Confessions of a Military Wife by Mollie Gross Page B

and 2nd Lieutenants, Captains, Navy Captains, and one Marine Corps Colonel (who had the house with the best view).
    I had already experienced serious grief from other wives when we were assigned a higher ranking house, but the neighborhood was about to be turned on its heels again.
    There were a slew of Captains who were “selected” to pick up Major within the next eighteen months. These families were still living in the smaller town homes.
    You-know-what hit the fan when word came in that Staff NCOs would be moving into the neighborhood.
    I could have cared less, but a slew of those higher ranking officer families that were due any minute to pick up higher rank threw a royal fit. They refused to live in the same neighborhood as enlisted families.
    I thought this was “rankism” at its worst.
    In the end, a handful of families moved out of the neighborhood. They “pulled rank” with the housing office and found themselves in the four bedroom, large backyard housing in Field Grade neighborhood next door to all the Colonels.
    Why would you want to live next to a Colonel? No offense, but you could never have any fun.
    I think the way some of those ladies went around the neighborhood gossiping, “Did you hear? The enlisted are moving in!” was disgusting. They should have been ashamed of themselves.
    If they qualified for bigger houses, great—more power to them. Move on up! But running around gossiping and slandering others is uncouth and so low class.
    I had also been a victim of rankism (probably) while living on base.
    As a Key Volunteer, I had to call wives married to all different ranks to give them updates on the battalion. There was one enlisted wife on my call list I enjoyed chatting with whenever I called. I helped her with a few things here and there whenever she called or if I saw her at functions.
    The first time she saw me with Jon was at the Ball. We were laughing and talking. But when Jon walked up to me, the expression on her face changed completely.
    Her husband grabbed her arm and they stopped talking and just stared at us.
    After Jon introduced himself, the wife said nothing. She simply walked away. I was shocked. I asked Jon if that Marine was in his platoon, and Jon said he was not.
    I slowly realized that they had walked away when they saw my husband. She no longer wanted to talk to me.
    Maybe it was her husband who did not want her talking to us, or it was some irrational fear of fraternization. Maybe it was rankism. I will never know for sure.
    I do know it hurt my feelings as I felt deep down that she was avoiding me because of my husband’s rank.
    Another run-in had to do with an officer’s wife and an enlisted wife. I had injured my back and could not get a doctor’s appointment. After two days of unbearable pain, I finally went to the ER.
    Half of our doctors had been deployed to Germany. Add a heaping spoonful of moms, who were freaking out over their child’s every sneeze, which resulted in a trip to the hospital. Finish this fine mess up with a dash of retired vets arriving by ambulance every thirty minutes, and you have won yourself a fifteen-hour wait in the ER.
    I made friends as I lay on the floor of the waiting room. We bonded over the treatment and long wait. Some had been there before me; many others arrived after. It appeared to me as if no one in the waiting room was being admitted.
    After hour number ten—about two in the morning—a few of us went looking for snacks.
    Someone said something that shocked me: “You know, they are only seeing officers and officer’s wives. They check your rank.”
    I knew for a fact this was not true. I realized this person and some of the others were enlisted because they had been talking about their neighborhoods. They went on to complain about the special treatment officer wives get all over base—from the hospital to the commissary.
    I guess one of them saw the dazed look on my face and asked how long I had been waiting. When I told