Thursday, May 24, 2012

FRG---What's that??


So I’m not a complete idiot…I do, in fact know what the FRG is supposed to be. I also have heard plenty of horror stories about what it tends to morph into. But I have to be honest…I’m more than a little bit jealous of all of you who get to complain about your FRG. I know you’re thinking “Shanon, what are you talking about. Your husband is an active duty Sailor, on a boat that can technically deploy. Don’t you have your own FRG to complain about?” My only response is…NOPE!
So since my husband has been attached to this ship I have been asking for contact information. How do I contact the Ombudsman, who is the Ombudsman, what about the FRG? They have had a lot of underways, all less than a month so no big deal but things can happen in a week let alone a month. Furthermore one of their underways came back early another was a day late, how am I supposed to get this information?
Hubby asked and asked and asked. Finally he was able to get an email address for me for the Ombudsman (I do not know if it works or not, haven’t tried it but it’s just a Gmail account is that normal or do they have .mil emails?) When he asked about the FRG for me he was told “we are too busy to do that right now.”
Too busy? TOO BUSY??? You are too busy to find a spouse who can organize a group to meet every now and then to create a support system so that when the boat leaves we know who to contact/how to contact them? More importantly so that they know how to contact me if there is something I need to know?
I literally know 2 of the wives on Adam’s boat, and one of them is in divorce proceedings right now. Their husbands are in the same department as Adam and roughly the same rank…I’m pretty sure they aren’t going to know anything important if I don’t.
This is something that has been eating at me for about 2 months but I have kept quiet because I thought it was stupid. But over the past week I have heard more about FRG’s and Ombudsmen from my tweeps/bloggie friends than I have since I entered this virtual reality and it kind of brought the pissed-offness back to the surface.
What is your opinion of FRG’s/Ombudsmen/Spouse Support Groups? Does your ship/division/branch/base/post/whatever offer good support? Do they at least try? Do you have any spouse-friends who work with your husband/wife? How did you meet?
At this point I don’t care if it sucks, something has to be better than being told you don’t matter and they don’t have time for you.

2 comments:

Sespi said...

I went to one FRG meeting before Chris deployed the first time, then never again. Our FRG supports the whole command here, which means not only the people on subs, but also the air shop, the surface shop, and the people on shore duty. They know absolutely nothing about who is deploying and when. It's more like a social club here and not with people I like. I do appreciate the ombudsman emails though (and yes, mine has a gmail address because they're volunteers not official Navy employees) because she sends out things that are going on on base and around town.

Chris's shop has their own support system them, where they call once a week to check on spouses and see if you need anything. Way more useful to me than the FRG and with none of the drama.

All my friends here are either in the Navy or married to someone in the Navy, but they don't all work with Chris. Chris met people in classes/his shop and we went out to dinner with them and we all became friends. I'm hoping it works the same way in DC... but if it doesn't, I've got a bunch of friends already up there :)

Jen said...

Thankfully I have met some of my best friends through our FRG. Our husbands work together and all of us as a group (even husbands) go out to dinner and hang out together. I am sad to leave my current FRG :( You should be the driving force behind starting something, you sound motivated and willing. :)

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