Advice from Home
Hello everyone! This week I have some of the best tips and tricks I learned while my husband was at Ranger School. I didn't pick all of these up from reading blog post's, or finding information on Instagram. Most of them, I learned on my own, or with the help of the Ranger School Support Group page on Facebook. That is such an underrated resource that I'm so thankful and grateful that I had been informed of. So, if you're loved one is going through Ranger School, as soon as you're done reading this post, go and find that Facebook page. It's a free resource that you'll be thankful for at the end of this journey!
I wanted to write this because my husband and I hadn't met until after he had gone through basic training. The dreaded time where you can only communicate through letters.. Thankfully we didn't meet until after that, but little did I know what I had in store for myself when he got orders for Ranger School. If I'm being honest, this was a challenging time for me. Being on the home front, I was going through nursing school, and my best friend was gone and my only communication was letters, and the 30 second static filled phone call of "YOU GOT A GO???!" trying to clarify where they stand in this process. That's how we spent a lot of the start of "us". I'm extremely thankful for my husband and this time because I feel like it has really strengthened us as a couple, a team, as everything that we are today. Phone calls suck and sound like you're talking to Darth Vader because you can barely understand them or hear them.
My first piece of advice is the envelopes and pre-addressing them. Before your' loved one leaves, fill out envelopes. Make your address the return address as well. This ensures that regardless the letter will get to you. If the mailing address and return address match, they only have one destination that they can send the mail. This gave me peace of mind knowing that my husband, dead tired and probably barely functioning, if he tried to send a letter it would get to me. I pre-stamped maybe 5 envelopes, to avoid wasting any. This doesn't sound like a lot, but they're so physically and mentally exhausted at this time you'll be happy with a scribble on a page indicating where they fell asleep while writing to you with a "hello" on it that's legible, just barely. This may sound exaggerated, but it's not. I got several with "I fell asleep here" markings on them. It just made it that much sweeter that he tried to write to me.
OPEN WHEN LETTERS are a must for me! According to my husband, I wrote "too many" of these. From my standpoint, I don't know when he receives my letters. It's possible he won't get any until the end of the phase. So I wrote a lot of these because I wanted him at any moment to have a letter if he wanted one. Inside each one, I had some printed photos that I put in ziplock bags. NEVER underestimate the power of ziplock bags in ranger school. Send them with lots of these because they will be grateful for them. Mail is so unreliable when it comes to this course, that's why I wrote so many of these so he would always have some love with him.
Here are the dreaded words that you'll hear what feels like is too many times; NO NEWS IS GOOD NEWS. I can't count how many times I was upset by these words, but deep down they were true. You don't want to hear from your loved one unless it's time to hear from them. In the middle of week 2 of a phase, you DO NOT want any form of communication other than letters. This usually means they got dropped, no-go'd, or sent to start from the beginning. This means more time spent apart and isn't what you want at all. So have some faith int he dreaded words, no news is good news.
One last important piece of information. Find out your loved one's ROSTER NUMBER. You will need this to know if they get a go, or recycle. There's a roster list that is occasionally posted prior to the start of phone calls. If it is posted, and you know your roster number. You will know the news before the phone call. On phone call day, have a response prepared for the worst news. You want to be positive and up lifting. Phone calls are so short, and you need to be positive for them so they can push through this tough time and stay motivated to finish strong. You can have your moment of sadness when your phone call is over. Always be as positive as possible, no matter how hard it may be in that moment. They will come home, and they need you to be positive for them.
xo
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