Strengthening the Military Family Readiness System for a Changing American Society (2019) / Chapter Skim
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4 Military Life Opportunities and Challenges
4 Military Life Opportunities and Challenges
Pages 117-180
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From page 117... ...
This chapter is not intended to be a complete listing of all of the major opportunities and challenges of military life. The sponsor of this study will be familiar with these general topics, since understanding what attracts individuals to military service, what supports or impedes performance and deployability, and why personnel leave the military are all key to managing the all-volunteer force.
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From page 118... ...
This chapter highlights broad categories of opportunities and challenges of military life for active or reserve component1 military personnel and their families. Several overarching themes frequently appear across reports that convey input from service members and spouses, whether that input is qualitative or quantitative, based on large or small samples, based on opportunity or probabilistic samples, or originate from inside or outside 1 As noted in Chapter 1, for the reserve component, the committee focuses on the Selected Reserves, which refers to the prioritized reserve personnel who typically drill and train one weekend a month and two additional weeks each year to prepare to support military operations.
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From page 119... ...
OPPORTUNITIES OR CHALLENGES? In this chapter, the committee has not categorized events or features of military families' lives according to whether they are opportunities or challenges, nor does it presume that all challenges are stressors, for these reasons: • Some experiences could be opportunities, challenges, and stressors -- such as job promotion.
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Children's responses to the opportunities and strains of military family life are likely to depend on parental and family maturity and the individual child's developmental stage, temperament, and social capacity. Based on individual differences within the same family, one child can thrive and another struggle.
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MacLean and Elder (2007) , for example, documented how the effects of military service varied substantially across conflicts during the 20th century,
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. THE CONTEXT OF MILITARY FAMILY LIFE: YESTERDAY VERSUS TODAY The context of military service is dramatically different today from what it was when the all-volunteer force was designed.
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Today's military families do not necessarily live near other military families or installation-based support services. Instead, they live across communities that are more geographically dispersed, rather than being concentrated in specific neighborhoods, as the active component has shifted from living primarily on military installations to living primarily off-installation (DoD, 2017a)
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From page 124... ...
We emphasize that many of the stressors of military life are not inevitable, inherent features, but policies that could be adapted to allow for greater flexibility for the preferences and needs of the diverse individuals and families DoD needs to attract and retain in order to meet the demands of the current and anticipated future national security environment. TRANSITION INTO THE MILITARY The military invests significant resources to attract quality recruits and transform them into disciplined and skilled military personnel.
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. Rapid and successful adaptation to military life is key to military family readiness as well as to reducing attrition (failure to complete the first term of service)
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. m Military service often begins with geographic separation from friends and family, as service and occupational entry-level training typically take even members of the National Guard and Reserves away from their hometowns.
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As the next chapters will discuss further, traumatic military experiences can include participation in or exposure to combat or its aftermath, being taken a prisoner of war, and being physically or sexually abused, harassed, or assaulted by fellow DoD personnel or contractors. Military service, awards, and promotions can become a source of pride.
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From page 128... ...
, subsidized child care, and recreational activities, facilities, and discounts. Eligibility can vary by active and reserve component military status, as noted in the examples summarized in Box 4-2)
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From page 129... ...
and within the enlisted ranks, although they are by no means the only socioeconomic class of individuals to join the all-volunteer force. Military service offers opportunities for overcoming structural and cumulative disadvantage among those who have been raised in poorer families and communities and received low-quality education, including among racial and ethnic minority groups (Bennett and McDonald, 2013)
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From page 130... ...
Military employment opportunities can appeal to the middle class as well, for reasons such as the cost of financing a college education or vocational training, alternative entry-level employment for American youths looking for benefits and on-the-job training, and employment opportunities during economic downturns such as the Great Recession of 2008. Pay Among the major benefits of military service are steady earnings and employment for service members.
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From page 131... ...
Financial Stress and Food Insecurity Although service members receive steady pay and benefits, they may still struggle financially. Varied sources of data, including the 2013 Status of Forces Survey of Active Duty Members, indicate that junior enlisted families with children are the most vulnerable to experiencing food insecurity, although systematic data on the proportion or characteristics of military families who are food insecure is limited (GAO, 2016)
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. Housing For active component personnel, military service includes on-installation housing or a housing allowance adjusted to the local housing market and intended to cover the cost of housing in the local economy.
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Over the last several decades, there has been a major shift among active component personnel and their spouses and children, from living primarily on installations to living primarily off of them and not necessarily even living close to their assigned installations. This shift in residence offers benefits to service members, including greater privacy, greater opportunities for single service members to meet potential partners, opportunities to live with nonmarital partners or others of one's choosing, more control over the choice of neighborhood and housing, and more choice over how the home is kept and decorated.
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From page 134... ...
Enlisted personnel and officers alike may take advantage of Defense Voluntary Education benefits, including education counseling services, testing services, academic skills training, tuition assistance, and college credit exams. Through use of a Joint Services Transcript, they can also have their military training translated into 7 See https://www.usuhs.edu/medschool/admissions.
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From page 135... ...
Child Care A key benefit of active component military service is access to quality affordable child care. As outlined in Chapter 3, the military is a young force with many young families.
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. Limited access to child care and lengthy wait times are key concerns for many military families.
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DoD may need to increase its goal for how much of the child care need it aims to meet, although not all eligible parents of military children needing child care services will likely wish to use DoD's. Activities, Facilities, and Discounts Other benefits of military service include free or low-cost recreational facilities, such as installation pools, fitness centers, movie theaters, golf courses and hobby shops; rental of outdoor equipment, such as kayaks, bikes, and camping gear; ticketing services for activities, such as concerts, festivals, amusement parks, and comedy shows; and free or discounted flight opportunities.
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From page 138... ...
• Disruption in continuity of health care due to PCS move • Disruption of education due to PCS move • Difficulty of establishing home ownership, building equity and thus family wealth For reserve component service members when on Title 10 active duty: • Being assigned to live in a remote and isolated area • Living far from a military installation: community and resources • Being assigned to live in a foreign country • Family members living apart due to location of Title 10 assignment • Unemployment Compensation eligibility for spouses who quit to follow their service member for a military move (some states include domestic partners or those about to be married) For reserve component service members when not on Title 10 active duty: • Living far from a military installation: community and resources GEOGRAPHIC ASSIGNMENT AND RELOCATION As shown in the summary in Box 4-3, many of the challenges related to military assignments and relocations are primarily associated with the active component, as reserve component members can typically choose where to live and are not required to keep moving to new locations throughout their military careers.
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. Relocation: PCS Moves Active component personnel typically experience frequent PCS moves approximately every 2 to 3 years.
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While that mobility continues to be an inducement for military service, PCS moves can have a harmful impact on the education of military children. On average, military children move and change schools six to nine times from the start of kindergarten to high school graduation, which is three times more often than their civilian peers.
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. DoD has stated their commitment to serve military children by providing youth programming for children ages 6 to 18 on installations and in communities where military families live.
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Moves can also disrupt their employment, leading to loss of seniority, employment gaps, and underemployment. All of these effects can hurt the financial well-being of a military family.
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Through these initiatives, DoD helps spouses select and prepare for portable careers likely to be in demand wherever their service member is stationed, so that the spouse's employment and earnings trajectory will be better able to weather frequent military moves. Unmarried partners are not eligible for this support, nor are they eligible for state benefits for military spouses negotiated by the DoD State Liaison Office, such as unemployment compensation eligibility after following their service member for a PCS move, or accommodations to support the portability of occupational licenses and credentials across state lines.11 TRAINING, SEA DUTY, AND DEPLOYMENTS Deployments and sea duty12 can provide service members with a number of desirable opportunities and benefits, such as • Employing or developing their skills in real-world settings • Making a difference in the world • Developing strong bonds with others • Earning financial bonuses through special pays and tax advantages, and • Learning about other parts of the world.
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From page 144... ...
As a reminder, these are not sorted into positive and negative categories, as that interpretation can depend on the context and timing, individuals' experiences, and other factors, and some can have both positive and negative aspects. Deployments More than two million military service members and their families have been impacted by deployments since the inception of combat operations in 2001, and some families have faced five or more such separations and reunions.
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From page 145... ...
• Forging of strong bonds between service member and other unit members • Service member missing major life events and family activities • Spouse or partner functioning as head of household, single parent while ser vice member is away • Child custody or child care issues for single parents or when both parents in dual-military couple must be away at the same time • Service member's and family's development of mastery, independence, and new responsibilities during deployment cycles • Family's readjustment when service member returns • Lack of sufficient service member "dwell time" between absences, lack of leave upon return • Service member's deployment experience helping them to be competitive for promotion or choice assignment NOTE: * Does not apply to reserve component not on Title 10 active duty.
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, assessed military family members at different times during the deployment cycle (before, during, and after deployment) , focusing on the health of family, marital, and parental relationships, the physical and psychological health of adults and children within the family, and attitudes toward the military.
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Caregivers in the study with partners in the reserve component (National Guard or Reserves) reported having more challenges than their counterparts in the active component.
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. Due to slight variations in items across states, some of the data sets include children whose parents have left military service as well as those who continue to serve, some data sets include children whose siblings served, and some include children whose military parents have not deployed or who deployed several years ago rather than recently.
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From page 149... ...
For example, increments in the rate of ever having used alcohol were 9 percent each for military service and for deployment. Among military children whose parents had deployed, reports of suicidal thoughts were 34 percent higher and reports of having carried a knife or gun to school were about double those of children whose parents had not been deployed and about 80 percent higher than those of civilian children.
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From page 150... ...
National Guard and Reserve service can be appealing to some families because of the geographic choice and residential stability affords. Unlike active component personnel, guard and reserve personnel do not face frequent, mandatory geographic relocation, and some move from the active component to the reserve component precisely for this reason.
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From page 151... ...
Deployment for National Guard and Reserve personnel is typically preceded by mobilization and followed by demobilization, and thus can have deployment cycles that are lengthier than their active component counterparts. When they are mobilized for federal service, they are not necessarily mobilized with their National Guard or Reserve unit as a whole.
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From page 152... ...
Exactly what they are eligible for and under what conditions varies across programs and services and can be based upon whether they are or have recently been on active duty status and whether that was under Title 32 or Title 10 orders. Perhaps most notably, reserve component families are eligible for health care benefits under TRICARE only while their service members are on active duty for more than 30 days or are mobilized for a contingency operation.
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From page 153... ...
. Each military service member and each family member is positioned within a unique social location and occupies multiple social statuses, which helps to explain the tremendous diversity in individual service members' responses to what appear to be similar military and life experiences.
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From page 154... ...
• Individual and structural discrimination, harassment, bias, incivility, bullying, hazing, ostracism, and interpersonal violence, targeted at members based on their race, ethnicity, native language, citizenship, religion, gender, gender iden tity, sexual orientation, physical appearance, tenure in the organization, etc. • Recent history of bans on military women's service in combat roles and on open service of gay, lesbian, and bisexual personnel, with cultural shifts in attitude and new policies still following • Renewed ban on the service of transgender personnel, with exceptions for those identified during the brief period it was lifted • Historical focus of spouse networking/support groups on women spouses of men, resulting in less inclusion of men, working spouses, partners, dual-mili tary couples, same-sex spouses • Concerted efforts to address race and ethnicity as they relate to equal oppor tunity and discrimination, but little focus on how they relate to military family well-being • Programs and services to support family members with special needs • Challenges managing family member special needs exacerbated by perma nent change of station moves and deployments unique experiences of chronic stresses stemming from social institutions in addition to their everyday experiences of racial bias.
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The point is that DoD and local service providers cannot make assumptions based on one or two characteristics at a given point in time (e.g., single newly enlisted service member, deployed parent, Latinx Marine) about what is most important to military personnel and military family members, what they need, or what is the best way to support them.
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bring to light gender-based sexual harassment, ranging from inappropriate behavior -- such as sexual comments, jokes, offensive pictures or posters, and gestures -- to criminal-level assault. Recent estimates find that servicewomen report and experience sexual harassment and sexual assault at higher rates than male service members (Davis et al., 2017; Galovski and Sanders, 2018)
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. However, the committee notes that in recent years, granting of parental leave for service members has become more common in order to increase recruitment and retention in the Armed Forces.
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articulates that members of sexual minorities experience excess and accumulated stress, including stigma, prejudice, and discrimination, and often expend significant energy to remain vigilant to environmental and interpersonal threats, safety, and disclosure of sexuality. In addition, for LGBT recruits, self-awareness regarding sexual orientation or the decision to live as their gender rather than birth sex and the coming out process often coincide with socialization into military culture.
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From page 159... ...
For example, "transgender" refers to a gender identity, not a sexual orientation, and a ban against transgender military service was just reinstated. Lessons from foreign military forces in which LGBT personnel have been integrated, which date from the 1970s (in 1974 in the Netherlands)
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With only one percent of the U.S. population volunteering for military service, the current demographics of military personnel and their families do not reflect those of the population as a whole (see Chapter 3)
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Additionally, little attention has been paid to exploring the priorities of racial and ethnic minority families to answer such questions as, What are the top problems and needs of minority service members and their families? and, Is the Military Family Readiness System addressing these problems and needs or helping minority service members and their families address them?
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For example, deployments can present additional challenges, as the nondeployed parent can become overwhelmed managing care for EFMP family members, on top of all of the other family and household responsibilities while the service member is away from home (Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research, 2013)
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From page 163... ...
Note that EFMP is not the only type of support for military family members with special needs, but it should be able to refer families to appropriate resources and help them understand their rights and protections. Figure 4-2 illustrates overlapping types of programs for children with special needs: (1)
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From page 164... ...
For some families, the benefits and accommodations the military makes to support families with special needs are an incentive to remain on active duty. The advantages include medical benefits afforded to the EFMP family members and assistance coordinating with schools and other programs and services.
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For active component service member: • Ability to collect retirement after only 20 years of service, begin second career For active component and reserve component members leaving Title 10 active duty: • Transition assistance eligibility NOTES: * National Guard members eligible only after Title 32 active duty service; *
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From page 166... ...
As the size of the military expands and contracts over time, due to the changing scope of missions and con ressional g authorizations for personnel, periodically individuals are required or incentivized to leave military service before their current term ends. Additionally, in the event of war, the military can issue a "stop loss" to prevent service members from leaving at the end of their contracts; or, if authorized by the Presidential Reserve Callup Authority, the military can call back to active-duty individuals who had already separated or retired but had not completed their period on "Individual Ready Reserve" status (e.g., as was done to provide ground forces for deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan)
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From page 167... ...
The benefits of military service include not only education and economic gains but also positive coping strategies, the ability to withstand stress, and other resilience factors that can promote lifelong health and well-being (Spiro et al., 2015)
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From page 168... ...
Most notably, these include • pay and in-kind benefits, such as housing and health care • PCS moves • assignments to installations in other countries • deployments, sea duty, and temporary duty away from home • combat experience and exposure • service-related mental and physical injuries and death • career progression (or lack thereof) , and • separation from military service and transition to civilian life.
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From page 169... ...
, whereas findings con cerning well-being are scattered widely across the literature. CONCLUSION 4-3: The frequency of mandatory military moves and the associated stress of relocation create challenges for the continuity of care for active component military families, especially families who have members with special needs and must rely heavily upon commu nity resources.
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From page 170... ...
, Life Course Perspectives on Military Service (pp.
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From page 171... ...
, Life Course Perspectives on Military Service (pp.
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From page 172... ...
. Military Family Life Project: Active Duty Spouse Study Longitudinal Analyses 2010-2012 Project Report.
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From page 173... ...
. What We Know About Military Family Readiness: Evidence From 2007–2017.
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From page 174... ...
, Life Course Perspectives on Military Service (pp 68–96)
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, Life Course Perspectives on Military Service (pp.
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. Interstate Compact on Educa tional Opportunity for Military Children: Compact Rules.
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. 2017 Blue Star Families Military Family Lifestyle Survey.
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. Annual Report to the Congressional Defense Committees on the De partment of Defense Policy and Plans for Military Family Readiness: Fiscal Year 2016.
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. Life Course Perspectives on Military Service.
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Resilience in community: A social ecological development model for young adult sexual minority women. American Journal of Community Psychology, 55(1-2)
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