I don't hate the FRG as a whole but like all things there is a certain amount of suck to be had.
FRG (Family Readiness Group, for those non Army people) The idea behind the FRG is this; a group of spouses and families left behind in times of deployment that can turn to each other for support in moments of silence, sorrow, and joy. A beautiful concept. They are also the group that does fundraisers for the unit, brings baked goods, helps organize things being sent over seas to make sure everyone is getting support. What it actually tends to be is a group of angry spouses bitching about how much they hate the command team, the Army and the other clicks, basically high school. How did such a wonderful idea spiral into madness?! Well Thats where I blame the Army, in part. (I am sure its the same in all branches in fact worse in the Navy) See they have this rule where the Officers and the Enlisted can't be too friendly. The reason behind this rule is sound, you don't want the appearance of favoritism. The problem is the execution, see instead of it being you need to do team building as a unit it becomes enlisted over here and officers over there. The bitterness of you don't know what its like to be me sets in and they go home, and tell their spouses. Not that they need too because we aren't even allowed to live in the same housing communities, nope those are divided up by rank too, so even if you don't know your husbands rank as soon as you say of we live on post in X you just gave it away to those rank watching bitches.
Now as I have mentioned before there is always that group that wears their spouses rank like a fucking badge of honor, they are second on my list of useless spouses, the ones on the top are the ones that are wearing it, talk about it all the time, but act like they aren't one of those, usually because they think they are better than them, they truly are the worst! Back to how this plays in the FRG, see you now have a bunch of spouses who feel like their husband is being treated poorly by your husband and we all are supposed to hold hands and sing kumbaya? Aaahhahahhahaha riiiight. Typically the worst of the worst are you senior enlisted NCO wives and of course officers wives, junior enlisted wives are usually so beat down by the others that they are just trying to survive the ordeal, the problem is they will become the bad later because they feel they paid their dues and earned it.... fun right?!
There is hope, you see that small, I mean SMALL group of women sitting off to the side, not even really talking to each other just near each other, because the words don't need to be said amongst them they just feel it and gravitate towards each other. They are the spouses who are only here because they felt they had to come to at least one of these, they hoped for the best but as soon as they walked in and saw eagle spelled wrong on the screaming eagles cake they knew the stories were true! They are the ones that are a mix of former soldiers them selves, working wives, military brats, and the bless her soul happily clueless, they have no idea what their own husbands rank is let alone yours or why they should care. Approach them cautiously, if you move to quickly they will think you want to convert them and flee, but if you can bond with this amazing group of women you are home free, you will survive not only this unit/deployment, but the Army life as well because even as you all start to move away you will stay in touch and you will know you can vent, you can be excited about your spouses accomplishments and you can be disappointed in things judgment free because they know.
All that said you will once in a blue moon find that rare FRG where it works like it should, I didn't mention male spouses because frankly somehow they are the lucky ones that miss out on this drama, they should lead a class!
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