Jargon heavy, light on reality

Has anyone seen the Army Wives show? We just began getting it over here, or we've been getting it a while and I didn't know it. I watched "After Birth" last night, the one where the lady is a surrogate and she delivers the twins and is "hiding them" from everyone and telling people her babies died. This was the first episode I had seen and honestly, I was VERY disappointed. I think they are only getting it about half right, and even that is AT BEST. They put just enough acronyms and military speak in there so that it *seems* real, but then they mess it all up on things that aren't even important.

For instance: This lady being a surrogate-I guess it could happen. No, surrogacy is not rampant in the military, I've never heard of it. I'm not sure if the aim is to say that military families don't make enough money so they have to carry babies for people to make up the difference or if it's just a story line they thought of and decided to go with. Not having seen what lead up to the delivery show, I don’t know why it had to be a secret. Was she using military medical benefits for babies she was not keeping and that was at issue? I don't know.

What really did it for SB was that one of the more experienced wives tells the new one while she is going though the deployment checklist that if she "needs any extra gas mask filters, we've got them laying all over the house." yeah. Those are kept under lock and key and issued as needed.

Other little things: Guy gets news his unit is going to Iraq, new wife is upset. This happens. However, #1, you don't buy his shirts at the PX (on the show she did), you get them at the Military Clothing and Sales Store. And you don't have to sew tags with his name in them. #2, he doesn't find out and leave quickly. There is, with most, a LENGTHY ramp up period. That is not with everyone, some units have to be ready to roll w/ in hours of orders, but this is not the norm.

I was irritated with the way the FRGs were portrayed. Yes they are a group of usually ladies, yes they can be gossipy and nosey. One comment really got to me, that was when the new wife asked what an FRG is, the "higher up's" wife told her they were Family Readiness Groups. She asked what they did. "The official answer is that we empower spouses…" to something, cope with military life or something and then she says, "but with all the casualties, it has become more of a sweeping up the pieces of their shattered lives" or something like that. I know the casualties are high. One is too many. But figure in how many soldiers have been, and how many times. That is NOT all the FRGs are doing!

Also, there is a lot of domestic violence in the show. A female Lt Col comes back from 2 yrs in Afghanistan (2 years? Yeah, that's what I said…never heard of that, but maybe in some units) and is drinking a LOT and is very sexually aggressive with her husband. When he protests once and says they need to work on their intimacy issues, talking, communicating, etc, she flips out and accuses him of cheating, and the next morning says she wants to separate. I'm not saying it doesn't happen. Reunification is a hard thing. But it doesn't always happen this way either. And then there's the storyline of the teenager who is hitting his mom. He says in one scene that he is refusing to go to Westpoint, "this is not the life I chose, this is the life you and dad chose. I can't say I'm from Chicago or somewhere, I have to say I'm from the Army." I don't hang out with Army teenagers all the time. And I do know that there is some talk of a new demographic, one of American teenagers who have never lived in America. However, I've not gotten the impression that teenagers feel this way. Maybe some do. ???

There are a couple of scenes where things do ring true. One where after the lady says she wants to leave he is talking to another long time military spouse and she is explaining how most people don’t get how it is with reunification. They see the parades and welcome homes but not the hard stuff, when it is just the two of you and you have both grown and changed and not together. You have to work at it. But mostly it is just Knots Landing with some acronyms and uniforms thrown in for good measure. SB said that any discrepancies with uniforms should be forgiven as it is against the US code to "impersonate a member of the military" so they have to be a little bit off here or there.

I guess the bottom line is that they are trying too hard. And for me, it isn't working.