Intro To Army Life: A Handbook for Spouses and Significant Others Entering the Army Lifestyle

useful book for new significant others not accustomed to military life and culture.

I like this book because it focuses on the hard facts, not just someone's personal story. it gives me practically ALL the resources I need in one place. THANK YOU!!

Has some helpful things inside, but it didn't answer the questions I currently have. Good for just general information, but if you're wanting specifics, find other sources.

short and sweet, just enough to whet your appetitejust touched the fringe of what you may have to deal with while around the military

Wonderful book!

Recently I was offered the opportunity to review a brand-new book especially for Army spouses: "Intro to Army Life," by Allison Mewes."Intro to Army Life" is not a personal memoir of Mewes own "intro to Army life" so much as it is a handbook, or a quick-reference guide. A quick scan through the Table of Contents shows brief 2-3 page "chapters" on subjects like the Soldier's Creed, how to read a Uniform, Tricare, and USO services. Almost anything a new spouse (or soldier) would want to know about the Army can be found in this book.All of the information "Intro to Army Life" contains can be found online, of course, and many of the chapters are simply a brief definition of a term and a referral to an online resource with more detail, such as the entry on R&R. But it's nice to have a complete index at hand.When my soldier joined the Army, I got probably 90% of my info from Google searching or following blogs and asking questions. I would have loved having such a resource at the time, and it's much more user-friendly than the Military Spouse Handbook the government has released (in my opinion, but then I don't generally find government documents were written with user-friendliness in mind.)"Intro to Army Life" is definitely geared toward people newly entering the Army lifestyle, but I can certainly see how I will find this book handy in the future. At the very least, I can see using it with the newer spouses in my FRG. Which may be the only quibble I have with the book. The portion about FRGs does include the expectation of top-down rankism, and to her credit, Mewes encourages readers not to pay much attention to such things. But rankism is a two-way street, as I've recently, personally discovered. Whether it's top-down or bottom-up, it's inappropriate, and if it is going to be addressed it at all, it should be addressed honestly, from both sides.

"Intro to Army Life" is a handbook for spouses and significant others. I have read my fair share of military wives handbooks, but this one is by far my favorite. The author, Allison Mewes, doesn't overwhelm you with information, which I definitely appreciated. Instead, she breaks down the important stuff, such as: Army hierarchy, tips for dealing with a deployment, perks of a military ID, Top 10 resources for military children, Understanding an LES (aka Pay Stub), housing, PCSing (permanent change of station), the FRG, and much much more! Another perk of her book, is that she kept it gender neutral, as some of the MilSpouses are the husbands.I have been an Army wife for 2 years now and I know how overwhelming and lost you can feel in the beginning, not only with your new marriage, but also with your marriage to the military. I found this book to be an easy read and straight to the point. She provides illustrations when discussing the different uniforms and ranks. A variety of resources are included throughout the book, which are so helpful. Some of the resources she referenced I had never heard of before and was very excited to check them out!If you are new to the military lifestyle, I highly recommend that you read her book. For those of you who are not new to the military, I would still recommend that you check this out, as it makes for a great reference guide.

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 commander's 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,Intro to Army Life is written 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, and 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 commander's 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 Intro to Army Life 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 harm's 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!