Military Monday: Military Vocabulary

When my boyfriend decided to inform me that he had decided to join the Navy and it was not going to be for the  teaching position he had previously explained to me I freaked.  I didn't know what to do and I was pretty sure that life as I knew it was over.  And in all honesty for the most part the life that I live now will change drastically in about a year when he does leave for basic and all that fun stuff but I'm a lot more accepting of it now because I've read about 300,000 articles all about military life.

I know I'll never be fully prepared for what's coming but I read the blogs and I've learned a lot.  The following are some terms and acronyms that I found really daunting but now don't seem as bad.

PCSing

When I started reading blogs and articles I saw this one everywhere and I had no clue what it meant.  I read things like "10 things to know for your first PCS" and "Not every PCS is the same" and "What to expect when you're PCSing".  I didn't actually read that last one but it is a really great title.  I'll have to remember it for later.  But in case you didn't know PCS stands for permanent change of station.  I was also afraid that you would be doing one of these like every other month or something but it turns out that it's more like every few years.  So I guess it's not that bad.

Reintegration

Reintegration is something that happens after a long deployment.  It's basically when your significant other (SO) comes back and he/she has their way of doing things and you've figured out your own way of doing things and those two ways don't exactly mesh.  It seems that for some people reintegration is really hard and frustrating but for others it's rather easy.  I suppose it depends on what kind of couple you were in the first place and how understanding the two of you are.  I told my boyfriend about this phenomena and I don't think he feels that it exists but I'm pretty sure it does and that one day we're going to learn first hand ALL about reintegration.  It should be fun.

Sea Tours and Shore Tours

One day the boyfriend brought home some pamphlets about the positions he applied for and nosy little me decided that I had to read them.  One of them started talking about shore tours and sea tours and the words "sea tour" scared the crap out of me.   I was convinced that the boyfriend would be spending six to X amount of months on a boat and that I would literally never see him.  That's not what a sea tour is my friends.    A sea tour basically just means that your SO and maybe you if you choose to follow along will be stationed on a base near a boat.  Your SO may have to go on the boat for a little while at times but the good news is that he/she won't always be on the boat and you will get to spend time with them.  What a relief!

That's all for this installment but I'm sure we'll talk about military vocab more in the future. Do you have any terms that scared you or you think I should know?  Tell me about them in the comments!  Happy Monday!