First, I was a high school English teacher with some of the best student scores in our region, and even with all of the essays I had to grade, I never even once approached a 60 hour work week. On bad weeks, I spent 10 hours grading outside my classroom. On good weeks, I spent no extra time outside school. Time management is a wonderful thing.
Second, even though I taught in very rough districts and faced threats of physical violence at times, I would never even begin to compare the sacrifices of my job to what my husband has to sacrifice as an Army Captain.
One week after the birth of our first daughter, he had to leave for 6 weeks for training. Right now, he's been gone to a school since October, only able to come home for 9 days at Christmas (at our expense). Once he returns at the end of this month, he has 18 days with us before he leaves for a year in Korea. Once he returns from that, he is scheduled to deploy (at least as of now) ten months after that, again for a year.
All of the dangers aside, just the simple sacrifice of TIME is something no other professional in American can fathom. I have friends in the military who have NEVER been around any of their children as newborns. One of my very best friends had her husband home for 6 weeks following their first child's birth. (He was also deployed for one year prior to her getting pregnant). Then, he was deployed for 15 months with ONE two week leave in the middle. He was home for a bit over one year, and then he deployed again, after finding out she was pregnant with their second. He was not able to come home for any leave because it was a 9 month deployment, and he got home when the new baby was 5 months old. He will likely deploy again next year. Most of our friends have faced similar situations in the last several years.
Nurses, teachers, police officers, firefighters, etc. are all very valuable, but the sacrifice is not really even comparable to what our troops face. How often do any of those go months without seeing family? And really, I'm a champion for teachers, but I don't find it to be any more demanding or difficult than any other professional job, and I honestly find it a bit silly to lump teachers and nurses in with public safety officers, but that is just my opinion. Regardless, many businesses DO offer discounts to all of these groups.
So, really, the Disney gesture (among the many other companies that give a slight discount to troops and their families) is very nice. We appreciate it and take advantage of the offers, even when my husband cannot be with us, but I don't think we are entitled to discounts just because of the nature of his work.
Well said. My husband has been gone since October and has had one single day off. And he even had a couple of meetings with higher ups that day so it wasn't even completely work free. He works 7 days a week from 7am to 9:30pm or later. Lives in a tent, works in a tent. Has to find a way to get his job done even though the military doesn't have the ability to give him the items needed to complete the job. He will not be getting R&R, so we will not see him again until he is home for good. This May my son will celebrate his 6th birthday. My husband will have been gone for half of them. I do not expect discounts, nor do I feel entitled to them, but I do feel that it is a nice way to say thank you and will take advantage of them when I can.