Misawa spouses support each other through deployment

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Sasha Navarro-Schmidt
  • AFNEWS Det 12
Military spouses are part of a worldwide group of husbands and wives who at times, must temporarily 'give up' their loved ones so that they may fight the Global War on Terror.

At this north eastern base, this is a reality for many men and women married to members of the 14th Fighter Squadron, who deployed to Balad Air Base, Iraq, until May.

Some spouses are finding the time goes by quicker if they have other people to spend it with.

"We [spouses] always have lunch together on Wednesday's, just to know that we can always count on that to get away from our house," said Jennifer McBrayer. "We enjoy each other's company and help the time pass quicker."

The spouses are aided by a tool called Yahoo E-Groups, which makes contacting each other much easier than picking up the phone and making multiple phone calls. According to Deanna Ritzke, "Whenever we have an event we want to go to, or if we want to set up a group event for somebody, we just send an email out and it goes to everybody. They can reply to it, and we can get a tally on who wants to go where, and we can go from there."

This group has already gone on skiing expeditions, ITT trips, and has a regular Wednesday lunch at Misawa's enlisted club.

Spouses interested in joining the e-group, or finding out more about trips, lunches and other forms of support, can call Laurie Toplikar at 222-9750.