LITTLE ROCK — It’s a typical reality for a military wife.
She’s young, about 19. She’s in a foreign country, say Germany. And she’s about to give birth to her first child while her husband is deployed in Iraq. She could easily feel lonely. But that’s hardly the case. Other military spouses won’t let her feel alone. Megan Glynn, for one, won’t let her.
In fact, Glynn was by the woman’s side, holding her hands and sharing the intimate moments as a stand-in husband.
“I’d find a special place in their family’s heart,” Glynn says. “It’s such an honor. It was a way I could ease their transition.”
Now living with her husband, Matt, at Little Rock Air Force Base in Jacksonville, she was chosen recently in online voting as Military Spouse magazine’s Air Force Military Spouse of the Year. That makes her one of five finalists for the Armed Forces Insurance Military Spouse of the Year award.
While her pilot husband was stationed for the second time in Germany in 2009, Glynn sized up how she could help other families. Like her mother, she’s certified as a doula to provide nonmedical support before and during childbirth. So she began a business teaching childbirth skills.
In and out of the labor room, Glynn kept reaching out to women like Christine Guarente, a new mother for the first time at age 44. A few months after giving birth, Guarente had moved with her husband, also a pilot, to Spangdahlem Air Base in Germany. It was a great opportunity, but she was frightened.
Glynn helped wipe away the fear. She organized Friday play dates and mommy talk for women with children, welcoming Guarente into the circle. Only a few months apart in age, Guarente’s baby and Glynn’s oldest son bonded. While their husbands were deployed, Glynn regularly invited Guarente for dinner.
“They say that what people remember the most is how a person makes you feel,” Guarente says. “Megan gave me hope. She’s such a positive force.” Her duty, says Glynn, goes beyond supporting her husband. It’s about comforting the spouses who stay home and bring up their children as if they were single parents. Glynn’s dedication led Guarente to nominate her for Air Force Military Spouse of the Year.
Babette Maxwell, founder and executive editor of Military Spouse, knows the routine of a service family. When she leaves New Orleans this July, the 35-year-old will have relocated 29 times. She grew up as a military brat, then married a Navy SEAL.
Four years ago, Maxwell’s magazine gave the first awards saluting the wives - and this year, a husband finalist representing the Navy - behind America’s servicemen. Until March 2, voting is open at msoy.milspouse.com. Glynn is competing with spouses who won the Army, Coast Guard, Marine and Navy honors.
The award “galvanizes the community,” Maxwell said. “It gives the community someone to get behind. Once one spouse is recognized, it gives them the sense that people appreciate what they do every day.”
Like many of the women she’s helped, Glynn gave birth abroad. James Patrick, 4, who has short curls and the serene eyes of his father, was born in South Korea. Little big-eater Murphy, 2, who has light red hair and pudgy cheeks, was born in Germany. Friends and neighbors came to Glynn’s side when they found out that newborn Murphy had an enlarged kidney, leading to two infections and hospital stays.
“A lot of people would say military life is a hardship,” Glynn says. “I don’t think it’s easy for them to understand how close everyone becomes. They become your family.”
To provide reinforcement for military wives, she and her mother started ShopZoolu.com. The year-old site finds products for mothers and children that are available overseas. Often when Glynn wanted an item from an American company while in South Korea and Germany, she’d need to have it sent to her mother, who’d pay a hefty fee to ship it overseas.
The Glynns have a third baby on the way. One week before the due date in May, they’ll have a Reveal Party to announce the baby’s sex. They’ll take the sealed envelope that holds the secret to a party store that’ll fill a pinata with either blue or pink candy. When the pinata breaks open, the secret will be revealed.
For all they know, Megan and Matt’s marriage was in the cards years before they were born. Their grandfathers were longtime pals. His grandfather was a World War II pilot, while hers served in the Navy. His mother and her father grew up together in the 1950s. Matt and Megan met in September 2000 a few weeks before her 21st birthday.
Born in Los Angeles, Megan studied and played soccer at the University of Southern California. She planned to teach high school and coach soccer in the area.
The terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, changed her plans. One day that fateful month, she hung up the phone after talking with Matt and realized she’d agreed to relocate. The whirlwind of love was taking her to Germany.
Both still think of Spangdahlem, where they married and lived for six years, as home. She completed her student teaching there in December 2001 and taught in the Department of Defense Dependents Schools and coached girls’ soccer, just as she’d always planned to do.
In their decade of marriage, the Glynns will have moved six times. They went from Germany to Fort Campbell, Ky., to Osan, South Korea, where she taught English for a year. By 2007 they were back in Germany. They’ll be moving this spring from Little Rock Air Force Base to Ventura, Calif.
Matt has been deployed four times to Iraq. This summer he’ll be flying a C-130 over Afghanistan, dropping supplies to U.S. troops. It is duty he feels privileged to perform.
Megan’s smile isn’t a facade covering up her loneliness when her husband is gone. It’s pride. Of course there’s some fear, but she sets that aside by not watching the news. If there is news, she’ll hear from Matt. As a military wife, she sees being strong and hopeful as her responsibility.
“I view this as my contribution,” she says. “I’ll teach my children that it’s not a burden. It’s a challenge, but never a burden”
Family, Pages 31 on 02/23/2011