I read a post on Facebook today, which commented how easy is is to make close friends in the Army (military) and then how sad it is to see them go; e.g. move away on a PCS or retirement. I agree totally with that comment, but have an add-on I'd like to make.
Friends you make in the military last a lifetime, but mostly in your memory bank, or during the Christmas season when cards are exchanged. This is especially true after you leave the military, such as with retirement. For those then located in large metropolitan areas with lots of retired military it's better, but even then it's not the same as when you were on active duty. We lived in the Washington DC region for about five years after we retired and there were many of our close friends also living there. However, even though we lived relatively close (within 25 miles) we hardly saw each other throughout the year. Interests (and jobs) had changed, priorities had changed, and new, more current neighborhood friends had been made. After a year or so we began to miss being back on one of the Army installations where we'd lived, with everyone essentially sharing the same chalenges, the same type furniture (in Germany for example), and the togetherness we'd experienced within our housing area and job locations.
So for those of you still on active duty, cherish what you have now and do all you can to keep in touch with close friends and co-workers after your career paths separate and go in different directions. Having served in the military is an experience I'd never trade...even though we had some pretty rough times here and there, and it was certainly not all fun. But the older we get, our minds tend to focus more on the good than the bad. At the center of it all was the network of close friends we had made. Try hard not to let that slip away.
