I wrote in December about Ashley Broadway, the legally wed spouse of Army Lieutenant Colonel Heather Mack, who was told by the Officers’ Spouse Club (OSC) at Fort Bragg in North Carolina that she did not qualify to be a member. After pressure from Broadway, assisted by the American Military Partner Association and OutServe-SLDN, however, the club (a private organization affiliated with the base) changed its mind and offered her full membership last Friday—just hours after she was named the Fort Bragg “Military Spouse of the Year” in a contest run by Military Spouse magazine.
Broadway now moves on to compete against 153 other base-level winners for the chance to be “Army Spouse of the Year.” Fort Bragg is home to U.S. Airborne and Special Operations forces, some of the most elite units of our military. I don’t know if that means she has a better chance than others (and let’s face it, there are plenty of deserving military spouses out there, gay and straight), but I’ll be rooting for her.
NBC News notes that “Mack gave birth to their second child, a daughter, on Tuesday.” What an amazing week this must be for the family.
(But really, NBC: “Broadway married Mack, her 15-year companion”? “Companion“? 1975 called. It wants its vocabulary back.)
