Spouse Blog

For the past few years, it has been my privilege to share with you information and resources affecting military spouses.  Now it’s time to turn that over to someone else.   For the past nearly five years, I’ve had the honor of spearheading MOAA’s military spouse outreach initiatives, but it’s time to move on.

We’ve shared a lot of information here over the past few years and I appreciate your candor in sharing your experiences and challenges.  This has been a great forum for commiserating over job searches, children and deployments.  I hope that you’ve found some support and nuggets of information.  I’ve enjoyed getting to know each and every one of you.  Who else but other military spouses understand Murphy’s Law of Deployments, the difficulties of maintaining a career over multiple PCS’es and all the other challenges that come with our transient lifestyle?!?  I’ll miss hearing from you all, but I’m not going far, you can find me here.  And you’ll still be able to come to MOAASpouse for great information.  As a matter of fact, you should all be paying close attention because the MOAASpouse blog will be undergoing a Facelift and will be coming back better than ever!  As for me and mine, we’re getting ready for a homecoming.  My husband is due to return from his deployment later this week and we are eagerly anticipating the reunion.  As one door closes, we’re finding that others are opening, so it should be quite a ride over the next few months.  Stay tuned!

Again, I thank you for the opportunity to share some information with you and wish you all the best.  If your servicemember is still deployed, we wish them a safe and speedy return.

Warmest regards,

Sue Hoppin

At a recent conference held by NIH, DoD, and the VA, it was apparent that people are beginning to understand that the [mental] health of the family and the service member are interrelated. You can’t care for the individual without caring about and taking care of families and caregivers.  To a military spouse, this seems so intuitive that I had to remind myself that I was in an auditorium full of practioners who need to hear statements like that.  After all, how effective can they be in their jobs if they don’t understand the framework within which they work to effectively support military families?

BG Sutton, the Director of the Defense Centers of Excellence did a great job of charting the course for the day that would follow, charging the audience with the task of working together to identify knowledge gaps and work together to close them.  Mrs. Patti Shinseki followed sharing vignettes of her life with General Shinseki to set the stage for the doctors and scientists in understanding military families. Gen Shinseki was wounded early on his career and headed out of the Army when he received word that as pilot program, the Army was allowing Wounded Warriors to stay in.  She shared powerfully compelling memories of their lives together and impressed upon everyone present that families are critical/crucial factor of the force and addressed some of the issues we all face, “Myth that subsequent separations/deployments get easier is just a myth…it doesn’t get easier.”  Mrs. Shinseki closed with a discussion of the Military Child Education Coalition’s Living in the New Normal initiative: Helping Children Thrive through Good and Challenging Times.

The day started strong and never faltered.  We were treated to a day of incredible presentations by leaders in their field.  It was borderline information overload, but after 9 hours of back to back presentations and breakout sessions, I came away with some significant takeaways.

• There is a shift in deployment from occasional to continuous events.  It’s widely recognized that it is now a matter of “when” you deploy as opposed to “if”.
• Many studies out there studying the corrosive impact of stress due to multiple deployments during wartime.
• No studies of impact on infants and toddlers, only anecdotal information.
• Very little info on impact of children due to injury of parent during wartime.
• Military families are not homogenous, Dr. Cozza encourages differentiating groups further depending on experience.
• Dr. Cozza is from the Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress
• Very little info on impact of children due to injury of parent during wartime.
• For children of wounded warriors, self concept of “idealized parent image” is challenged.
• Trauma response is a process, not an event. It has to be constantly monitored
• Learned more information about a Millenium Cohort Study centered around long term health in light of exposure to military concerns and deployments.
• Millenium Cohort Study on spouses and stress launching 2010. Anticipate report out to DoD by 2012.
• The VA is shifting it’s mission: Focusing on Families and Caregivers of Veterans with Trauma.
• VA’s purchased 200,000 copies of Talk, Listen and Connect for distribution to VA centers nationwide.
• Marriage and family counseling has been added to services for family members of all veterans eligible for VA care.
• Information on VA’s changing population – more than 212,000 females have been deployed during OIF/OEF.
• Half of the troops deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan come from Guard/Reserve community
• VA’s also doing work on stigma as a barrier to getting mental health care.
• Dr.Chandra briefed the RAND/NMFA study- effects of deployment on military children
  • Military children are faring at or above US average on academic engagement, peer relationships
  • Military children are functioning below average in areas of family relationships, anxiety and emotional difficulties.
  • Girls report more anxiety symptoms. Anxiety problems decrease among older children.
  • Re: effects of deployments…girls worry about next deployment, dealing w/parents’ mood swings & worry about how parents are getting along.
  • As months of deployment increase, so do the challenges. Total # months matter more than # of deployments
  • Re: children, deployments and resilience – mental health of non- deployed parent matters
• Information shared regarding reserve component perspectives and transition from weekend warriors to operational force and challenges associated with that
  • 1.1 million troops in reserve components. Average age is 38
  • 50% are married. Most live in communities far away from military installations.
  • Reserve component is juggling 2 careers…how do you meet the demands of 2 employers?
  • Employers are being stressed by deployments as well.
  • Instantaneous communication is a double edged sword when you’re out in the field worried about family at home.
  • Challenge – how do you provide effective services to a geographically dispersed force?
• Air Force pediatrician, Dr. (Maj) Flake spoke about recognizing and responding to child stress.
  • Deployments aren’t going away. How do we make them stepping stones instead of stumbling blocks?
  • 71% of AD servicemembers with children plan on staying in until retirement
  • Resource for teens – Military Youth Coping with Separation: When Family Members Deploy.

There is so much more to share, but perhaps this is a good place to stop.  We’ve been told that the presentations from the conference will be shared on the DCOE website, so keep checking back.  All in all, it was a day well spent learning more about all the initiatives going on out there to support military families.

On November 11th (Veteran’s Day), President Obama signed into law the Military Spouse Residency Relief Act that will allow military spouses the option of choosing a state of residency alongside their active duty service member.  The guidelines and regulations still need to be laid out, but here’s a decent overview of what this new legislation will mean for you.

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.

At our recent Defense Forum Washington, we hosted 3 excellent keynote speakers and 3 incredible panels on Wounded Warrior issues.  For a quick recap of the day’s activities, check out the following videos:

Weeding through the wealth of information that was shared that day, the one essential takeaway that sticks in my mind is www.nationalresourcedirectory.gov, a one stop shop for resources and programs supporting wounded warriors, their families and caregivers.  So tell us, do you have any additional resources you think people should be aware of?

Everyone’s been waiting with bated breath for the launch of the Post 9-11 GI Bill.  Before the transferability rules were released, I know people who delayed their retirement from the military to make sure their bases were covered.  Until August 1st, rumours and all kinds of bad information were swirling around.  Everyone was confused about who was eligible, what could be transferred, how to do it, etc….  The VA stood up a fantastic website.  Go there for all you ever wanted to know about the program and more.  It’s a great website, but we were hearing from a lot of people who were slogging through all the information looking for a clear, concise guide to the nuts and bolts of the program.  So,  we have been working frantically to finish this amazing little eBook on the Post 9-11 GI Bill.  It’s finally done and you can see it for yourself at www.moaa.org/gibill. 

I may be biased, but I think this is the most easy to read information I’ve seen on the Post 9-11 GI Bill.  Download the eBook for your own use, share it with friends, post it on your blogs, whatever you need to do to get the information out there.  If you have more information once you go through the eBook, join us for a webinar on August 25 at Noon EST led by MOAA’s Deputy Director for Financial Education, Phil Dyer.  If you think you’re interested, register now because spaces are limited.  I hope you’ll let us know what you think.  Share your questions or comments with us so we can address them.  Thanks.

This is too important to get wrong, so here are two press releases speaking to the status of the Military Spouse Residency Relief Act – this first one is from Senator Richard Burr’s office:

“Today, U.S. Senator Richard Burr (R-North Carolina) offered the Military Spouse Residency Relief Act as an amendment to the Department of Defense Authorization bill currently under consideration in the Senate.  The amendment, which was approved by voice vote on the Senate floor, would allow military spouses to maintain residency in their home state regardless of military placement of their families.”

The press release from Representative John Carter’s office:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: July 23, 2009
Senate Attaches Military Spouse Residency Relief Act to Defense Authorization
Move Puts Carter Bill on Fast Track for 2009 Passage

(WASHINGTON, DC) – The U.S. Senate today approved the Military Spouse Residency Relief Act as an amendment to the 2009 Defense Authorization Act (S. 1390) at the request of Senator Richard Burr (R-NC), putting the legislation on a fast track for passage into law this year.

The bill authored by U.S. Rep. John Carter (R-TX), currently has over 140 bipartisan co-sponsors.  The high level of support Carter has built in the House makes it likely the final version of the Defense Authorization Act will include the Military Spouse Residency Relief Act when it is signed into law by the President.        

“This is fantastic news for our service families worldwide,” says Carter, who has been pushing the legislation for the last four years. “We should have done this long ago, but at least we are now on track to have a new law in 2009.”

The bill allows a military spouse who moves out of a state with their service member under military orders to have the option to claim the same state of domicile as their active duty spouse, regardless of where they are stationed.  Service members themselves have had that option for decades, while spouse did not, leaving many families with split residencies.

Contact Senator Burr and Congressman Carter to let them know that you appreciate their efforts on our behalf.  Thanks to Rebecca Poynter and Joanna Williamson for their leadership on this issue!

A lot of people looking at that acronym for the first time probably now have visions of poultry gone bad running through their minds.  The acronym actually stands for the Joint Armed Forces Officers Wives Luncheon.  A little bit about the JAFOWL from the event program:

In June of 1977, the Navy Officers’ Wives’ Club contacted Art Buchwald’s office to ask if he would speak at one of its luncheons.  Answering the telephone himself, Mr. Buchwald declined, saying thtat he received too many requests from military wives’ clubs.  When asked, “What is all five of the clubs sponsored a joint luncheon?”, he said he would accept the invitation.  The presidents of the other military officers’ wives’ clubs in the area were contacted and all agreed it was a great idea!  Thus, the Joint Armed Forces Officers’ Wives’ Luncehon became an annual affair.

I know that there are other joint events around the country (I’ve attended one in the Hampton Roads area and my girlfriend, Tanya was a speaker for the one in the San Antonio area), but the one I attended today was the originating one in Washington DC.  It was held at The Club at Bolling AFB and we were privileged to have the honorable Robert Gates, Secretary of Defense join us for the afternoon.  He was a great speaker and obviously very committed to military families.  He shared 15 minutes of prepared remarks with us and then sent away the press and spoke very candidly off camera for the next half hour.  What a brave man to stand in front of over 120 military spouses and take questions off the cuff!  While he didn’t make any promises on being able to answer all of our questions, he did do an admirable job of addressing everything from quality of life issues for military children to wounded warriors.  We tackled everything from the troop build up in Afghanistan to the upcoming release of the transferibility rules for the Post 9-11 GI bill.  Here are some highlights for you:

Please keep in mind that these are snippets as I remember (and interpret them) and shouldn’t be quoted as the Secretary’s remarks. 

• People wondered what it would be like when American troops pulled away from the major city centers in Iraq – would the country once again spiral into anarchy and violence or would the Iraqi security forces be able to step up to the plate.  Secretary Gates was confident that the security forces would rise to the occassion and that while it may not happen seamlessly or to the level that we have come to expect with American forces, perhaps it’s more important for them to take ownership of the situation instead of having to do everything perfectly. 
• Secretary Gates spoke about a recent Pentagon report that noted the stressors on military children due to multiple deployments and the currents op tempo.  One of the spouses in the audience remarked that she had 3 children who fall into the category of children under distress.  She had just recently moved from Virginia Beach where the schools had fantastic support for military children up to Northern Virginia where she felt that the support for military children within the public school system was lacking.  The Navy in the Virginia Beach area had just started hiring military liaisons to work within the schools to breed more familiarity with the issues facing military children.  She wondered why military communities around the country weren’t doing the same thing.  The secretary noted this.  I don’t know that I necessarily agree with her blanket assessment of Northern Virginia schools.  My experience has always been quite positive.  I’ve always found the guidance counselors and teachers to be extremely helpful and understanding, but that might also be the luck of the draw.
• There was alot of interest about the upcoming release of the post 9-11 GI bill transferibility rules.  The room was a mix of spouses of Active Duty and retired spouses, so there was a lot of confusion about who would be eligible, when the eligibility would be established, etc…  I keep pointing everyone to the VA webpage that has the most up to date information.  (Incidentally, we’ll release information/interpretation when the regulations come out, so stay tuned.)

There was lots more, but the gist of it was that there’s a lot of great things happening for military families. 

Today’s event was the 31st JAFOWL and the third time I’ve attended one.  Last year, Lee Woodruff spoke.  The year before that it was General Pace.  It’s always a great time, a wonderful opportunity to meet spouses from the other services, so if you’re ever in an area where they have one, I would highly recommend you attend and see for yourself.  As an aside, some of these ladies have been going to the events for years (two years ago, I met friends who had been attending together for the past 19 years, first as active duty spouses then later as spouses of retired service members) – and they view this as a real occasion, so the fashion show is something that is not to be missed – very reminiscent of what I imagine the spouse clubs were like in the 50’s and 60’s.  I’m geeky enough to really enjoy that stroll down memory lane.

So, I was watching the drama packed [read scandalous] season premiere of Army Wives when it occured to me that civilians watching the show must think it’s way over the top.  They probably dismiss some of the scenarios as improbable.  But, little do they know, that those dramas don’t just play themselves out on the small screen. 

• After all, how many military families do you know within your own circles who have lived apart because of different circumstances.  Okay, so it may not be because their underage daughter is trying to marry a soldier, but I know plenty of families who have let mom or dad move on ahead while the family stayed behind to finish off the school year so that the kids didn’t have to move in the middle of a critical year.
• Civilians might scoff at the possibility that poor Frank would find out about his wife’s indiscretions from a fellow soldier over in the desert, but little do they know about the power of the spouse network.  I remember a story one of our friends told us about the time her husband was TDY to Panama (ages and ages ago).  The crew was down at the beach when they noticed a woman who was under the weather and vomitting.  Ever chivalrous, her husband helped the woman back to her room.  After he got her settled in, he figured his day was shot anyway, so returned to his hotel room to check in with his family.  When he finally got through on the phone, my friend’s first question to him was, “So what is this that I hear about you heading off to a hotel room with some drunken woman?”  In the time it had taken him to help the woman to her room, one of the other crew members had already called his wife, who had called my girlfriend to “fill her in”.  Civilians may question the probability of getting “bad” news in the middle of the desert with questionable connectivity, but military spouses know better.
• And Denise, facing swirling rumours about her infidelity, being confronted by her friends and then being turned away from the home of her best friend, literally left out in the cold…. would civilians view that as callous?  Could they possibly understand how conflicted even best friends can become when faced with infidelities or any transgression that might split the focus of the deployed servicemember? 

Do you think civilians get it?  At our symposium in Virginia Beach, Tanya Biank who is the author of Army Wives invoked Alfred Hitchcock who said, “Movies are like real life with the boring parts taken out.”  When asked by someone in the audience if she really thought the show did a good job of portraying our lives, Tanya had a great line, “A drama can’t be a drama unless there’s drama.”  I thought of that when I was watching the show, because underneath the drama of a lifetime soap opera, there were kernels of our military lives.  I’m excited about the upcoming season…..

A Department of Defense program offering up to $6000 in assistance to military spouses for educational and training purposes is being expanded.  This is not the same program as the old Department of Labor pilot program.  The new initiative encompasses a broader field of disciplines.  There are already over approved 600 schools on the website.

The program is open to spouses of active-duty or activated National Guard or Reserve military members.  According to a recent Navy Times article, spouses of Coast Guard members deployed with the Navy are also eligible.     

Spouses who would like additional information, view a list of FAQs or apply should go to the website.  Even though the Spouse Career Advancement Account Financial Assistance program has not yet officially launched, you can still go online and enroll.