Ah, my favorite kind of milspouse (Updated)

Not.

My history with the Army stretches back almost as long as Bill's - back to the late '50s when I was decanted at the 10th General Field Hospital in Wurzburg.

I grew up in an Army that had a really good club system, some really outstanding morale, welfare, and recreation facilities (and some real crap ones, too).  In a time when the Army was still relatively insular, in ways that it no longer is. 

While that is probably a larger good, I do think we suffered a net cultural setback when we killed the club system because our sunken-chested marathon-running non-smoking and drinking General officer corps didn't know how to not over-react to real problems because among other things they were getting such positive strokes from the PC crowd. 

It was also an Army where it was not only legal, but expected, that an officer's spouse would factor into their efficiency reports.  I've read the Auld Soldier's OERs.  My mother is only mentioned briefly, and in positive ways.  This is a practice that was prohibited before I received my commission - and I agree with that, given the changes in society, both military and civil.

A tangent.

On military installations you will see a great variety of reserved parking spaces, unless General Petraeus is around, he's got something of a fetish about the subject  - to the point of bemusement to me - but that's not the point.

You'll see reserved spaces for Medal of Honor holders, General Officers, Colonels, Command Sergeants Major, Village Mayors, Soldier of the Year, Audie Murphy Club members, Expectant Mothers, Disabled, etc.

Our personal vehicles are marked with the status of the "sponsor" as we call the military member to whom the vehicle is tied.  Green stickers for government civilian employees, black for contractors, red stickers for enlisted, blue for officers, and, heh, added Eagles and Stars for Colonels and Generals.  The stars are not always used.  Some of this dates back to when we had soldiers manning the gates, so salutes could be rendered as appropriate.  Some of it is tied to access control - as in facilitating getting the muckety-mucks in quickly while everybody else sits in line waiting to have their vehicle strip-searched when the threat level gets raised.

But the eagles and such have more to do with parking than anything else, I'm thinking.

Now, the purpose of those reserved slots close to the entrance of things is putatively so that Very Important and Highly Paid people out running errands during the duty day don't have to waste valuable time tootling around the parking lot.  Leave aside that few of those people actually run errands during the duty day - unless you are at a place so overrun with Colonels like Fort Leavenworth, Carlisle Barracks, Fort Myers, etc, that they're a dime-a-dozen, then you might find them running about in gaggles, especially at lunch. 

But ask any non-commissioned officer what those signs really mean, and they'll tell you, "Oh, officer's spouse parking."

Because that's who's usually parking in those slots.  Colonel's spouses.  Not really who the slot is intended for, but, hey, that's the way it is.  Just like you'll find the occasional civilian with an assimilated general officer equivalency who will park in a GO's slot.  Most often in my experience the ones who do that are former military types indulging their inner Walter Mitty.  The career civilians generally don't even think of it, most likely.

Back on point.

So what *is* the point of this rambling set up?  The point that some people are prone to assume that the rank on their significant other's shoulder has somehow managed to fly from that shoulder and land on theirs, too.

Correct, in a fashion.  In terms of leaving a white mess of bird doo-doo, perhaps.  Especially in this case.

Such a person would appear to be Dr. (Mrs) Leslie Drinkwine, spouse to Colonel Brian Drinkwine, the commander of the 4th Brigade Combat Team of the 82nd (Airborne) Dvision..  The deployed brigade commander who is perhaps even as we speak wishing General Order #1 would allow him to indulge his cognomen.

The commander of Fort Bragg has barred the wife of an 82nd Airborne Division colonel from nearly all interaction with her husband's brigade and the unit's families after an investigation found her influence "detrimental to the morale and well-being of both."

Sworn statements from the investigation, ordered in January by Lt. Gen. Frank Helmick, accuse Col. Brian Drinkwine's wife, Leslie Drinkwine, of using her husband's position as leverage to repeatedly harass and threaten soldiers and their families.
 

Now that is some serious transference.  Most milspouses I grew up with (and even more so now than it was back when I was a brat running around housing areas at Fort Sill, Fort Leavenworth, and Germany) didn't assume their soldier's rank attached to them, and were hard-working members of our little communities, especially during the Vietnam era, when I was paying far more attention than I was as a toddler.

I'm thinking Mrs. Drinkwine thinks those Colonel parking spaces are for her.  Especially now, since it's about all the status she has left, other than probably-well-intentioned power-hungry-buffoon has-been.  And you, Colonel - you're Herr Doktor Frankenstein in this morality play.

In sworn interviews or written statements submitted to Spillman, one former battalion commander, two currently serving battalion commanders and the brigade's rear commander said Dr. Drinkwine told them "that either their careers, or the careers of others, could be adversely impacted by her."

In other sworn statements, five Army officers said they have heard Col. Drinkwine say that when his wife speaks, she speaks for him.

Col. Drinkwine, in his sworn statement, said he meant that only in regard to FRG issues. His wife was the head of that organization, and he said he wanted to make sure people understood that she had authority in the FRG.

Yes, Colonel. You. 

I'm guessing we'll not be having General Drinkwine any time soon.  Still you should read the whole thing, as Colonel Drinkwine has his supporters, too.

A cautionary tale for those milspouses who have no official rank of their own, but who's status is tied to that of their sponsor. You can play a key role in the success of your spouses career and in taking care of the unit families when the unit is deployed.  But yours is a different kind of leadership - cat herding.  Which is always frustrating.

My mother, herself a Colonel's Lady, would not approve of Dr. Drinkwine's approach to FRG leadership.

Commander Salamander also has some thoughts - including an idea for an interesting episode of Wife Swap.

Being the spouse of a deployed warrior is hard enough, without some harridan harpy from hell getting into your face and hissing with forked tongue yet smelling of... female dog.

Update: Greta, herself a milspouse, offers some bracing perspective to the story - as in, don't measure all against a single data point.

Cassandra gently chides my rather soldier-centric viewpoint - and properly laments the fact that "good news is not news."  Much the way gun-owners will lament that the news, after reporting on the latest homicide, never notes that "tens of millions of guns and gunowners did not shoot anyone today.":

When you think of just how many officers' wives there are out there, I wonder why no one ever seems to notice that military wives "wear" their husband's rank in a lot of positive ways? Greta and Mrs G are prime examples of women who voluntarily assume a leadership and service role. The military could not function without women like this, and yet we see only the bad apples.

Well, here's a little bit of that - along with the injunction that you should go read Greta's post.