Greetings from MOAA’s Currently Serving Spouse Advisory Council. Our mission as a council is to advise MOAA President Norb Ryan Jr., USN-Ret., on issues and concerns facing the families of active duty servicemembers. As military spouses representing all service branches, we recently had the unique opportunity of sharing military life and culture with Hollywood.
On May 15-16, 2008, we traveled to Charleston, S.C., and had the privilege of going behind-the-scenes on the set of Lifetime Television’s hit series ARMY WIVES.
The show, now in its second season, has commanded not only the attention of the military community, but also our fellow Americans, who know little about what it is like to be a military family during wartime. As the show’s title suggests, the series centers around a group of friends — military spouses on the home front — who support each other through deployments, raising children, budgeting money, getting an education, and finding meaningful job opportunities. All the issues that concern today’s military spouses are topics covered on the show.
Although the trip had a tremendous impact on our council members, the purpose of our visit was to give the directors, producers, cast, and crew the opportunity to meet and learn about military life from “real” military spouses. The cast and crew welcomed us with open arms and we discussed candidly with them everything from Family Readiness Group issues and deployment hardships, to Polish pottery, and Longaberger Baskets. We shared with them stories and photographs from our own military life journeys in the hopes that we might impact the very important story they share with millions of viewers each week.
It was a memorable experience for all of us. We hope you enjoy the video chronicling our trip.
Respectfully,
Tanya Biank
MOAA spouse council member and author of Army Wives