Next Military Monday is July 4 so feel free to share links about Independence Day, even if you do not usually blog about Military Family Life!
While you are here, I hope you will enter this Trooppaws Giveaway I am hosting for this clever and compassionate entrepreneur who designed these stuffed animal dogs using military uniform fabric–a great gift for our young warriors who fight their own battles on the home front when a loved one deploys.
Here are a few great posts from last week’s linky:

Army Tanker’s Wife has some ideas …

When Trooppaws contacted me to ask if I could share their sweet stuffed animal plush puppies, sewn from authentic military uniform fabric, I immediately asked if I could offer one to a reader, instead.

Nothing can take the place of a parent or other loved one in a child’s life but offering a special, personalized gift can help ease the anxiety of separation.

From the Facebook Page:

New army wife planning for the first PCS not knowing where it is! How can I find what housing looks like or how many rooms you get for a family of 4? (E4) thank you to any help!!

Housing availability and quality varies widely from base to base. The best answer I can give is to look at what BAH is supposed to cover. Base housing should, in theory, be at least equivalent to that.

In any given location, BAH depends on…

I think I should just post cute pictures of my little Army Brats each week…because that’s going to be better than anything else I write! We’re adjusting well to our new little addition and looking forward to Captain Dad actually being home for an entire weekend (*fingers crossed*).

What are YOU doing for Father’s Day?

Here are some of the fun posts people shared last week…

Stefanie Adams-Figueroa, call her Stef, started her blog, My Married Single Life, as a place to share the trials and tribulations of having a husband who is gone very often.

What topics do you write about on your blog?

Mostly, anything that irritates me! My husband is currently gone to Korea for a year, I quit my job and am eight months pregnant, with an 8 year old and a 3 year old and no family close by so there really isn’t much time or chances to go hang out with friends and vent. So, I started a blog to vent. Sometimes I blog about current happenings like politics and stuff but mainly it’s just whatever I feel I need to get off my chest…

I hope you all had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend with your families. Ours finished with a real bang as we welcomed a new Army Brat to the world. I went into labor late Monday night and Conrad Ulysses joined us on May 31 at 5:18am. He weighed 9 lbs, 15 oz and measured 22.5 inches. Conrad’s first name is from my husband’s grandfather, an Army veteran of World War II.

We had a lot of outstanding links last week both from “regulars” and from some other bloggy friends who had relevant posts celebrating Memorial Day. Here are a few I would like to highlight…

While I take a brief maternity leave, I am feature guest posts like this heartfelt response from Fallon Wharton of Fallonella’s Almost Fairtyale to the discrimination and challenges many military spouses face in the workplace and elsewhere.

The article about Employee Rights and Military Spouses on ArmyWivesLives.com really bothered me, probably because it hits so close to home regarding a military spouse desiring a stable career of their own while support their husbands stable, yet ever unpredictable military career…

What are you doing this Memorial Day? I hope you will join this Military Monday Family Blogger Linky.

Now that I am a part of the military family community, I feel like today is a day of ghosts. I can’t see them but I can sense them surrounding the men and women who have served. Even those who came back with their entire unit usually know others who made that ultimate sacrifice. And it is not just their brothers and sisters in arms but the other lives they have seen snuffed out during their tours of duty. The living carry these ghosts and a sense of loss–even, or perhaps especially, in times of great joy…

If you have young children and would like to introduce the meaning of Memorial Day to them while the barbecue is heating up, here are some activities, picture books and crafts…

How will you honor our fallen soldiers?
On Veteran’s Day in 2009, I wrote that I believe, as a nation, we have an easier time memorializing our dead than respecting our living veterans.
Except, of course, when the dead are our own.
The nation is still in the grips of a conflict, the price of which is abstract for the majority of our citizens.  Politicians who have never served and would discourage their own children from service determine when and where to use our nation’s military.  Talking heads with as little actual military …