[On EDIT: Just to clarify….folks are emailing to say I am being too hard on FRGs and not all of them are like that. Fair enough. But the 3 I have been involved in have been monolithically horrid. They not only didn’t solve any problems, they either made them out of thin air, or exacerbated them. I have seen FRGs ruin marriages (as one commenter notes below) by starting rumors of infidelity. When we couldn’t call for a day, the FRG would run off with “someone got killed” rumors. All in all, my experience has been dreadful. And please, tell me a success story. Obviously my post is largely hyperbole since this is a semi-comedic blog. I have no doubt that some FRGs work REALLY hard. My problem is with the drama that seems to be intrinsic in these cases.]
Let me tell you a quick story. It’s about an infantry unit, let’s just call it Chahlee Chumpany to be non-specific. Once upon a time they were preparing to deploy to a country in the balkan region whose name rhymes with Nosbia-Smerzegovina. Anyway, they had to do a bunch of bullshit because they were Natty Guard, and no one trusted Natty Guard back then. So, out they go on a “week long” MRE (Mission Rehearsal Exercise.) Only the son of a bitch lasts 2 weeks. Finally they come in from the field. They are tired. They are sore. They smell bad. But first….to the phones to call loved ones.
With the first phone call you knew there was a problem. It went something like:
Soldier: Hey babe! I’ve missed you so bad.
Wife: You no good piece of shit, how dare you yada yada yada yada.
See, it seems in the absence of any intel, the FRG (Family Readiness Group, hereinafter “Witches Coven”) got together to devine through tarot readings, lamb entrail divination, and sheer insanity to come up with the most likely answer to our absence, and they hit upon the fact that we must have all contributed $10 to a pot, and the last person to call their wife won the entire amount. I mean sure, that’s Occam’s Razor at it’s finest right there, isn’t it?
Anyway, I bring that vignette to you to set the stage for this AWESOME post by Sal. Quoting from the article that he discusses:
The commander of Fort Bragg has barred the wife of an 82nd Airborne Division colonel from nearly all interaction with her husband’s brigade and the unit’s families after an investigation found her influence “detrimental to the morale and well-being of both.”
Sworn statements from the investigation, ordered in January by Lt. Gen. Frank Helmick, accuse Col. Brian Drinkwine’s wife, Leslie Drinkwine, of using her husband’s position as leverage to repeatedly harass and threaten soldiers and their families.
Anyway, go read his piece instead of my blather, but a few thoughts.
1) Being a wife of a colonel makes you…..a wife. Wife of a private….wife. You see how that works? EQUAL.
2) There may be a FRG out there that isn’t completely run on insane thoughts, caffeine, and conjured images of Beelzebub. I have yet to meet it.
3) I would rather sit naked in a hot tub with Elton John, the N’Sync dude, and the desicated corpse of Liberace than have a loved one attend an FRG function, which is why I sent BrownNeckGaitor to all of mine.
Caro makes me watch some really bad TV from time to time. I’ve only ever drawn the line at 2 I won’t watch. Now, to give this perspective, I watched a show this weekend where teams competed to make the best Toy Story 3 cake. That’s right, I watched people bake. I once watched a show where people made clothes out of things they picked up at Home Depot, the dude that won made a dress out of trash bags. At one point he said he felt like a queen, and another dude pointed out that he *was* a queen. I draw the line at Glee (which thanks to Jimbo I may have to cave on) and Army Wives. To (mis)quote the late, great SSG [Misshapen Ear], I would rather tap dance naked through a minefield wearing snow shoes on my feet struggling to get to a field phone to listen to Rosie O’Donnell fart over it than watch Army Wives. That show always reminds me of the horror that was the FRG.
Anyway, go read Sal’s piece. If you have something nice to say about an FRG, I am all ears. But I have to be honest, I would be more willing to believe you saw a hippogryph mating with a unicorn under an overpass on your ride to work than hear that you were once in a fully functional, non-drama FRG.
