My Husband Served Our Country… Now I Reap the Benefits

It takes a lot of sacrifice to serve our country, but there are also a lot of benefits too.  These benefits are shared with your spouse and family, who stood by your side while you served.  Or, in the case of JD and I, the benefits are shared with the girl you met post-deployment with only 6 months left of active duty.

Yeah, I feel like I cheated the system in some way.  To be fair, I didn’t marry JD because he was a Marine.  In fact, that almost prevented me from going out with him in the first place, but I still feel like I reap the benefit of being married to a veteran even though I missed the heartache of deployment and all the other stressors that go along with being a Marine spouse.  In fact, I practically missed his Marine Corps career all together.  Hopefully being a police wife counts for something.

While JD was in the police academy, we both benefited from the GI Bill that supplemented our income.  When we bought our house, we breezed through the loan application process and got approved for a VA loan.  After seeing the hoops my friends have had to jump through for their home loan, I’m now realizing how easy we really had it.  JD gave a kneecap for those benefits, but I swooped in at the very end, just in time to enjoy the rewards.

Most recently, we got invited to Asheville for a Toys for Tots event hosted by the uncle of one of his police buddies.  Since Toys for Tots is a Marine Corps charity, the uncle wanted a couple of Marines in dress blues (formal uniform) to help with the event.  Oh, and he threw in a free weekend at a 4 star hotel in Asheville.

Um, yes please.

We’ve been out to the mountains several times, but we haven’t had a chance to explore Asheville yet, which we’ve always wanted to do.  Asheville is known for being very artsy, very laid back, and very focused on what my family would call “hippie things” like green living and locally grown food.  It also happens to be vegetarian friendly, which I appreciated.  (And since I don’t believe I’ve mentioned this before, yes, I’m a vegetarian, which, according to my family makes me a hippie, so Asheville is a good fit for me and my hippie lifestyle).  The thing I loved most about it is that there’s this totally open-minded vibe there… like you can be exactly who you are and fit right in.

Our hotel suite.  We got a 2 bedroom suite with a common that we shared with the other couple we went with.  Not bad, huh?

Here I am at a delicious restaurant near our hotel called Pack’s Tavern where they’ll substitute any burger with a black bean vegetarian burger.  Hippie-tastic!

The Toys for Tots event.  They encouraged people to “drive-thru” on their way to work.  The event was a success, exceeding their cash donation goal and filling 3 tubs with toys!

And here is JD getting interviewed for the local news.  He’s famous!

Love my man in uniform, always and forever.  And not just because of the perks :)