Rank, Wives and Friendship: Wearing Rank
Officer and enlisted wives speak on the subject.
by Tanya Biank
As a young sergeant’s wife, Karen Francis remembers the time a colonel told the wives at a club meeting to line up according to rank. “So we all milled around,” Karen says. What’s your’s? Date of rank? The colonel allowed only a few minutes of this before bellowing: “YOU HAVE NO RANK!
“But his wife sure wore his,” says Karen, whose husband is now a chief warrant officer in the Minnesota National Guard. The woman once scolded Karen and her best friend, a lieutenant’s wife, over their friendship. Their husbands, who served in the same unit, also caught grief over the matter.
Seashells and sand
Women and friendships are like seashells and sand: They go together. While military wives can be friends with whomever they choose, many wives, as Karen discovered early in her husband’s career, find that reality is not always so democratic. Layers of tradition, steeped in stereotypes, fraternization rules, rank and class, can impact a military friendship as much as personality traits and similar interests. How rank affects spousal friendships is one of those subjects rarely discussed openly in military circles. Yet it is an issue which shapes relationships of many military wives.
Most wives quickly learn that rank and pecking order permeate everything in military society from the battlefield to backyard barbecues. The impact on friendships depends as much on individual personalities and circumstances as it does on military decorum.
Stacy Williams, an Army major’s wife, believes that the wives of enlisted and non-enlisted can be friends. “However, there is always a line that shouldn’t be crossed,” she says. “I don’t think it’s wise for wives to share stories about their husbands that may affect their leadership.”
Aimee Woolsey, who went from being an enlisted Army wife to an Air Force officer’s wife when her husband changed ranks and services, said she’s come to understand that rank distinction has its place. After working for the provost marshal at her first post, she understands the potential harm to units, careers and marriages when regulations regarding fraternization polices aren’t followed. “It applies [to spouses] when [they are] prone to gossip and their mate is prone to listening … and acting upon it,” she says.