4. Doing what’s good for the community vs. what’s good for military families
Sometimes we need someone to stand up for us and just say “we’re doing this because it is good for them” and point to military families instead of the local community. We get it. There is a fine line to walk. You need them to support us and we have to support them to make it happen. But way too often it seems the decisions that are being made are made without thinking of first how it impacts military families and too much weight is given to how a decision impacts the local community.
We need the hero to stand up and say, “Hey, military kids can be on your local sports teams.”
We need a hero to say, “No, we won’t build housing in the middle of nowhere because your constituency wants to make money off of our military families.”
We need a hero to say, “Yes, you need to create a smoother transition for our military kids when they move to your school. And, no, it is not preferential treatment; it’s common decency.”
5. Destroy the mini-states
Each installation operates as a mini-state. The rules vary from installation to installation leaving military families flexing to operate under new processes, rules, and paperwork. Why there isn’t consistency across at least the installations in one branch seems like a question that shouldn’t even need to be asked.
It is a cost-saving measure.
A sanity-saving idea.
A way to make transitions smoother.
Paperwork should be the same across the branch no matter where you live for childcare services, medical services, housing processes, on-post schools, and more. If you want to have an even more radical idea: let’s walk into the year 2018. Let’s go digital so we when we arrive at a new duty station, Wayne can just open up your “paperwork” from the last one and update your address.
Unfortunately, the unsexy problems don’t get as much press time, but eliminating these massive headaches for our military families could help eliminate the palm to head moments that plague our community every single day. Eliminate the stressors and you open up a world of opportunity for our families.
