a chicken with your head cut-off and the next moment you’re at a complete stand still, just waiting.  An army wife once told me that I was way too serious and needed to laugh more.  I asked her, how do you suppose I do that?  She replied, envision your life as a television cartoon in fast-forward mode and when I thought about it, I immediately bursted into laughter.  I realized that laughing at yourself is needful and it can be very therapeutic.

Having been an Army soldier, my transition into the army wife lifestyle was a breeze, the values learned as a soldier helped me to understand the importance of camaraderie.  What I found so amazing about these army wives is that the ranks of their husbands had no impact whatsoever on their relationships.  They (we) were a group of women with the army lifestyle in common, together, our goal and mission was to support and empower each other.

In the process of time, some lasting friendships were established and still exist until today even though we’ve not touched base in years, the bond still remains.

Written by: Victoria M. Parham, Blogger for Season 1 of Lifetime Television Series ArmyWives – Retired Army spouse and Producer and Host for Military Spouse Talk Radio, an upbeat 30 minute, information packed talk show segment for an about the lives of military spouses -www.militaryspousetalkradio.com, You can also connect with Victoria via her personal blog atwww.victoriaparham.com.

Today’s show is good to the last drop information packed so I encourage you to download the mp3 to your ipod or computer because today, we’re talking about Women and Leadership. As a military spouse, you probably find yourself having to step up into the leadership role quite often (whether on your job, in your support or networking groups, during times of deployment or separation).

Some of you embrace the role of leadership, taking the bull by the horns and running with it, while others of you struggle with leadership, thinking within yourself I just don’t have what it takes to be a good leader.

Joining me today by telephone to talk about “Women and Leadership” are guests subject matter experts, Angie Morgan and Courtney Lynch, Founders of Lead Star and Authors of a new book titled:  Leading from the Front.

Angie Morgan:  is a an active duty Marine Corps Spouse.

• Angie began her Marine Corps career in 1993 when she enrolled in the Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps at the University of Michigan. Upon graduation, she completed NROTC at the top of her class, serving as Battalion Commander for 120 midshipmen.
• Angie currently lives in Quantico, Virginia with her husband, Matt, an active-duty Marine and their son.

Courtney Lynch:  is a leader, wife, mother, lawyer and friend.

• Courtney was born and raised in Fairfax, Virginia. Her original career path focused on broadcast journalism and in 1996 she found herself on her way to Quantico, Virginia for Marine Corps Officer training. As a Marine, Courtney led units as large as 50 troops and as small as teams of four. She finished her initial service as a spokesperson for the Marine Corps at the Pentagon.
• Courtney is married to Patrick Lynch, a former naval officer who now serves his community as a firefighter.

Finally, if you’d like to be a guest of our show, head over to www.militaryspousetalkradio.com and click on Be a Guest.

Tell us what you thought of today’s show by posting a comment below in the comments section.  Until the next time!

Today is our Virtual Business Owners Training Program Graduate Profile Segment — where we introduce you our listeners to military spouses who have chosen to take charge of their own careers through Business Ownership.This no cost training program is rigorous, but military spouses who complete the program walk away with a since of pride, accomplishment, and, a piece of the American dream owning their own business or being their boss.

The reason for starting a business is different for each person, but the one thing that remains the same across the board, is, that you need to have a plan in place in order make your dream a reality.

My guest today is Nekeesha Carter, President of Kidz2tutor.com, Navy wife, and mom. Nekeesha joins me today by telephone to talk about her experience going through the course, lessons learned, and about her new online business Kidz2tutor.com.

Military Spouse Talk Radio is brought to you every 1st and 4th Friday of the month by our wonderful Portable Careers Training sponsor:  The Virtual Business Owners Training Program. Preparing military spouses to compete successfully in the global marketplace as self employed Virtual Business Owners.   If you are a military spouse who is interested in launching your own portable career through business ownership, head over to www.vsscyberoffice.com/vbo.

Finally, if you’d like to be a guest of our show, head over to www.militaryspousetalkradio.com and click on Be a Guest.

Tell us what you thought of today’s show by posting a comment below in the comments section.

Until the next time!

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Today we bring to you a very special segment on “Deferred Mortgages for Deployed Soldiers”. Deployments are tough on a military family personally and sometimes financially. The military spouse back on the homefront is left to take on all the responsibilities that were once shared by his or her active duty soldier. The biggest financial burden especially for military homeowners can be the mortgage. So what happens to your home mortgage if your active duty soldier is deployed? Are there any mortgage programs out there to assist you with deferring all or at the very least, a portion of your mortgage payment? If so, how do you locate them and what do you need to do to get the ball rolling?

My guest today is Kimberly Ryan, she is the wife of Army Colonel Michael P. Ryan.

Kimberly is the National Director of the Chase Military Mortgage Program, (http://www.chasemilitaryhomeloan.com). The program allows National Guard and Reserve service members to defer their mortgage payment during a Title 10 or 32 mobilization.

Kim is personally committed to helping military soldiers and their families ease some of the financial burden that is incurred during times of mobilization and deployment. So stay tuned to learn more about the Chase Military Mortgage Program.

Military Spouse Talk Radio is brought to you every 1st and 4th Friday of the month by our wonderful Portable Careers Training sponsor: The Virtual Business Owners Training Program. Preparing military spouses to compete successfully in the global marketplace as self employed Virtual Business Owners. If you are a military spouse who is interested in launching your own portable career through business ownership, head over to www.vsscyberoffice.com/vbo to learn more about this no-cost training program.

Tell us what you thought of today’s show by posting your comments below.  Until the next time!

Today is our Military Spouse Profile Segment were we introduce you our listeners to military spouses who are making a difference in their local community and in the workforce. Joining me today is:  Deborah Kloeppel, President and CEO, Military Spouse Corporate Career Network and today we are talking about “Competing in a Global Workforce“.

What skills do you need to compete effectively in today’s global workforce? Is it really possible for you to build a career working from an office in your home?

Be sure to also download the latest copy of the Military Spouse Journal – Click Here!

Military Spouse Talk Radio is brought to you every 1st and 4th Friday of the month by our wonderful “Portable Careers Training” sponsor:  The Virtual Business Owners Training Program. “Preparing military spouses to compete successfully in the global marketplace as self employed Virtual Business Owners”. If you are a military spouse who is interested in launching your own portable career through business ownership, head over to www.vsscyberoffice.com/vbo.

Tell us what you thought of today’s show by posting your comments below. Until the next time!

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