Penelope Carrigan is an ex-military spouse.

Not because she got a divorce, but because her husband was discharged from the military after having his legs blown off during a roadside bombing on his HUMVEE.

They rehabilitated him to the point he could move around in a wheel chair, but he still had problems with all the things he's seen at war. It scarred him so badly that he still had panic attacks. And it made it hard for him to keep a job.

Penelope spent her days while he was away working at the base gym behind the counter of the Juice Bar or teaching step and spinning classes. She can make anything from a virgin shirley temple to a power smoothie, and she makes them well.

When her husband came home, her income alone couldn't keep them afloat, and his medical bills alone were putting them under. She ran out of options and was going to try anything she could to get money fast to pay the bills before they lost everything, and even if she was adverse to stripping and she knew her husband would never agree to it, she had to do something. She had take a few of the X-pole classes at the gym and she knew she had a good enough body to try.

When she walked into the Stray Kats with a resume, Lana laughed at her...It was the first time she had ever seen someone with references about how good a "dancer" she could be. That's when Penelope broke down and cried for the first time since she found out her husband's condition.

Thinking fast and looking over her resume, Lana had quick idea. State law said that completely nude strip clubs could only serve non-alcoholic drinks. Since one side of the Stray Kats was full nude, she could take up the position at the newly renovated bar, doing what she did at the gym, but with a much larger salary and excellent tips. And thanks to Serenade, a health care plan with an affordable co-pay.

Her husband was furious at first, and forbid it, but when she showed him how far in debt they were, it switched something in his head and he started acting like the man she married.

He has a decent enough job now-a-days, heading up a local handicapped school gym program, and they're slowly paying off all the bills.

Penelope gets propositioned a lot, to dance and to show off, but the dangling dog tags that she wears around her neck remind people that her husband was a Marine, and you know what they say, once a Marine, always a Marine.

Once a military spouse, always a military spouse.