My Life As A Military Spouse

Soldiers’ children deal with deployments better than expected.....

Soldiers’ children deal with deployments better than expected, a recent Army War College study has found.

The study comes less than two months after a RAND Corp. study found that military children “experienced greater emotional or behavioral difficulties than their civilian counterparts.”
The war college study, while acknowledging that deployments do cause some degree of stress for children, found “an unanticipated and remarkable resiliency in most Army adolescents in dealing with lives marked by multiple deployments.”

Of the 559 children surveyed, 56 percent said they coped well or very well with deployments. Only 17 percent said they were coping poorly or very poorly.

The study was conducted by researchers Leonard Wong and Stephen Gerras, both retired Army officers.

Michelle Sherman, a child psychologist who specializes in military families, said the tough times that servicemembers’ children go through can be the cause of both problems and resiliency.
Children who are worried about how their parent are doing will naturally be more anxious, but the experience also allows them to draw on strength that perhaps they weren’t aware of, she said.

Also, young children of servicemembers are used to their parents being away, said Patricia Driscoll, president of the Armed Forces Foundation, a nonprofit group that gives cash grants to wounded servicemembers and their families.

“A lot of these kids were born during the war and their fathers, their mothers are going back and forth in multiple deployments so this is actually their norm, they don’t know anything else,” said Driscoll, who wrote a book about traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Driscoll also said it isn’t fair to compare children of military families to civilian ones because they deal with different emotional issues.

“What I see a lot of these kids dealing with, the problems that they’re dealing with, is more of the family dynamic: Not so much mom or dad is not here; it’s more of the emotional issues with mom or dad coming home as a kind of different person,” she said.

Army teens coping better with deployments

Army adolescents’ views on how they are coping with their parents’ multiple deployments differ markedly from their parents’ perceptions, according to a new Army War College study.

While 56 percent of the 559 adolescents from ages 11 to 17 who participated in a survey said they deal well or very well with their parents’ deployments, only 36 percent of their soldier-parents said they thought their children cope well or very well.

Soldiers also perceive that their adolescents have a cumulative increase in stress with multiple deployments — while adolescents actually reported a trend of decreasing stress with each deployment.

“When the results came out, we looked at each other and said, ‘We didn’t expect this,’ ” said retired Army Lt. Col. Leonard Wong, a research professor in the Strategic Studies Institute at the Army War College in Carlisle, Pa., who co-authored the study with retired Col. Stephen Gerras, professor of behavioral sciences in the school’s Department of Command, Leadership and Management.

Seeking an explanation for why soldiers are more pessimistic about their children’s ability to cope with deployments than the children themselves, the authors said part of the answer may be simple guilt.

“Who’s the reason this whole [deployment] situation exists? And if they’re doing well without you, what does that say?” Wong said.

As to why soldiers think the stress is cumulative across multiple deployments, while many adolescents don’t, Wong said, “Perhaps soldiers tend to keep a teary farewell or an emotional phone call as the salient memory of their child during a deployment,” the researchers reported in the study. “Parents may tend to forget or at least not realize that children often mature through hardships.”

Wong noted that 17 percent of the youth respondents said they cope poorly or very poorly with their parents’ deployments. If that number is extrapolated to the entire Army population of teenagers this age, it means about 20,000 are doing poorly.

“That’s not a good situation,” Wong said.

The researchers said the results cannot be generalized across the entire population of Army children because most Army children are younger than the respondents in this survey.

Predictors for coping

While strong families and a strong non-deployed parent are an important influence on youth and their ability to cope well, as expected, there were some other predictors.

The strongest predictor of a child’s overall ability to cope with a life of deployments was the child’s perception that their deployed parent is making a difference, researchers found.

The survey was sent electronically last year to 34,500 soldiers within Army Forces Command stationed at large Army installations, who had at least one child between ages 11 and 17. The soldiers’ spouses and adolescents also were given access to separately tailored surveys.

Of those, 2,006 soldiers responded, a response rate of 5.8 percent. In addition, 718 spouses and 559 adolescents participated.

The survey asked questions about the anxiety, nervousness, and worry experienced by the child during the deployment. Questions were asked about whether the child has trouble sleeping, or has troubling thoughts, for example.

For children who did not have a parent currently deployed, stress levels were significantly higher in older children, possibly in part reflecting the complex lives of teenagers, researchers said. Children ages 11 to 13 with a parent deployed did report higher stress levels. But those ages 14 to 16 reported lower stress than those children who did not have a parent deployed.

In addition to the electronic survey, researchers individually interviewed 100 adolescents at eight installations “to put flesh on the bones” and provide some understanding of the survey results, Wong said.

These interviews suggested that children 14 to 16 often enjoy their independence and experience less stress when the soldier parent is absent. “My dad — he’s the one who enforces the discipline, and my mom’s kind of lenient,” one 15-year-old told researchers. “When he left, I went through a phase where I got into trouble — talking back to my mom, and going out when I wanted. ... But now that he’s back — not anymore!”

Among other findings:

• More and deeper communication between the child and the parent in the war zone doesn’t always mean less stress. The difference in stress associated with monthly and weekly communications was small, but stress levels were significantly higher for children who communicate several times a week with their parent. But that could mean kids with higher stress communicate with their parent more, not that the communication is causing stress, the researchers said.

• The more that adolescents participated in sports activities, the less stress they reported. But the survey revealed another wrinkle here: The 30 percent of youths who said they “never” participated in sports or clubs reported lower stress levels than those who “rarely” participated. Researchers realized with later interviews they had neglected to include an activity used by many children as a distraction from the stresses of deployment: video games.

The study comes on the heels of another report from the Rand Corp. think tank, which found that military children in its study had more emotional difficulties compared with national samples. The more cumulative time a parent was deployed, the more problems the children had, Rand found.

The cumulative time away from home was more important than the number of deployments, researchers said.

The Army War College researchers looked at the number of deployments since Sept. 11, 2001, not cumulative time away from home.

posted by LoveMyTanker @ 10:41 PM 1 comments

This seems to be a big mess......

posted by LoveMyTanker @ 10:34 PM 0 comments

QDR (draft version)

PREFACE
SECTION I: Defense Strategy
SECTION II: Rebalancing the Force
SECTION III: Taking care of our people
SECTION IV: Strengthening the Relationships
SECTION V: Reforming how we do business
SECTION VI: A Defense Risk Management Framework
CONCLUSION: The Way Ahead

posted by LoveMyTanker @ 8:45 AM 0 comments

Counsultants Available To More Military Children

Most military children attend non-Defense Department schools, but military officials are determined not to allow their unique needs to slip through the cracks.

The Office of Military Community and Family Policy has expanded its Military and Family Life Consultant program to encompass non-Defense Department schools. More than 90 percent of military children attend public, private and charter schools, officials said.

“Many schools have guidance counselors and school counselors with behavioral health backgrounds,” said Barbara Thompson, director of the Defense Department’s Office of Family Policy/Children and Youth. “But we’re augmenting and increasing understanding of what a military child is going through; what it’s like to be a child in school with a deployed parent.”

The Military and Family Life Consultant program offers nonmedical counseling support to military members and their families on and off military installations, both stateside and overseas, officials said.

The child and youth behavioral military and family life consultants are a specialized portion of that program. The consultants are trained to apply their skills in addressing youth-related issues such as problem solving, bullying, conflict resolution, self-esteem, coping with deployment and reunion, relationships and separations.

The youth consultants provide services at child development centers, youth programs, Defense Department schools, and most recently, non-Defense Department schools with a large number of students from military families. The off-base school program started last spring at 24 military-connected schools and, as of today, about 120 child and youth behavioral consultants are supporting 151 schools, Thompson said.

“We started slowly at locations with high deployment rates,” she said, “and the feedback was, ‘This was the best thing you could have done for us.’”

Officials first decided to expand the program to counter a marked increase in behavioral issues, Thompson said.

“The child and youth program managers for the services came to us to say they were concerned that they’d seen a spike of challenging behaviors on the installation-based programs,” she said.

Consultants already were working with adults, Thompson said, but officials felt those services could be adapted for children and youth to meet the growing need.

The specialized consultants began working in Department of Defense Education Activity schools and summer camps, youth programs and child development centers.

While effective, “We realized there’s a gap; we can only serve so many children,” Thompson said. “We need to branch out and reach out.”

A child and youth behavioral specialist in Arkansas started the effort by reaching out to schools with large populations of military students. He was invited in and discovered that many teachers weren’t aware they even had military children in their schools when, in fact, many students had parents in the Guard and Reserve, some of whom were deployed.

The program took off from there, Thompson said. Her office began to seek people out from within the community to assist the schools. “We try to find people locally, but if we can’t, we will deploy people to travel there,” she said.

Within the school, the consultants’ role is to work with staff, teachers and parents to set up support groups and offer observations and helpful tips. Thompson called it a “global, psycho-educational approach.” The program is another step toward addressing the unique challenges military children and their families face, Thompson said.

“[Recent] studies show deployments have an impact on our children,” she said, also citing a recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine that reveals the impact of deployment on Army spouses’ mental health. “We know when a stay-at-home parent is impacted with mental health issues; it can impact how they’re taking care of their children.

“There’s solid research out there that can really drive what we do, hone what we do,” she continued. “We have anecdotal feedback on how important these assets have been, reinforcing the need to develop preventive programs so issues don’t escalate to a more exacerbated level.”

Thompson said she’s optimistic the child and youth-specialized counselors can make a difference for families.

This summer, plans are under way to have them work in various summer camps for military children, including those sponsored by the education activity and the Guard and Reserve. The feedback so far has been amazing, Thompson said.

“Absolutely everybody loves them,” she said.

posted by LoveMyTanker @ 9:03 AM 0 comments

It's Monday For Sure....

posted by LoveMyTanker @ 12:37 PM 0 comments

Counseling

The Army staff sergeant knew something was seriously wrong when he still couldn’t sleep weeks after returning from Afghanistan. But he never considered going to Army psychiatrists.

"There’s still too much of a stigma in the military with seeing a therapist," said the solider, who asked to remain anonymous. "People are going to call you psycho. Even if people just see you going into the mental health offices, they’re going to think you’re crazy."

The sergeant did get help, but through the non-profit counseling organization Give an Hour. He’s been seeing a psychiatrist for nearly two years now, after duty hours and without his colleagues’ knowledge.

Military officials have redoubled efforts over the last year to encourage troops like that solider to seek therapy for a range of post-combat mental health issues, before they grow into destructive habits or criminal behavior. But most of those efforts have focused on ways to pull troops into military counseling programs, and outside groups say those official programs still lack the compassionate, trustworthy approach needed to appeal to those suffering from psychological trauma.

"Whether it’s real or perceived, there’s still the idea that seeking help is going to hurt your career," said Barbara Van Dahlen, founder of Give an Hour. "Families, too. If the military knows that you’re having problems, or if someone in the family is struggling, that’s not something troops want their superiors or peers to know."

Pentagon leaders, including Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike Mullen, are making efforts to eliminate the stigma of receiving treatment for the "invisible wounds of war," outside groups acknowledge.

Resiliency training, public service announcements and battle-buddy briefings on signs of suicidal thoughts have become standard throughout the ranks. Defense officials have changed security clearance applications to minimize questions about mental health services. Top officials, including Army Gen. Carter Ham, have publicly shared their own experiences with combat stress.

But last week, at a joint Defense Department and Veterans Affairs conference on military suicides, Mullen told service experts that "we’re not breaking through quickly enough" and that the services need "a much broader network of anonymous help that is effective."

That anonymity can’t be found within the military system, according to Carter Andrews, chairman of the mental health counseling nonprofit Not Alone. Troops he hears from would rather vent online anonymously than schedule sessions with their military counselors, even if they promise confidentiality.

"Their commanders are the people who put them in this position, in the troops’ eyes," he said.

"Military leaders talk about getting rid of the stigma of those who need to get help, but when bad things happen, those troops lose that ability to trust. They don’t want to talk to the Defense Department or Veterans Affairs."

Andrews said the typical path for servicemembers and their families seeking his group’s services starts with anonymous posts on their message boards, followed by counselors reaching out with general advice and encouragement.

Eventually, as trust is built up, the mental health experts persuade posters to come into online chat sessions, then face-to-face group therapy. Sometimes they even find their way into formal counseling within the military or Veterans Affairs.

"Forget confidentiality, these guys need anonymity when they start off," he said. "Eventually we want them to feel comfortable enough to end up in a more structured DOD or VA program, but most can’t start off there."

Still, the military’s latest effort to draw in servicemembers suffering quietly from lingering mental health issues involves face-to-face counseling for all troops returning from overseas combat zones. Congress mandated the change late last year, and Pentagon officials are working to implement the sessions.

Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America was one of the veterans groups lobbying for that counseling, but group legislative associate Tom Tarantino acknowledges its success will depend on the details of the program.

"It’s all well and good for the senior leadership to speak about eliminating stigmas, but if that idea isn’t getting down to the E-5 then it’s not working," he said. "They’ve made great strides in the last four, five years, but they’re still playing catch-up."

For example, soldiers seeking psychological counseling with Army specialists are still required to sign confidentiality waivers during their appointments, acknowledging that some information may be discussed outside of sessions.

Army officials say that only pertains to things like reports of child abuse or threats of suicide, ordinary legal requirements which non-military counselors must also abide by.
But the standard Army waiver notes that "health records are the property of the U.S. government" and "your chain of command may have limited access to information in your medical file."
Van Dahlen said the waivers, while practical, don’t take into account the fear in the minds of individuals seeking counseling within the organization that employs them.

"In a civilian setting it’s something we’d take care of sometimes formally, sometimes informally, but in a way that helps build a relationship," she said. "A soldier could read that and say ‘This may protect me, but it’s also going to screw me.’"

Moreover, "if there’s a perceived sense of betrayal it’s hard to form a therapeutic relationship with the VA or DOD," according to Charles Marmer, head of the Department of Psychiatry at New York University’s medical center and former director of the PTSD research program for the VA.

Army officials have not decided whether the forms will be used for the new post-deployment counseling sessions. But regardless of whether higher-ups have access to the counseling records, many troops will still be scared away from any on-post help.

"I was always less concerned that my chain of command would find out than I was about my fellow soldiers finding out," said Brian McGough, a former soldier who was injured in a roadside bomb attack in Iraq in 2003.

"I was sitting in Walter Reed — everyone there was getting treatment for PTSD — but I still resisted going and speaking to someone about it."

McGough, now the legislative director for VoteVets.org, said military efforts to reduce the stigma of seeking help have made only small steps in recent years. The sergeant getting counseling through Give an Hour said even if his commanders didn’t pass judgment on his psychiatric visits, he thinks his peers would.

"This way, it’s on my terms," he said. "I didn’t really want anyone else discussing my business. But I knew I needed to talk to someone."

posted by LoveMyTanker @ 9:54 AM 0 comments

Financials

posted by LoveMyTanker @ 5:01 AM 0 comments

"In Their Boots"

Meet Kim Roy of Yelm, Wash. She's an intrepid Army wife with two boys, Danny, 2, and Maddox, less than a year old. While her husband, Justin, is on his second deployment -- this time in Afghanistan -- she's raising two energetic sons by herself.

He's been gone for 15 months and the longer he's gone, the more Kim lives for those mid-day phone calls and instant messenger sessions with her husband. And though she's looking forward to Justin coming home, she knows there'll be some adjustment as he re-learns how to be a father. Watch Kim's story, courtesy of In Their Boots.com:



In Their Boots is a documentary series about the impact the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are having on people here at home. Now in its second season, every episode is a compelling original story about how America’s service members, their families, and our communities have been profoundly changed by our nation's campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. All stories focus on the individual and collective experiences of our men and women in uniform returning from serving our nation.

These are told from a non-ideological, non-partisan perspective, and strictly avoid editorializing about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In Their Boots is funded by a generous grant from the Iraq Afghanistan Deployment Impact Fund (IADIF), a private fund administered by The California Community Foundation, and is produced by Brave New Foundation.

posted by LoveMyTanker @ 5:12 PM 0 comments

WHO? WHAT?

A member of a World Health Organization (WHO) panel of experts that is pondering new global taxes on e-mails, alcohol, tobacco, airline travel and consumer bank transactions, has charged that she was given only selective information at group meetings, that deliberations were rushed and that group was "manipulated" by the international pharmaceuticals industry.

All of her charges were strongly denied by the head of WHO's Expert Working Group on Research and Development Financing (EWG), a 25-member panel of medical experts, academics and health care bureaucrats which is due to present a 98-page report in Geneva on Monday, after 14 months of deliberations on "new and innovative sources of funding" to reshape the global medical industry.

Read on if you can stomach it.

posted by LoveMyTanker @ 10:27 PM 0 comments

Sittercity for military families

The Defense Department now is paying for an Internet service that helps military families find in-home child care, nannies, tutors, elder care providers, pet sitters and other services in their local communities.

Active-duty Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps members and their families, to include activated National Guard and reserve members and their families, can receive a free membership to the service, which costs an average of $120 a year. Retirees are not eligible.

Those looking for the services can do it in two ways, through a sitter search or by posting a job. Those looking for child care, elder care providers, pet sitters and house cleaners can use specific search criteria, including geographic areas. The database will pull from more than 600,000 child care provider profiles nationwide. But there are more than 1 million care provider profiles across all five types of care — child, tutoring, senior, pet, and home, said Mary Schwartz, spokeswoman for Sittercity.com.

The program provides military families with instant access to caregiver profiles, including background checks, pictures, references, reviews, a four-step screening process, and a specialized matching technology to help select the right caregiver. They also are working to include military spouses who provide family child care in their homes, too.

Sittercity.com doesn’t employ the caregivers; it simply helps match them with families. The family hiring the caregiver negotiates the salary or fee with the caregiver.

The site will help increase options for families, including normal weekly and hourly care and care for those who work in excess of a normal duty day or live off-base in remote areas, said Melissa Anderson, head of Sittercity’s corporate division.

“We’re very honored and excited to be part of this program for military families,” Anderson said.

“Because of the mobile nature of military life, trusted community resources are often difficult to identify and locate. These online tools will help service and family members attain the best match between resource and need,” said Tommy Thomas, deputy undersecretary of defense for military community and family policy, in a statement announcing the new service.

The site confirms eligibility through the Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System.

posted by LoveMyTanker @ 4:28 PM 3 comments

Is your service-member 'overpaid'

For the last decade, MOAA and The Military Coalition (TMC) have led successful efforts to make up most of the 13.5% "military pay gap" that was a big factor in the retention problems of the late 1990s.

In the FY2010 Defense Authorization Act approved last year, the House and Senate Armed Services Committees accepted the recommendation by MOAA and the TMC for a 3.4% military pay raise for 2010 (vs. the 2.9% proposed in the defense budget) to reduce the remaining gap to 2.4%.

Now that budgets have gotten tighter, some have questioned (as the same groups did while military pay raises were capped below private sector pay growth repeatedly in the '70s, '80s and '90s) whether any pay gap exists.

The Defense Department says there isn't one, and that their new pay comparability objective - putting each grade/longevity combination at or above the 70th percentile of similarly educated civilians - has been achieved.

The Congressional Budget Office recently issued a report asserting that, with housing allowances improvements over the last decade, military people are now about 10% overpaid compared to their private sector counterparts.

MOAA couldn't disagree more, telling GAO that we need a more transparent system to assess who the appropriate civilian comparison population is, and what the percentile should be, given that the military:

Recruits from the top half of the civilian aptitude population
Finds that only about 25% of America's youth qualify for entry
Requires career-long education and training advancement
Enforces a competitive "up-or-out" promotion system
Imposes severe limits on personal freedoms (e.g., not being able to quit when you want; risking a felony conviction for refusing an order).

Both military pay and allowance principles and service conditions have changed dramatically since development of the Regular Military Compensation (RMC) in the 1960s as the "military equivalent of civilian salary" -- including the value of the federal tax advantage military people receive because their housing and food allowances aren't taxable.

In the 1960s, all members received the same allowances, regardless of location. Now we've turned housing allowances into true reimbursements for housing costs, reflecting actual costs by locality.

Using RMC to assess comparability in today's environment, basic pay - the single most important military compensation element and the only one that drives such important things as retired pay and reenlistment bonuses - would have to "flex" to accommodate other changes.

Because housing and food allowances are now tied to external measures of housing and food costs, and tax rates are determined independently, maintaining a specific RMC total would require bending basic pay to fit whatever amount is left after setting tax and allowance amounts.

Current law says the military should receive a 1.4% raise for 2011. But what if average housing costs (because of disproportional changes in some localities) and tax rates (and thus the value of the tax advantage) both rose significantly? Under the CBO comparison methodology, maintaining a "target comparability" RMC could require reducing basic pay. Would it really make sense to tell military people, in essence, "Your taxes went up, so we have to freeze or cut your basic pay (and future retired pay)?"

Most important, compensation isn't what you're paid. It's what you’re paid divided by what's required of you to earn that pay. If we increase pay 25% but require 100% more sacrifice to earn it, that's not a pay raise.

Today's troops are encountering burdens of sacrifice that were never envisioned 40 years ago by the crafters of the all-volunteer force and the pay and allowances system. Thousands of today's troops have borne cumulative combat deployment time that exceeds the total length of World War II.

The current pay comparability formula proposes a 1.4% military pay raise in 2010 - the smallest in almost 50 years - even while we'll be ordering thousands to a third, fourth or fifth combat tour, incurring ever-increasing risks that they will come back changed, perhaps for the rest of their lives.

Overpaid? Any calculation yielding that result is a wrong one.

posted by LoveMyTanker @ 2:46 PM 0 comments

We are at war!

"We are at war." So said the 44th President of the United States on January 7, 2010. These four words, a profound statement of the obvious, were belatedly uttered as our commander in chief transitioned from tropical sunsets on his "Hawaiian Holiday" to klieg lights at the White House in the aftermath of the Christmas Day "near-miss" terror attack aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 253 enroute from Amsterdam to Detroit. The phrase was startling -- because it wasn't an affirmation of a mindset Mr. Obama brought to office. Rather it was the reluctant admission of facts Mr. Obama has spent a year in office diligently trying to deny.

A year into this presidency, the so-called mainstream media and those who sample American public opinion are assessing what has changed and trying to explain the remarkable plunge in the president's "approval rating."

Two states he carried handily in the last election -- Virginia and Massachusetts -- have gone Republican. On the anniversary of his inaugural, polls show a significant majority of American voters believe the nation is "on the wrong track." A Zogby International survey found 40 percent believe Mr. Obama has "done worse than expected" and only 13 percent say he has "done better" than anticipated.

Though most political pundits ascribe rising antipathy toward Mr. Obama as the consequence of massive unemployment, a stagnant economic recovery and concern over massive spending and accumulating debt, there is also a growing sentiment that our commander in chief is simply unable to protect us from those who are trying to kill us.

Supporters of this President -- and they are legion -- have tried to portray the Christmas Day attack as an epiphany for Mr. Obama, but there is little evidence that this is so.

His January 7 remarks, intended we are told, to "reassure us" -- show that the O-Team still doesn't "get it." He limits the war we are in to be only against al Qaeda. He still speaks of radical Islamic terrorists as "foes" and "adversaries" and "lone recruits." His response to the Christmas Day attack was to order reviews, review the reviews, and report -- with "full accountability and transparency" the findings of these reviews.

He describes Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab as a "suspect" who "allegedly tried to ignite an explosive device on his body," and notes that the 23-year-old Nigerian was "subdued," taken into "custody" and charged with a crime. Rest assured, however, that a "full investigation" was launched into this "attempted act of terrorism." Our "war time president" sounds more like a small town mayor reporting on the Fire Department's progress in getting the neighbor's cat out of a tree.

On his first full day in office, Mr. Obama signed two Executive Orders -- 13491 and 13492 -- a form of presidential hypnosis designed to erase from our collective memories the fact that we are at war, so we could all move on to more important things like expanding government. The first EO mandated that individuals in U.S. custody "shall not be subjected to any interrogation technique or approach" unauthorized by a published "Army Field Manual." The second order directed closure of the Guantanamo Bay terrorist detention facility. American and European political leftists were euphoric. The terrorists were happy to get home to Yemen.

On February 17, Mr. Obama ordered the deployment of more than 12,000 troops to Afghanistan saying the situation "demands urgent attention and swift action." Then he dithered for nine months, before half-heartedly announcing a kinda, sorta, escalation-cum-retreat policy at West Point on December 1.

Despite promises to "look forward, not back," Mr. Obama ordered the release -- in alarming detail -- of four classified CIA memos on enhanced interrogation techniques. He then authorized his Attorney General to appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate those who wrote and carried out the interrogations.

When he isn't throwing his predecessor over the side, he throws Uncle Sam under the bus. Mr. Obama's global "penance and kow-tow tour," in which he bows to foreign potentates and apologizes for America, has gone on unabated since he became president. Last month in Oslo, Norway, in accepting the Nobel Peace Prize, he all but apologized for being the "Commander-in-Chief of the military of a nation in the midst of two wars."

After invoking the memory of Martin Luther King's real courage to a room full of simpering European pacifists, Mr. Obama described himself as "living testimony to the moral force of non-violence." He then held a surreal debate with himself regarding the "difficult questions about the relationship between war and peace, and our effort to replace one with the other."

We are at war, Mr. President. You said it yourself. Now, if only you believed it.

posted by LoveMyTanker @ 9:55 AM 1 comments

Top five new AFAP initiatives

On Friday, January 15, Army Family Action Plan Conference delegates announced their top five new initiatives, narrowed down from more than 80.

Their recommendations, in order, are:

*Provide a monthly stipend to soldiers who do not qualify for TSGLI and are certified to be in need of assistance from a non-medical caregiver.
*Fund a formal program to provide service dogs for wounded warriors to help patients of all types recover and heal from wounds, injuries and illnesses, both physical and psychological.
*Increase the number of readily available behavioral health providers and services, and increase the use of alternative methods of delivery such as tele-medicine.
*Authorize Family Readiness Groups to fundraise in public places external to the National Guard armories, Reserve Centers and military installations currently restricted under DoD’s Joint Ethics Regulation 5500.7-T. Section 2, 3-210a and AD608-1 (ACS) Appendix J
*Authorize the Reserve Component soldiers to be enrolled in the Exceptional Family Member Program (EFMFP)

AFAP was created from focus groups in 1980, but 2010 marks the 27th year of the official AFAP conference. Representatives (servicemembers, civilians, spouses) first identify, then prioritize issues to raise the standard of living in the Army and provide that as feedback to senior leaders. Those initiatives often serve as a catalyst for legislative, policy and administrative change.

Army Chief of Staff General George W. Casey, Jr. and Secretary of the Army John McHugh each spoke at the event.

Casey praised the growth of the Army in helping to achieve/restore necessary balance which is a primary Army goal. “The most important thing we can do to restore balance is to increase the time that a soldier has at home.”

In addition to the key recommendations, the Report Out listed the top 5 Mobilization, Deployment, and Family Readiness Challenges as:

*High Suicide Rate
*Length of Deployments
*Impact of Deployment on Children and Youth
*Duplicate Programs (e.g. ACS and Family Assistance Centers, Support for Wounded Warriors)
*Funding for Family and Deployment Support Programs

Although there are numerous currently active AFAP issues (identified from previous years), the top 6 of those were ranked and their importance reiterated:

*Military Spouse Unemployment Compensation
*Reserve Component Post Mobilization Counseling for one year for soldiers and family
*Convicted Sex Offender Registry needed for OCONUS
*Retroactive Traumatic Service Member Group Life Insurance
*Established Bereavement Permissive TDY
*Medical Entitlements for College Age Family Members to Increase to Age 25

posted by LoveMyTanker @ 8:24 AM 0 comments

Great Tips....

posted by LoveMyTanker @ 1:42 PM 0 comments

Army OneSource Updates

Military Spouse Residency Relief Act Links by State

This act provides that when a Soldier is on military orders, the Soldier’s spouse may retain residency in his or her home state for voting and tax purposes, after relocating from that state to accompany the Soldier. When the military orders Soldiers to move, spouses who move with them may have to pay taxes in a new State or locality, and may lose the right to vote in the place considered home. This law alleviates these and other burdens on our military Families. This legislation is an important means of maintaining the morale and readiness of our Armed Forces, and significantly enhances the ability of our military to effectively recruit and retain these highly valued Soldiers. Below are links to individual state pages on the Military Spouse Residency Relief Act (MSRRA).

California: Military Spouses Residency Relief Act
Maine: Maine Tax Alert November 2009 (about 1/4 of way down)
Maryland: Employer Withholding Tax Alert, MW507 (Withholding Certificate, with instructions for military spouses)
New Hampshire: Driver’s License Information
New Jersey: Military Spouses Residency Relief Act
North Carolina: Important Tax Information Regarding Spouses of United States Military Servicemembers
Ohio: Ohio Department of Taxation FAQ’s Military Page
South Carolina: Military Spouses Residency Relief Act
Virginia: 2009 Tax Relief for Spouses of Military Personnel, Tax Bulletin 9-10

Spouse BATTLEMIND Telephone Support Groups

The Army and DoD funded a research study administered by the Memphis Veterans Affairs Medical Center for the spouses of Service members who were deployed at least one time to Iraq or Afghanistan. Free confidential telephone support groups are one hour, one time a month for 12 months. Spouses learn ways to manage stress and solve problems related to reintegration, education about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), and other common problems. For Information or to enroll, contact Spouse BATTLEMIND at 1-800-636-8262 X7485 or go here.

Family Suicide Prevention and Awareness Training

The U.S. Army created a Suicide Prevention Task Force in an ongoing effort to decrease the number of suicides in the Army. One of the goals of the task force is to increase the number of available training programs, to include one for Families. This Family training is strictly voluntary. Research shows Families are aware of this training, but some have not attended the sessions. To learn more, go here.

Army Spouse Employment Partnership Initiatives for 2010

The Army Spouse Employment Partnership (ASEP) is designed to help spouses realize their dreams of having a career. The ASEP has numerous initiatives to advance the program during 2010. The ASEP-National Guard Bureau (NGB) Integration Program Plan includes piloting the program in five states: Colorado, Michigan, New Hampshire, North Carolina, and Virginia. Program briefings are scheduled with each pilot state’s Adjutant General. To further its endeavors within the Army community, the ASEP program has joined with Fort Gordon to launch the first State and Regional Pilot Program in May 2010, to link the National ASEP Partners with the companies located within surrounding communities to provide an extensive network of employers with whom spouses can obtain careers. The ASEP Korean Peninsula Integration Project Plan promotes ASEP with the Army community in Korea. The marketing strategy for this initiative combines relocation and employment to provide pre and post relocation courses to prepare spouses for employment in a foreign country. Another current ASEP initiative is a partnership with the Warrior Care and Transition Office to create a Wounded Warrior Spouse Employment Program. The ASEP and SFAC staff will work to develop the integration plan for the project and pilot it in two locations still to be determined. Another initiative is development of a promotional ASEP video for use in multiple venues to highlight the program, and help make ASEP a household name with Army spouses in 2010. For more information about the ASEP program, visit here.

posted by LoveMyTanker @ 9:07 AM 1 comments

"There and Back”

Servicemembers and their families can get help coping with post-deployment stress through a new series of podcasts profiling the personal stories of those who have lived it.

“Combat brings individuals face-to-face with the harshest demands imaginable. In fact, it’s impossible to be unaffected by these experiences. Stress reactions, family and relationship difficulties, and work conflicts can affect an individual’s emotional well being.”

These words set the stage for the premiere episode of “There and Back,” an audio podcast series developed by afterdeployment.org, a Defense Department Web site developed by the National Center for Telehealth and Technology and the Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury.

The podcast series is directed to the entire military community to help manage some of the challenges faced by servicemembers and their families following a deployment, defense officials said.

“Learning About Depression,” the initial ten minute podcast in the “There and Back” series is a tapestry woven of education, encouragement and emotional intimacy.

Dr. Jenifer Alford, a clinical psychologist and afterdeployment.org’s functional director, guides listeners through the world of depression. “Depression can happen to just about anyone given the right set of circumstances,” Alford says. “Taking no action, or believing that time will heal the depression, could result in the depression getting worse or lasting longer.”

The podcast is punctuated by servicemembers and their families telling their personal stories, allowing listeners to know that they are not alone in their struggles.

To listen to “There and Back: Learning about Depression,” go here or visit the Podcasts section of the DCoE Web site.

To receive future episodes of “There and Back,” subscribe free at iTunes.com. Upcoming episodes will discuss post-traumatic stress, anger management, sleep problems, and relationship issues.

Related Sites:
“There and Back: Learning about Depression”

posted by LoveMyTanker @ 6:48 AM 0 comments

Got Junk?

posted by LoveMyTanker @ 6:05 PM 0 comments

2010 Milblog Conference

posted by LoveMyTanker @ 5:38 PM 0 comments

Animals Help With Healing

posted by LoveMyTanker @ 9:19 AM 0 comments

Services Cut?

Soldiers and their families on Army bases around the country could see cutbacks in trash pickup, lawn-mowing and other services as the military tries to hold down non-war spending while escalating the fight in Afghanistan.

Even as total defense spending rises, the portion of the Army budget dedicated to running its bases is down 20 percent this year, according to figures provided to The Associated Press by an Army official who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about them.

The budgets for individual bases are not yet final. But the proposed cuts vary in size and run as deep as 40 percent at some major installations, including Fort Campbell, according to the figures.

Fort Campbell, the home of the 101st Airborne Division, is considering eliminating lawn-mowing and janitorial services and shortening hours at recreation centers, Fort Campbell spokeswoman Kelly Tyler said. But that may not be enough, she said.

Some members of the military are worried money will be pulled from programs that help spouses and children cope with soldiers' repeated tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Lt. Gen. Rick Lynch, who as head of the Army's Installation Management Command is in charge of the budget for bases, said in a recent commentary distributed to Army post newspapers that the service has enjoyed unprecedented levels of funding in the past years, but that can't continue.

"As the country faces some stiff economic challenges, we are forced to reduce funding and exact a greater level of stewardship over our resources," Lynch said. Starting this year, "performance levels for some installation services will be notably less than we've had in recent years and will remain at that level for the foreseeable future."

Army posts provide many of the services that soldiers and their families have come to rely on, including child and youth programs, continuing education, dining and recreational facilities and help with overcoming drug and alcohol abuse.

Lynch said that certain services, such as police and fire protection, will be fully funded and that the Army is committed to continuing family-focused programs, such as child care. He did not specify where cuts would be made.

It wasn't clear how the military's other branches might be affected, though the Army is by far the largest. Officials with the Marines, Navy and Air Force did not respond to requests for information.

Some of the Army's biggest posts, where soldiers have completed four and five combat tours since the wars began, are facing significant spending reductions, according to the figures obtained by the AP.

At Fort Campbell, where about 17,000 soldiers are leaving this year for Afghanistan, commanders have been told that the operating budget for the current fiscal year could drop 40 percent, from $177.5 million last year to $106.5 million, Tyler said.

Cuts could be 39 percent at Fort Stewart, Ga., 25 percent at Fort Bragg, N.C., 22 percent at Fort Drum, N.Y., and 21 percent at Bamberg, Germany, the figures show.

posted by LoveMyTanker @ 4:09 PM 0 comments

Love Story

When Capt. Sam Brown was injured in Afghanistan, he saw everything he had planned for his future disappear. Little did he know that what he went through, in fact, helped him discover one part of his life he thought he would never find.

"I had plans for my career and decided a few years after that I would find a beautiful woman and settle down and start a family," Brown said. "I thought that was all gone after I got injured.

"In September 2008, Brown was conducting route security in Kandahar, Afghanistan. He and his Soldiers began receiving indirect fire, which quickly changed to direct fire, coming at them from different directions. As he went to help the men in the M1151 humvees in front of him, Brown entered an enemy engagement area. It was there that he was struck by an improvised explosive device.

"It was crazy for about the next 15 or 20 minutes. You know, the 1151 is on fire, I'm on fire," he said.

Brown suffered third degree burns to 30 percent of his body - mostly places his individual body armor did not cover - and lost his left index finger in the accident.

He was evacuated and, once in the United States, was taken to Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas; BAMC is a level I trauma center and home to the Army Burn Center.

The doctors at the hospital began treating Brown from the moment he arrived. He began a series of surgeries to repair his charred flesh using skin grafts from other areas of his body. He said although 30 percent of his body was actually burned, about 85 percent of his body has been affected because they used skin from areas that were not burned.

"I've had 15 surgeries so far, and will have another one to gain more range of motion in my hand," Brown said. "My recovery may be up to two years away.

"During his treatment, Brown was assigned a dietitian since burn victims tend to have fluctuating weight-gain after their injuries.

Enter, then 1st Lt., Amy Larsen. In November 2008, she began working with Brown during his recovery. When he was well enough to take convalescent leave, she knew it would be a problem for him to carry a multitude of supplements with him. She arranged to have them shipped to him, and called every week to make sure they arrived.

"When she'd call, I would try to make small talk with her but she was all business," Brown said.

Although both admit they had "crushes" on each other, developing any sort of relationship seemed to be at a standstill. It wasn't until Brown returned for a surgery that he talked to another physician's assistant about stopping by to say hello to her. Brown was in luck because that particular PA worked in the same office as Amy.

As a friendship developed, so did the potential for a more intimate relationship, which wasn't too far behind.

"Sam asked me to a rodeo for our first date. I had to make sure it was OK professionally to do that," she said. "We ended up going and I had a great time.

"Larsen turned over Brown's care to another dietitian, and the two continued their relationship.

"We started dating in March, one month later we were engaged and we married in May," Brown explained. Amy Larsen became Amy Brown, now a captain.

"It seems fast, but we talked a lot about it. We knew God would be the center of our relationship and that was the most important thing," she explained.

Brown added that he wouldn't suggest getting married so fast unless you know it is true.

A few months following the wedding, Amy was called on to deploy to Contingency Operating Base Speicher to serve as a dietitian for most of the northern United States bases in Iraq. She left San Antonio in October, but was reunited with her husband on Dec. 28 thanks to Operation Proper Exit, a program designed to help bring closure to servicemembers seriously injured while deployed.

Even though he was injured in Afghanistan, Brown participated in the program because he said he wanted the chance to talk to troops about his experiences. He is also planning to serve as a military mentor when Operation Proper Exit is able to return wounded warriors to Afghanistan.

"I don't think I'll be putting my kit on and running around with Soldiers like I was, but I want to get back and feel productive. I want to help others and do something positive," he said.

Brown said he has come to accept that fact that the hopes he once had for his career as a Ranger may not be possible. However, the dream to settle down with a beautiful wife is one he's already reached.

Together, they will build new dreams of their own.

posted by LoveMyTanker @ 9:34 AM 1 comments

Michael Yon

posted by LoveMyTanker @ 11:29 AM 0 comments

Tax Season Is Coming

Labels: 2009 military tax year, filing taxes for military, military tax information, military taxes

posted by LoveMyTanker @ 9:46 AM 0 comments

NMFA Updates

DoD Retail Pharmacies Now Provide Free Vaccines: The Department of Defense
announced on December 29th that beneficiaries can now visit a TRICARE retail
network pharmacy to receive three types of vaccines. Read more>

Military Children Get in the Swing: Beginning in the New Year, The First
Tee will offer golf instruction combined with character and life skills
education to military children and to children of geographically separated
National Guardsmen and Reservists. Read more>

More Updates available here.

posted by LoveMyTanker @ 9:39 AM 0 comments

Baby, it's cold outside....

posted by LoveMyTanker @ 8:56 AM 0 comments

Community Support Coordinators

Due to multiple military deployments that have occurred for nearly a decade, many Army families choose to remain in their established neighborhoods or return to a relative’s hometown when their soldier deploys.

In many cases this means that family resources commonly found on a military installation aren't available for the duration of the soldier’s deployment.

The Army has hired 61 community support coordinators located across the United States, Alaska, Hawaii, Guam, American Samoa and Japan to help connect these geographically dispersed military personnel with community-service systems.

Community support coordinators work to engage and invite community organizations to partner with the Army, which has led to new programs and support initiatives. Partnership with community organizations provides an extension to the services traditionally offered on Army posts. Army families, therefore, can access services wherever they reside while their military sponsor is deployed.

Community support coordinators work to identify resources and build partnerships with community organizations, said Karen Conrad, a family programs specialist at the Army’s Family and Morale, Welfare and Recreation Command here. These services then are made available to family programs staff of the active Army, Army National Guard and Army Reserve to build connections for soldiers and their family members, so they have a link to information and services even if they don't live on or near an installation.

“The CSCs have been very instrumental in connecting geographically dispersed soldiers and families to services,” Conrad said. “Community organizations want to step up and partner with the military, but don’t always know how they can make the connection. The CSCs provide them with the information they need to build that partnership.”

CSCs have been trained by Army family specialists at the University of North Carolina's Odum Institute for Research in Social Science at Chapel Hill.

The CSC program is a result of an Army Family Action Plan issue and the Army Family Covenant. All Army components and family-service agencies are developing a strategic partnership to standardize soldier- and family-support programs and services regardless of component or geographical location, officials said.

Most civilian community programs and agencies, such as schools, nonprofit agencies, faith-based, legal and financial service organizations, as well as behavioral health and government organizations -- state and local government, Veterans Affairs, for instance -- are unaware of the number of Army personnel or families who live in their community or use their services, officials said.

The Army Community Covenant is a way of formally introducing these servicemembers and the organizations.

“We're in the [ninth] year of this war, the longest in our nation’s history with an all-volunteer force,” said retired Army Maj. Gen. Craig Whelden, the covenant’s national outreach coordinator.

Whelden is a former commander of the U.S. Army Community and Family Support Center, now redesignated as Family and Morale, Welfare and Recreation Command.

“The secretary of the Army thought this would be an opportunity to engage the American public in their communities and raise the level of visibility of the dedication and sacrifices [of] our servicemembers,” Whelden said at this year’s community covenant signing with the American Legion.

Since April 2008, 85 communities have signed community covenants

"It’s incumbent upon us to look in our own backyards ... and to figure out who’s out there serving our country and what kind of support they need," First Lady Michelle Obama said during a visit to Fort Bragg, N.C., in March. “We need to make sure, as a community, that we’re coming together around those [military] families.”

The Army OneSource online portal provides easy access to many services for families living far outside garrison borders.

Besides offering family-service connections initiated by community support coordinators, Army OneSource also compiles up-to-date information in a single location for access at any time of day.

The AOS portal features Army family-services-oriented articles, videos and resources in categories, such as programs and services, health care, soldier and family housing, child, youth and school services; education, careers and libraries; recreation, communities, marketplace and travel, as well as information about the Army’s Better Opportunities for Single Soldiers program.

By using the Army OneSource portal, soldiers and families “can have local services at their fingertips and access information regardless of their component or where they reside,” Conrad said.

Related Sites:

U.S. Army Family and Morale, Welfare and Recreation Command

Army OneSource

posted by LoveMyTanker @ 6:36 AM 0 comments