1. As far as spouses, it will happen when it is meant to happen. Back 20+ yrs ago, (Bullet was a lowly 2nd Lt), I would say 50% of the lts. were married and 50% single. From his 1st FTU to his 2nd operational, I believe there was only 1 out of the 16 in his class that was not married by the ripe old age of 29. Of course, there were several that had been married, divorced and remarried again by that time too.
The important thing to look for in that soul mate is one that gets this premise....She will always be your mistress until the day you leave the military. At Bullet's retirement he even mentioned that I had always joked the AF was his wife and I was his mistress, now I was finally going to be the wife. The reason why she is the mistress is because when the military says you won't be able to come home that night for your anniversary dinner, you are placing the military first. When they send you TDY 120 +/- with 5 days notice and you were suppose to take the kids to Disney, you won't be going. There will be holidays, birthdays and special occasions that you will miss. She will be left to pack and unpack a home, give birth without you by her side and watch important milestones alone. She will also give up her career progression to follow you around the world. It takes a very strong love to endure what the military wife lives with, as much as you love her, just like the mistress she will never come 1st.
Do not fall into the fallacy that she will change or eventually accept it. very very rarely does this occur. BIG CLUES: If she can't bear to leave her parents, it will be hard for her to move across an ocean. If she believes that you will be at every T-Ball game, when you talk about kids, there will be problems. If she cannot fathom ever living in Ft Rich Alaska or Minot ND, and tells you, that you are on your own, don't believe she will grow accustom to it, once you do go. I can't tell you how many careers I have seen ruined because of the wife. When the guy started giving her choice of places, that was when it went downhill. (Better bases typically meant not a career mover). The most successful military marriages consisted with a wife that had these four traits:
1. RE-INVENTS her career everytime they moved
2. GETS ITCHY FEET...@ 2 yrs after being there, they would start asking shouldn't orders come down soon? This didn't mean they were unhappy there, it was they saw the move as a new adventure, a new location, base, home, and friends. There are guys who will take remotes and follow on back because she doesn't want to move.
3. COULDN'T WAIT FOR THEM TO GO TDY...I love Bullet, but there were times that I looked at him and said, is there a TDY coming up soon? Bullet would always call me and say "there's this good deal TDY and they asked me to go, do you mind?" I always said "GO". Sometimes, TDY's are good to make you miss each other and what they really mean to you. There are spouses who refuse to let their guys go because who will help with bath time for the kids?
4. LIVES BY THE CODE: I AM WOMAN HEAR ME ROAR! I can change a tire, pump gas, scrape and paint a home, wallpaper, mow the lawn and trim the shrubs, and did all of that with 3 kids under 4. If my tire got a flat, I changed it. For the first 17 yrs of our marriage, I was the one who mowed the lawn and trimmed the shrubs, because if I didn't that meant Bullet had to on the weekend. I was a stay at home Mom, if I did it then we could have fun with the kids on the weekends. I understood he loved being with them and every second mattered because not one tour (3 yrs on avg) ended with him being gone for less than 6-8 months. If she expects you to do it all, what will happen when you are deployed? I can tell you, she will beaach!
There is a joke/rule of thumb in the military...you can paint/fix the home, tune up the car before you leave for a TDY and within 24 hrs something will happen...the pipe under the sink will explode, the car will get a flat, a wind storm will come through and knock a tree down across the backyard.
Do not search for her, fate is funny it will bring the two of you together. Just be honest with each other, don't play the premise, oh we are going to live in Hawaii, and I get 30 days of vacation a yr (old craniums
because as you go up rank, you scurry around in August trying to make sure you don't lose any...use or lose happens at 60 days and you are sitting at 85 days). You get free housing, medical, they assist you in jobs, they have low cost daycare on base, they have 5 star hotels at Disney, Hawaii and Germany, you can travel for almost nothing with space A, the PX/BX sells Coach, yada yada yada. Most of that stuff will never come to fruition.
Done with my advice from a spouse for that.
As far as assignments, for the AF, your initial assignments for schools are defined, your operational assignments have a set duration, +/- a few months. For overseas (AK is included in that) Married it is a 3 yr assignment, single it is a 2 yr assignment. As you get much higher in rank it will change, for example, you get to a base as a newly pinned on Major, with a 3 yr assignment, you apply to school 15 months later, get accepted and go at 21 months, your next assignment will not be to return to the same base at the same job, but go on to a new place in a new position.
Hope that helps.