March 18, 2009 
By Terri Barnes
His environment is common, but he is rare. He doesn’t blend in with his surroundings, yet often remains unseen – caring for his offspring, avoiding exposure, scarcely encountering others of his kind.
Who is this elusive creature? The military husband.
“There are people out there who don’t really consider the fact that there are husbands as well as military wives,” said Thomas Litchford, a Navy spouse in Newport, R.I.
“We are rare enough that a lot of people have never met a military husband.”
Litchford and other military husbands agree there are unique hurdles for men married to the military.
“It is hard,” said Army husband Tony Brown, currently serving as a contractor in Iraq. Tony agreed that men need friendship and support, scarce commodities for military husbands.
“I personally would love to have someone to talk to and keep me encouraged while my wife is away and engaged in constructive things.”
The Department of Defense estimates that between 6 and 7% of military spouses are men – less in some career fields or military installations – so finding peers is a challenge.
Adding to the difficulty, said Thomas, reaching out does not come naturally.
“It is hard for men to make friends,” he said. “I don’t know if this is a stereotype or not, but I think men have a harder time with it because there are all these other overtones … It feels weird to say ‘Hey, dude, let’s grab a cup of coffee.’”
“You have to step outside of yourself a little bit, and that’s hard.” The outcome is worth the discomfort, though, he said.
“It’s rare to meet people in the same situation (as a military husband) but when you do that makes it pretty easy to form a quick friendship because you have so much in common.”
Finding men who have those things in common is the not-so-quick-and-easy part.
“Most of the guys I know are active duty,” Tony said, “and a lot of them don't really understand what a spouse goes through, although I can relate to them, since I am prior military.”
“Some male spouses have never been in or around the military before,” he said, “and don't even know what the community has to offer them as spouses.”
Some military wives find support and friendship in spouses clubs. Some intrepid husbands have found they are welcome there too.
Steve Frisch, whose wife is in the civil service, joined the spouses club when his wife’s job took the family to Ramstein, Germany. Having just retired from his own civil service career, Steve said he did have some reservations at first.
“Our exposure was that it was a wives club. I was really very hesitant to get involved with anything because I thought I would be the only man, but I worked with other men in (a charity) bazaar. Everyone was so welcoming and so friendly. I thought ‘This is really nice. I think I’d like to be a little more involved with these folks.’”
He now serves as the second vice president of his spouses club and is one of a handful of men among 200-plus members.
“Some of it is like a lot of things in life – what you make of it,” said Mike Clark, who serves on the board with Steve. “Some people aren’t as comfortable standing in a room with two hundred women and two guys.”
“I kid my wife that I have two hundred wives now,” he said.
The dynamic of spouses clubs isn’t likely to change, the men agree, unless men get involved. Conversely, many men don’t get involved because they think the activities are not for them.
“The general guiding philosophy of most spouses clubs is geared more toward women,” says Thomas. “Anytime you have a group that has to try and support both sexes, that’s tricky if you almost never have a man around. They’re going to default to traditional activities that have existed for all these years. Those are things that guys are often not interested in, so they don’t get involved.”
Mike and Steve found their club did offer activities for both men and women. Steve said he found his niche in community volunteerism. Mike was first drawn to the club by a neighbor who invited him to join the bowling league.
Thomas agreed that more male involvement could produce more guy-friendly organizations.
“You’ve got to go and say your piece and maybe get involved with planning some of these activities,” he said, “because if you don’t they are just going to keep having what they’ve done in the past.”
No matter what the ratio, a group can benefit from both perspectives.
“In any business or venture that’s a good thing to have different voices out there and being heard,” Mike said.
Spouses clubs may not be for everyone, male or female, but there are other ways to hear and be heard. A few military husbands are online, offering a glimpse into their lives.
Thomas maintains a blog about his writing and family. He said one man wrote him recently with questions about Navy life.
The man’s wife was about to enlist, and he was hearing some negative talk about the military. Searching for information, he found Thomas’s blog.
“He didn’t know what to think and what to expect,” Thomas said. “It was a great opportunity for me to say, ‘It’s not that bad.’”
“I don’t hear from a lot of other military husbands on the blog,” he said, although he knows of two fellow military husbands with personal blogs.
“Right now, it’s just three guys who have blogs,” he said. “Even online it’s a small community.”
Great Blogs from Military Husbands
http://thomaslitchford.com/blog/
http://bigdaddyavelis.blogspot.com/
http://www.navalgazing.com/
Terri Barnes is a columnist on military spouse issues for Stars and Stripes. Spouse Calls appears weekly in print and online at www.stripes.com, and the blog is at http://blogs.stripes.com/blogs/spousecalls.