The Home Front
Military friendships: stories of love and loss
By Debi Ketner - Special to the Times
Posted : April 23, 2007

She used to be my best friend. Here to talk with, laugh with, enjoy good times.

Someone I cherished as a part of my life for so long it seemed like forever.

The two of us exchanged e-mail nonstop, started phone conversations that often drifted far into the night. Discussed in detail the best — and sometimes the worst — intimate moments of our lives.

We shared everything.

As two women thrown together from different parts of the country, Mary and I were so close that we understood the countless conflicts and challenges of military life nearly as easily as we exchanged secret tips on our favorite barbecue recipes. We even mingled our despair in an openly shared gallon of tears a time or two when the moment we were caught up in couldn’t possibly get harder to bear.

Then, poof — she was gone. Four months shy of three years filled with e-mailing, phone-calling, laughing, crying, just plain living and sharing our lives as military spouses.

When I look back on the closeness we shared, the memories that first come to mind aren’t focused on an unforgettable bond between two women that grew more cherished with time. The memories, instead, center on a meaningful friendship that abruptly and painfully ended.

Military friendships come and go; the military is a fertile breeding ground for fleeting relationships. We learn to enjoy what we can, while we can. When it’s over, we have no choice but to heave a regretful sigh and move on smartly.

You know how it goes: One minute, you’re having the time of your lives together. The next, transfers or discharges loom and you’re suddenly saying goodbye. Or not saying goodbye, as in the case with Mary. When her husband’s transfer took her and their two children to recruiting duty in Louisiana, we vowed that, no matter what, we’d stay in touch:

“E-mail me as soon as you get settled.”

“Of course I will!”

So much for good intentions.

Apparently, Mary’s friendship was left behind on the curb, along with her ratty old couch and boxes of unwanted household junk. As hard as I’ve tried to make contact with Mary since that morning when she left Norfolk, Va., I haven’t heard a word from her since.

Moving on has always seemed to be the logical conclusion to every beautiful relationship that’s managed to affectionately wiggle-worm its way into my life. After all, people come, people go. It’s a cold, hard fact of military life.

Trouble is, it’s never been that way for my heart. My heart doesn’t understand cold, hard facts. It only knows how good it feels to share a big bucket of popcorn with a close girlfriend while watching the season’s best chick flick in a dark movie theater. It remembers driving giddily down I-64 through the driving rain to do some extravagant Christmas shopping together for our kids. Uttering the classic, “I-know-how-you-feel-but-the-two-of-you-will-get-through-this-together-I-just-know-you-will” mantralike pep talk at 2 in the morning when a close girlfriend like Mary is halfway through a lengthy deployment and just got into a long-distance argument with the military man she loves.

I still find myself reminiscing about the many military wives who were once my close friends. How in the world, I’ve often wondered, do we allow friendships this precious to drift from our lives? Why is it that so many — too many — of our most meaningful military relationships are inescapably sacrificed this way?

Chances are you already know the answer.

It seems far easier for so many people, their hearts completely turned toward the future, making empty promises as they go, to sidestep the painful, loose emotional threads left behind. They simply disconnect from the past, recognizing that these relationships served their purpose and don’t have a role to play in terms of the new lives they face elsewhere.

“How shallow is that?” I used to think.

I’ve since realized it’s nothing short of sheer emotional survival when we find ourselves forced to come and go, rearranging our migratory lives to meet the needs and demands of the military. You learn to connect, and later separate, much like scissors — skillfully cutting a deliberate, straight line through an expensive swath of rich cloth in the process.

If there’s one thing I’ve discovered over the years, it’s that no matter how strong the potential is for us to get hurt by these fleeting relationships, they’re still worth the effort. We inevitably learn from them, grow from them. We may at times become cynical, but they still teach us something critically important.

Bottom line, we need each other. And we always will.


Debi Ketner, a 14-year military spouse, is married to a retired Navy senior chief petty officer and lives in Norfolk, Va. Her column on military family life appears once a month. Get in touch with her or join the conversation in The Home Front blog at

militarytimes.com/blogs/homefront

Ellie