Leslie Drinkwine, wife of a Brigade Commander, has been banned from her FRG due to an investigations into her actions…Have you ever encountered a spouse who has “pulled her husband’s rank”? How did you handle it? How can the military overhaul the FRG structure to make it more professional?

If you are National Guard, I’d love to hear about your Family Readiness Group.
While my husband was active duty, I ran one FRG long-distance (during his OCS–and we were spread out throughout the country) and was the co-leader for another (while his unit was deployed).
During the last year he has been in the National Guard. No one has contacted me about any sort of family group, although I received some general information about the National Guard family programs when DH first joined his unit. They seemed interested …

Today DH, aka Super Dad, was promoted to Captain Dad! Then we had the Hail and Farewell and the Battalion commander made a nice speech about Captain Dad and then made a nice speech about me and gave me a coin–which is a huge honor. He is very restrained with the awards.
It was at a casual family place and Baby Diva had a lot of fun being passed around and eating guacamole.
I’ll try to post pics this weekend.
It is really hitting me today that we have very little …

I hope the military is still lurking on my blog (thanks for that temporary spike in traffic, BTW), because I have something to say.
You need to reevaluate the Family Readiness Groups.
Ultimately, when you rely purely on volunteers, you are going to get uneven results–which is disheartening and unfair to those who not getting the good results.
True, spouses are theoretically adults (although we have a few show up who are 16-19). Still, supporting the spouse supports the mission AND improves retention rates. You want that guy to re-up? Convince his wife …

Tonight we had the Brigade Volunteer Appreciation Ceremony. Last thing I need is another certificate and pin, but I went to honor the other ladies in our Battery and Battalion.
Of course, hardly anyone in our Battalion showed up–just a handful of others who, like me, already have volunteer of the month and/or year awards from the Division, and just came to honor the others.
At least the ceremony was brief and I got a different pin this time. They gave us a heart pin…to add to the Battalion, Brigade, and Division …

Last night I was about to post about how happy I was that although there would be a couple of changes of command this summer, my husband’s commander would not be one of them.
Well, this afternoon I got a little surprise–the commander’s talents have been requested (read ordered) elsewhere. A whole other unit, in fact!
When the FRG Leader made the announcement at the FRG meeting tonight, one of the ladies turned to me and said, “Does that mean you are taking over?”
Heh.
Well, the new commander is married, but his wife …

We’ve had the first marriage meltdown of the deployment.
A soldier came home on midtour leave to discover that his wife had spent all of their money on her live-in lover and was neglecting their child.
She quickly agreed to a divorce and to give him custody. He made arrangements for his mother to take the toddler, but at the last minute, mom’s boyfriend nixed the idea. The father-in-law is a registered sex offender, so that eliminated the in-laws.
The Platoon Sergeant, who is a top-notch soldier, asked him mother if she could …