The American Military Spouse

 

Who/What is the American military spouse?

• There are close to 700,000 spouses of active duty military personnel and close to 500,000 spouses of reserve military spouses.
• 85% of these spouses are wives; 15% are husbands of military personnel.
• 65% of these spouses are white; 19% are African-American, rest are Hispanic and other nationalities. This is a very similar racial composition of all of Hampton Roads.
• 84% of military spouses are married to enlisted men and women.
• 16% of military spouses are married to officers.
• Altogether, there are more than one million American spouses. So we can truthfully say that each military spouse is “One in a Million!”
• If we put all military spouses together in one place they would occupy every house and apartment in Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Chesapeake, Suffolk, Williamsburg , Portsmouth, York County, Hampton, Newport News and all the other cities of all of Hampton Roads!!!
• Believe it or not, the population of military spouses is the same as that of New York City and of San Antonio, Texas and of Ft. Lauderdale, Florida!!
• Stats tell us that every one of us has 10 significant loved ones in our lives. Since there are 1.2 million American military spouses, then there are 12 million people either directly or indirectly affected by the lifestyle, demands, and dangers of the U.S. Armed Forces!!! Twelve million people who love, care about, think about, call, write, and pray for military spouses!

 
Where is the American military spouse?

• 500,000 are at home in the continental United States.
• 41,000 spouses live in South Korea, Japan, and throughout the West Pacific.
• 37,000 spouses live in Germany.
• 17,000 lucky spouses live in sunny Hawaii!
• 72,000 have spouses deployed on ships in every ocean on the planet!
• 66,000 have spouses in war zones in Iraq and in Afghanistan.
• About 1 in 10 reservists have been activated. That means that more than 86,000 spouses of reserve soldiers/sailors are also “called to duty,” scattered throughout U.S.
• Between ships, war zones, and activated reserves, about one quarter of a million spouses are alone this day, sleep alone this night, single-parenting, as her husband or his wife protects your freedoms and insures your safety here and now.