Leading on the Homefront
Nov 04 2009
There’s no question that after more than 8 years of persistent conflict, military families are tired, stressed and fraying at the edges. At our recent Annual Meeting in San Diego, MOAA brought together spouses representing different services and components to share their experiences from the field and help us identify how organizations such as ours can reach out to support today’s currently serving families.
Rather than re-inventing the wheel, here is the write up and some highlights from our recent Legislative Update*:
Bill Keller, an Air Force retiree and spouse of an Air Force officer, noted that male spouses are becoming more common, because a higher share of female servicemembers are staying for a career. One challenge, he said, is that military families often live long distances from the military installation and don’t feel as connected. “As a result, we’re trying to help by focusing on one family at a time.”
Marianne Sernoffsky is the family programs coordinator at Camp Rochester, the pilot for a new Reserve program that establishes military support offices in areas with significant Reserve populations but no military installation. “Our community center supports not only ID card holders,” she said, “but also parents, siblings and friends of members of all services and components, including veterans and retirees.”
Josi Hunt, a Navy spouse, said more and more married sailors are joining the Navy, and Navy families are adjusting to a new reality under which thousands of Navy personnel are assigned as individual augmentees with ground combat units in Iraq and Afghanistan. “We do six-month sea rotations very well,” she said, “but Navy families aren’t used to 12-to15 month deployments.”
Tanya Queiro, a Marine spouse recently selected as Military Spouse of the Year, is a wounded warrior recovery care coordinator. She articulated the unique challenges faced by family members who must become caregivers for the severely wounded. “Many family members give up their jobs and careers to be caregivers. Some of them have to take the lead and be ‘the strong ones’ for their families, and that can pose its own stresses for them and their wounded servicemembers.”
Kristy Kaufmann, the spouse of an Army officer coming off a command tour, said, “We need more open, honest dialogue, because things are not going well for families and kids. Many feel isolated from the rest of the community [especially after multiple deployments]…We need to change the 1950s Family Readiness Group model that depends on spouse volunteers and add more resources for support programs…Too often, the ‘can do’ attitude means ‘can do without.’”
Zoe Trautman, a Marine spouse, said the Marines are experiencing a “baby boom”, and that for the first time, the number of family members matches the number of Marines. She asserted the need “to put family programs on a wartime footing…we have problems reaching family members assigned to isolated and remote commands…we need a community-based engagement.” She said it’s essential to use “the new media” to reach younger spouses, and urged MOAA chapter leaders to reach out to recovery care coordinators, who need mentors for the wounded and their families. She also urged orientation efforts for military kids’ public school teachers, many of whom “know nothing about the military” or the stresses they may be under due to repeated deployments.
MOAA’s chapter and council leadership made up a large percentage of the audience and our diverse panel of spouses kept them riveted. Once the event wrapped up, people stormed the stage looking to get more information from the panelists on how to get engaged and help. Members from the Rochester area lost no time in scheduling an appointment with Marianne Sernoffsky to follow up on how they could get plugged in. Other members approached Zoe Trautman to inquire about her work with the Military Child Education Coalition and wanted to make sure that their states had already signed on to the Interstate Compact for Military Children. People lined up to thank each of our panelists for all their hard work and commitment to military families. No matter where you looked, connections were being made and you could practically feel the crackle of electricity in the room. What a great job on the part of the panelists. Just goes to show, given the opportunity to share their knowledge and expertise, military spouses never disappoint!
* If you’re interested in signing up for our weekly Legislative Update, you can do so by calling (800)234-6622.
