After 40 years as a military dependent, I realize that not worrying about healthcare insurance is one of my privileges, one that is not given without sacrifice, but one that I have often taken for granted nonetheless.

I have never known the horror of finding a large medical bill in the mail (except when Tricare had made a mistake), and for most of my life, I’ve simply shown my military I.D. card, like a wand, when a receptionist asks for payment. My childlike understanding of healthcare went like this: I show my I.D. card, and poof, everything is taken care of.

The first time I went to a civilian doctor because the military hospital was full, I was confused by the process. They needed my insurance information and my policy number. “Don’t I just show you this?” I asked, holding up my military I.D. card.

Later, I was erroneously billed for that visit, the birth of our first son, and as I worked to sort out the mistake, a process that took years, I learned what the rest of the world has always known: healthcare is expensive.

Still, that experience didn’t matter many years later, when my husband had fulfilled his requirements to pay back the Navy for his education at the United States Naval Academy and his training as a pilot at the Navy’s facility in Pensacola, Florida. That is a long way of saying he was eligible to “get out.”

“Please, please, please get out of the military,” I remember begging. I promised to get a second job — anything — if it meant that my husband would be home and not at Uncle Sam’s whim.

“Trust me,” Dustin had said, “if we can hang on for another 10 years, the retirement benefits will be worth it.”

I didn’t believe him, and honestly, I was angry. I couldn’t stand 10 more years of moving around and dealing with deployments. “No, I don’t even care about the healthcare benefits,” I said to him through angry tears.

Indeed, during the ensuing 10 years, we were apart more than we were together, including when Dustin was sent on a yearlong deployment. Many times, when things got tough, I bitterly said, “We could be out by now!”

But today we are 5 months — 5 months! — away from Dustin’s retirement. Before summer, for the first time in my life, I won’t be the dependent of an active-duty military person.

“You’ll be the spouse of a retiree,” Dustin is quick to tell me, and that comes with some perks — like “free” healthcare.

When I tell people Dustin is retiring from the military at 41 years old, our “free” healthcare is one of the first things they mention. After my sporadic exposure to civilian health insurance through billing errors over the years, I understand their fascination. Health insurance is a huge stressor for most Americans, but for our family, it will continue to be a given. That is huge.

But you’ve probably noticed that I put “free” in quotation marks. I began doing that after I broke my leg when I was a teenager. My civics teacher used me and my cast as an example of government entitlements. A classmate said, “Her cast wasn’t free. Taxpayers like me had to pay for it.”

His slightly bitter words hung in the room like a rain cloud. Suddenly, my family’s service and entitlement was being used against us.

So I said, “But your dad will be home when you get there tonight.”

Likewise, my own children have never had to not go to the doctor so that we could buy groceries. They hear me recite their dad’s social security number, like my mom did for me, when I take them to the pediatrician, and poof, it’s taken care of.

But my children also have never known a life where their dad is home every night.

All over the country, military children and spouses are separated from their loved ones, the 1-percent who step up and serve, and for that we give them “free” healthcare. If they sacrifice even longer and make it a career, we pay their way for a lifetime.

But, no, it is not free. Nothing is ever free, least of all a military retirement. My dad, Dustin, and millions of others like them, did not wake up one day to a healthcare lottery. They did not stumble into “free” healthcare by chance. It was bought with years of service, sacrifice and separation. It was no accident, and that same healthcare is available to anyone who is also willing to sign up and serve.