Intro to Army Life

About the Book:
Intro to Army Life
Intro to Army Life: A Handbook for Spouses and Significant Others Entering the Army Lifestyle was created to encourage, educate and inspire those entering the army culture. No one hands you a guidebook when you enter Army life; you either have to learn the hard way or stumble upon resources on your own…until now. Intro to Army Life gives you the tools and resources necessary to make your transition into the Army lifestyle easier, less stressful and more fun. You don’t have to learn the hard way—all the information you need is here, ready to help you make the transition. Along with engaging personal narrative and stories, Intro to Army Life includes:
• Army hierarchy and social structure• 15 tips for dealing with a deployment• Perks of a military ID• Top 25 Army acronyms• Military discounts and how to find them• Top 10 resources for military children• Fun facts, such as where the term “military brat” originated• …and much more!

Intro to Army Life is an excellent resource for the individual reader or for companies promoting educational resources for the U.S. Army.

Category: Resourse, Military Life, guidebook
Page Count: 176 pages
Publisher: Aloha Publishing
Price: $ 10.95 soft cover, $ 2.99 e-book


About the Author:
Allison Mewes became an army spouse one week before her husband left for a three week Annual Training and then deployed for a year to the Middle East. While he was away, she wrote this book. Her experiences as a newlywed entering the army lifestyle, along with the humorous things that happened along the way, inspired her to help other military spouses and significant others make the transition into army life.
She owns Blue Bamboo Project Services and works as a project manager/event coordinator. Allison and her husband live in Boise, Idaho.

My Review:
I was given this book via Media Guests to review, I was not paid for my review and these are my own words.

I am an Army Wife of 32 years, a dependent daughter of an Army Warrant Officer for my whole life. So between the two I have had 50 years of experience with the military lifestyle. My father and husband are now retired; so I was anxious to read this book so that I could see what Mrs Mewes had to say. I consider myself a seasoned Army wife, and looked at the book with a critical eye.
What I found was a wonderful resource for any company commanders wife to pass out to newly married solders or families that are new to the military lifestyle. When my husband was a company commander 20 years ago in Hawaii, we had so many new wives that were on the island, I wish I had then this resource to help explain what these women should expect.
This book is written in gender neutral, for our "be all you can be Army", which is pretty awesome. However, my husband was an Army Ranger Infantry Officer and there were not any women that worked with him. That is why I refer to my desire for resources for the wives, because I never had to deal with male spouses.
This book was full of information that was easily accessible from other places, rank charts, uniform pictures, chain of command, and branches of the service among other things; however, this book is wonderful because it has everything compiled into one place. Mrs Mewes also gave a list of the top 25 acronyms, I tested myself before I looked at the answers, even after 12 years retired I still remember what these mean. Overall, this is a book filled with information for military families to use as a resource. I honestly believe that every company commanders wife should have a stack of Intro to Army Life ready to pass out. I would even venture to say that every ROTC across the US should have this books handy for the girlfriends/wives to either purchase or hand to them to learn.

I agree that being a military spouse or significant other is not for the faint of heart, there is a huge responsibility today, with soldier being placed in harms way, the spouses are expected to take on a greater responsibility.

This book/resource will help one navigate the experience and enhance the experience just because knowledge is power. I enjoyed reading this book, there is humor throughout. I supposed just little phrases that I had remembered from our military days, like "suck it up", "if the army wanted you to have a wife they would issue you one"and of course my favorite because my soldier said it more than I ever thought humanly possible Hooah!
I recommend this book with a 5 star rating!
Sandie