General Mrs Tommy Atkins.

[wife of]

I've been asked several times as to what the difference is between combat sufferers and supporters v's the rest of the planet is and it is hard to pin down.

Generaly it is a clash of cultures that your average civvy can not comprehend ,so I thought as a way of giving some insight into the life of a forces wife/sweetheart I would open this thread...

For those of you not grown in the UK "Tommy Atkins" is a generic nickname for the Bristish soldier and stems from being a generic name picked by the war office in 1815 to be used in a sample pocket book....

 

[wife of]

Mrs Tommy Atkins,used to line up her mobile phone and cordless landline on the side of the bath everytime she used the loo as that was invariably when Tommy would call.

Calls were sporadic and often as far as two weeks apart,so if she missed one it could mean as long as a month with no contact other than a hurried few lines of jolly "I'm ok,don't worry" on an airmail bluey...

Nothing makes a service wife worry more than the line "don't worry" as it usualy translates to "We're in the thick of it,can't say why for security reasons and because once I start to let go of my closely bottled human emotions,then the whole house of cards will come down".

Now that the house of cards is coming down Mrs Atkins worries greatly about that extra box of emotions,the one marked top secret that sits inside the furthest corner of the ptsd box,just within reach but Tommy will not even look at it never mind open it without someone with the appropriate security clearence being around to help him with it...