I have a new post up at Military Spouse. It’s about an experience I had the other day at a Guard base.
As reserve/Guard spouses, how often do we feel out of the loop on things? I mean, unless you’re either the FRG leader or you live right by an active military installation, chances are you are missing something. Or you just don’t know that you are.
This week I have been working on Weekend Warrior No More. Mostly organizing the two years plus worth of information I’ve accumulated while researching for this book. I’ve read through more congressional hearing testimony and DoD reports this week than I probably have in my lifetime.
Something bothers me though, as I do. I keep running across information I had no idea about. Things that would have been helpful – like specific programs related to jobs that my husband was “supposed” to go through after getting back from Iraq but never has heard of. Resources and websites that are at our disposal that I knew nothing about. It irks me a little that these folks are sitting in Washington, patting themselves on the backs for all of the wonderful tools and resources they’re putting together for Guard and Reserve when so very few of the very people they’re trying to help even know about those programs and services.
Then I ran across this little ditty. A transcript from a congressional hearing that was held in April of last year (2007). They were discussing family support programs for the military, and the committee meeting was led by Senators Ben Nelson and Daniel Akaka, Democrats from Nebraska and Hawaii, respectively.
Toward the end of the meeting, Sen. Akaka raises this question.
AKAKA: My final question, Mr. Chairman. I understand that the services do provide some family assistance to the National Guard and Reserves. However, what I have noticed is that this support tends to be in the form of brochures, pamphlets, or Web sites. What method or methods are being used by the department and services to ensure that active-duty personnel, National Guard and Reserves know about this information?
For instance, it’s my understanding that some families are unaware that
there were programs and organizations that may be of assistance to them, as
their servicemember is deployed, even though there are these informational
documents and Web sites available.
I would say many families are unaware of these programs and organizations. But here is what John McLaurin, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army in Human Resources, had to say:
MCLAURIN: Sir, I can answer it for the Army, and I’m sure my colleagues here can answer of the other services. We make a very concerted effort to ensure that the Reserve components are included in our planning. The integrated, multi-component family support network that is being put together now has representatives from both the Reserve and the Guard on it, to ensure, in fact, that not only are they part of the planning process, but the goodness that they offer, because they have very good, robust programs themselves out there, and they can actually reach out to the various states who have individualized programs and find the best practices out there, and hopefully we can incorporated them into the overall Army support, because, after all, sir, we are one Army.
HUH? What kind of answer was that? Not a very good one, if you ask me. More like, “I don’t know, and it’s really up to the Guard and Reserve to get that info out to their people.” Except it doesn’t always happen that way.
When my husband got ready to deploy, we got two armfuls of information to go through. But much of it didn’t apply to us – it was written for sea-going Navy seamen. My husband is a Seabee and has never stepped foot on a ship. All I can say is how grateful I am for Google because that’s how I found much of my info of what we needed. I had to wade through all of it to find just a few materials that really applied. And then I went and searched on my own for what I needed to know – an interesting challenge when you don’t always know what you’re looking for.
I do believe that we are in for changes, though, and that the time is nearing where we are going to start seeing improvements within the Reserve/Guard culture and communicating that information to the families. One thing I wish we could explain to these commanders and folks in charge: Info that’s sent home doesn’t always make it home, and it would be better suited I think to mail it so at least the wife has a chance to see it. When I think of all the times I’ve found info in my husband’s car that he was given to bring home from a drill weekend – and that info is now months old, if not older – well, I would be a very rich woman if I got paid every time it happened. Or, when I hear about something and ask my husband about it and he says, nah, I didn’t think it was important. (I’ve heard this one from other women as well, so I know it’s not just my husband blowing stuff off to tell his wife. It’s just men in general.)
So, I’d like to hear from you. If you’re a reservist or National Guard wife, how confident do you feel that you know or are aware of all the resources and programs available to you when it comes to deployment? Please comment and share your experience and let us know what branch you’re in because I do think that some branches are doing a better job than others. How do you connect with what’s going on? How do you stay “on top of things?”
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You hit the nail on the head! When my hubby deployed in Jan.2002with the Army Nat.Guard…our first deploymnet…I had no clue…I stayed on the internet for hours….when we had our briefing with the CO he wasn’t telling us much and I was calling him out on stuff and had a big note book full of notes and handbooks that I had downloaded and printed….he was like Excuse me…where did you get this info…you seem to know more than I do….LOL We are in the TN Air National Guard now…It’s a little better thanks to our great FRG Person..I sometimes get 10 emails a day about stuff…even events happening in the community…but what is lacking is actuall military info…pay, Tricare is a huge issue…when I have asked about stuff…I getthe same answers you got…we sent that home with the Airmen…there has got to be a better way…I had one issue with Tricare…my DH followed protocol..and got nothing done…I made one call to my FRG person and it was took care of within 30 minutes!!
Gosh, I have so many things to say about this subject, I could write a book. LOL. First, I do want to say that I think reserve centers really need to step up and be more accountable to the families and not just the military reservists alone. My hubby also was given lots of info before deployment that never made it home and I spent hours and hours tracking it down later. Our family deployment briefing was done in an hour and a half the day my hubby left. They did give me some info that day but honestly you are so distressed over them leaving and trying not to cry in front of everyone else that you don’t even register what they are telling you. The reservist wives that I know of that did feel they were kept informed were ones with great FRG/Ombudsman liasons and that is going to be subject from unit to unit. So they reserve centers themselves need to take and active and ongoing roll in staying connected every month to the families.
Saying all that, I have to say that I am currently acting as ombudsman for my hubby’s unit and I am probably driving the families crazy with e-mails but mostly I get no responses from them at all, so I have to assume that they are doing okay and would contact me if they needed something. Also, our reserve center recently had its family days weekend which has now become a Family Preparedness Day where there is a small, social luncheon time period and then the kids go to have some fun and the adults go to different informational classes offered by the ombudsman, VA, Tri-Care, NMFA, etc. This is the new requirements being set up by the Navy to address family questions. The problem is that very few families actually attended because they didn’t really feel they would be interested in sitting in classes all day. Not sure what a better answer would be except personally doing the best job I can when passing info onto the families in our unit.
That is really interesting… it’s good to hear Navy is setting up some new things. I wonder how much influence the service member is though in discouraging a spouse from coming to the day? I remember one of the guys in my husband’s det who wasn’t even going to “let” his wife come to our Family Day but then relented and “let” her come for the morning, though she missed out on the socializing in the afternoon.
Also, one of the co-leaders in our Wives of Faith group, Nicci, grew up as a military kid and she said that the FRGs were VERY different before they became command-centered. Apparently, they weren’t always strictly chain of command focused. They used to be very supportive and socially-oriented. It’s changed a lot today though, I’m afraid.
My husband is active duty navy, but he is on an individual augmentee tour in iraq–no one knows anything–and we ARE at a major military installation. His command never contacts me, they can’t answer my questions. It is difficult, and I guess most of my info has come off the internet too. It unfortunately isn’t just those who don’t near a military base, or who are reserves. The IA system is in desperate need of improved support too. Im totally alone in this, my husband is one of just a few guys who have been deployed from his unit. In a sense it is “out of sight out of mind”. Sad. Luckily, we’re OK here and I have a few civilian friends who are wonderful that I have not ‘needed’ the support from the military community. Im sure others need it though.
The one thing I wish is that the service members would begin to understand that they aren’t in the military alone, their families are part of it too. As reserve families, we generally have no connection to the units. It’s usually the service members “thing to do” and they exclude their family really. Then during a deployment, families are isolated and feel like they aren’t connected to anyone else in the unit. I try and impress on my hubby how important it is that he get his men/women to understand that involving their families is essential to their well being during a deployment and that you can’t wait until deployment time to suddenly try and involve them.
Honestly, we have 25 members starting a deployment and I only have family contact info for 9 of them because the others wouldn’t respond to repeated requests. Obviously, the reserve center has next of kin contact info if needed but I can’t circumvent the service member and use that info in anything less than an emergency. The service members were given contact info during the deployment and you are reliant on them passing that info on to their families.
I know what you are talking about. My husband is now toward the end of his deployment in Iraq with the Oklahoma National Gaurd. Just two more months, praise God!! I just attended a “Reintegration Meeting”, which gave us a lot of information. I just don’t know why this wasn’t done at the beginning of the deployment also. Like others have stated, I found out most of my information by spending hours on the internet searching. The FRG has kept me informed thru emails because I live so far away from any units or installations. It kind of makes me feel left out, but I have dealt with it. If it weren’t for my faith in God and being so involved in my church, I don’t know how I would have survived this.
Like someone else said, they handed out packets of info and I had to seperate out what was not needed , which was most of it because I saw a real lack of info for those in my position which is: stay at home mom, grown kids, middle age. Most of the information was for those who are younger, who have small kids, a job, ect….My husband’s unit that he was assigned to is 150 miles away, so I never attended FRG meetings. How I stay connected is thru email and checking out the armyfrg.org site for hubby’s unit.
I get a monthly newsletter from Husband’s unit, which I must say provided me with some of the information on how to find some of the organizations available. It was up to me to look them up, of course. I guess the only thing I haven’t liked about having to deal with this deployment is there is nowhere close to go to fellowship with other military spouses. I have kept in contact with one spouse whom I met when our husbands were deployed together about 5 years ago. That has helped a lot…