Being mobile seems to be a fact of life for many people today, especially for those in the Armed Forces. I have been reflecting on this recently.
I spent so much of my adult life in this sort of position. Moving jobs and home every two to three years, family having to cope with new places, countries and people, schools and communities. Service life is pretty disruptive, especially if the family follow the flag and move, rather than settling down in one place.
Mixed into this is the disruption of the individual service person on training, exercises or operations. You move your family to Germany and then disappear for a great part of the time on these commitments. Often spouses and children suffer a form of grief due to the constant re-locations, loss of friends, absence of partner or parent, and just lately the pain of reductions in pay and allowances, removing choice of where children may be educated.
Relationships become strained, small things are magnified out of all proportion. Separation and isolation affects both partners and children; husbands, fathers, mothers become virtual strangers to their families. Coming home after a difficult tour is traumatic, and mutual understanding is often impossible. Welfare support is available, but the fault lines often run to deep for any hope of saving a relationship.
So leaving for new places and new jobs while an exciting prospect or even an adventure, can also be a cause of breakdown in families. Resistance to such change fractures marriages and relationships and ends in separation and divorce. Been there, got the T-Shirt.
Latterly, in the last twenty three years, having settled, only changing jobs three times and never relocating my home base, I held a successful relationship, found God and have been blessed with my family and establishing long term friendships. Something I lacked in my very mobile lifestyle.
I feel for those thousands of families still in this position in the services, particularly with the prospect of the loss of thousands of jobs and homes due to defence cuts planned over the next three years. How do we thank our veterans and the families that support them; we cast them out on the street, certainly with some compensation, but without a lot of real support. It is estimated that up to 68% of the current homeless are ex-servicemen or women. I Remember the words of Rudyard Kipling's famous poem 'Tommy'. Nothing has changed really.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGClrsAN2aY"
