Online Forums/Group Friends

Do you belong to one? Specifically military ones? Some have come and gone, others have gone through changes and reconstruction, while others have just stayed the same. All in all I have belonged to a lot over the years, I started out with Yahoo groups but even those have gone by the wayside, now it seems that forums are the place to be and get information. You can gain a lot of information and make friends through these places, but you can also lose friends and make enemies. Yes some are gossip sessions and a fight might start between a few posters, but others while have their ups and downs are the best place to be. You can gain so much information from them from PCSing itself, to pay matters, to an actual base/post/city, to the latest news, branch specific questions and everything in between. There is several online forums that are major and have large groups of people on them, mainly spouses in a few and Active, Reservist or Retirees in others. They have grown and fallen and then rebuilt again. But the information you can get has never stopped it is still there.

You can make friends through this groups and forums as well. Some you already have met and it grows from there; others you will meet at one place or another; while others you will be nothing more than online friends and never get the chance to really know each other. I have friends in all 3 categories. I have become reacquainted with girls & guys I knew before and had the chance to meet again. Other ones I have gotten the opportunity to meet and become even better friends with, friends we will be for life. The final ones I have known for years but never have and probably never will meet them. But that doesn’t change the way we feel about each other and what we mean to each other. We are part of a group, a special group that is there for each other no matter what, through thick and thin, good times and bad, a shoulder to cry on when something happens and a person to applaud when an accomplishment is made. These friends have helped me a lot over the years and I have helped them I hope. Sometimes it can just take that little bit of encouragement to help you or them feel better, the right thing to say, the necessary information, just an online expression like a happy face or a joke to make you laugh.

These friends can be in your life for a short time and other times they can be in there for long time even for life. They can be younger or older than you. They can be closer to you than your own family even tough they have no blood or marriage relation to you at all.

They are part of a sisterhood, your sisters