No Life Like It

Petawawa and Red Fridays

I never imagined I would end up in Petawawa and to be honest I came kicking and screaming. In the early years as a military spouse I had heard a couple urban legends about Petawawa and vowed to never move there. At the time I believed my husband would serve his whole career in Chilliwack. And then the base closed. We moved to Edmonton, then London and then the inevitable, Petawawa.

I considered moving to Petawawa on the condition that our children were able to enroll into a certain school. They did and we moved. The year was 2007 and when I arrived I didn’t own a stitch of red. I was in the mindset that I was married to a military member, I moved with him and I supported him; hence, I supported the troops why did I need to wear red. Then I met Jill Kruse.

Week in and week out Jill donned her red on Fridays. At the time we were enrolled in a French class at the base language school. We were group of five or six wives learning French, but also supporting each other while our husbands were training and being deployed overseas. Jill was a fellow writer, our daughters were friends, our husbands worked together and we both moved to Petawawa to support our husbands on their need to serve their country.

Her unwavering support for the troops was contagious. She wore red to support her husband, and all of the men and women who serve our country. She never asked why I wasn’t wearing red, nor did she tell me to wear red. But eventually, Fridays became the day that I too would wear red.

Related Articles

Show More

Cyndi Mills - Owner | Publisher CMF Magazine

Admittedly the Queen of Typos, Cyndi Mills strives for none, but one or two always seems to slip in. She apologizes! Over the last 29 years Cyndi has had the opportunity to move around the country with her husband, Scott and their four children. Having lived in Chilliwack, Edmonton, London, and Petawawa. She stumbled into the world of journalism by accident – looking for a career that could give her the flexibility to work from home to be with her children and support her husband's military career. Cyndi is also a military parent as her two oldest children are in the military. Raising her third and fourth teenagers, she tries to keep sane by walking, gardening, writing, and spending time with her family while running Canadian Military Family Magazine.
Canadian Military Family Magazine
Close