Army Wives on Lifetime

So lifetime has a new TV series called ArmyWives. I admit that this blog offers my very biased opinion on the military facts on this series.

The biggest annoyances to me are (not in any particular order)

1. The female LTC Burton wears a Combat Infantry Badge. Could never happen, first and foremost a CIB is authorized ONLY to Infantry MEN...why men only?? Because females are not authorized in the Infantry.

2. The berets...every single soldier on that show wears their berets wrong, they are not shaped or formed and it drives me to insanity! (And for those who say they can't wear the uniform to perfection because of regulations, they could TRY)

3. At a promotion ceremony held indoors a Soldier stood up and saluted a superior...doesn't happen indoors folks.

4. Oh along with the bad berets, yeah the bad salutes are right up there!

5. Last week's episode involved a Soldier taking two people hostage. There was not sufficient time in my eyes to resolve this situation before the Soldier was shot dead by a sniper. There are a few things that bother me about this scenario. First and foremost it gives the civilian population the idea that instead of taking care of our Combat Vets who suffer from PTSD with the help they need, we shoot them and worry about it later. So annoying. Second, as he related his story about why he was so upset he said he was left behind after being wounded with a local Afghani family..uhm NOT. This would NEVER happen, we do not leave our soldiers behind. Granted in his story, he was well taken care of and promised to go back and help and that's when all the bad things happened, the family being tortured and killed and he felt great regret for not saving them. Ok..whatever, he wouldn't have been left behind in the first place.
Another aspect of that particular story line that bothers me is the COL who is in charge, his wife happened to be one of the hostages...ok fine..but as soon as they knew who was being held hostage they would have removed him as an authority figure due to Conflict of Interest...that did not happen.
Oh and crowd control...there was an MP block off about 500 feet from the building..in a real situation the entire area plus a few MILES would have been blocked off, allowing NO ONE in except for those needed. Nope, there was entire post community watching on the sidelines...so dumb!

6. There was a MAJ who is currently deployed to Iraq (only going to be gone for 3 months..haha, where does my husband sign up for that tour?). His storyline was that his helicopter crashed and they weren't sure if he was missing or dead. Ok...the notification process sucked big time. The COL told his wife who then told the MAJ's spouse. Let me think on this...oh yeah, not how it happens. Doesn't matter if you are best buds with the Prez..there is a process.

7. The young Specialists wife works at a "Jody" bar...we do not use the term Jody in this new era of the Army. In fact I don't really believe it's ever truly been used since I've been in. Maybe the first couple years as I served with Vietnam era Soldiers who were about to retire.

8. The Delta Force Soldier who receives a phone call, he rushes away from his wife, not kissing her or anything...come on...they are right, they can't tell them when they are going, where they are going or how long they will be gone but you can believe they can spend a second or two kissing and saying goodbye to his wife!

Well that's my list of annoyances for the time being...if I think of more, I suppose I'll have to add.

In closing, I hope the people who watch this TV show remember that it is Hollywood and that things are exaggerated. While there might be some truth to the experiences, most of those storylines are greatly stretched to the imagination.

The one thing I try to remember is our Soldiers work hard to defend their right to put whatever they want on tv regardless of fact or fiction. Such a sad thing really when I think that they don't even care about getting the story right...

Yes, I know it's TV and I rarely get sucked in to a TV show, now I know why..lol
But I admit, I anticipate what next week's episode will show us!