An Advocate’s Lament: Creating a Strong Voice to Support Military Families at War

Raezer, Joyce Wessel

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-68984-5_7

Joyce Wessel Raezer⁵

Part of the book series: Risk and Resilience in Military and Veteran Families ((RRMV))

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Abstract

Advocacy for military families in the post-9/11 environment was a complex, often-frustrating task in which patriotic appeals could open doors to decision-makers, but sometimes were not enough to spur the most productive action. This chapter explores the military family advocacy trajectory after 9-11, sharing insights that may help future military family advocates prepare for the next crisis. Advocacy is about preparation—leveraging research to anticipate the consequences of events, engaging and listening to the grassroots, doing one’s homework to create options, and building networks of partners to help further one’s cause. Stories from the last war cannot fully prepare a military or an advocate for the next one. Short-burst reactions to a catastrophic event such as 9-11 demand one kind of advocacy focus and energy; war that spans more than a decade creates more complex circumstances and needs. The specific efforts cited in this chapter are included as illustrative examples of the types of actions that led to success, but also as cautionary tales.

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Notes

1.
For more information on The Military Coalition, its members, and history, go to: www.themilitarycoalition.org.
2.
I first encountered NMFA in the early 1990s when my Army husband was assigned to Fort Knox, Kentucky. I was a member of the school board, elected by parents whose children attended the Department of Defense Schools on the installation. NMFA helped us navigate a difficult dispute with the Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) that threatened our ability to provide the advice and counsel to school administrators prescribed by law. When my husband received an assignment to the Pentagon in 1995, I became a Government Relations volunteer with NMFA. I went on the payroll in early 1998—joining the Association’s paid staff of six—and became Government Relations Director in 2000, after the retirement of my mentor Sydney Tally Hickey, who had orchestrated NMFA’s advocacy response to Desert Storm. I remained in that position until early 2007, when I became the Association’s fourth Executive Director in 5 years. So, this military family advocacy story is a personal one, but one enhanced because of the strong network of dedicated advocates with whom I’ve been privileged to work.
3.
The 9th Quadrennial Review of Military Compensation, begun in the waning months of the Clinton Administration and released in early 2002 after the 9-11 attacks, warned of future recruiting and retention challenges and acknowledged gaps in the current military compensation structure: “Military and civilian pay comparability is critical to the success of the All-Volunteer Force. Military pay must be set at a level that takes into account the special demands associated with military life and should be set above average pay in the private sector…. New data and analyses by the 9th QRMC suggest that military pay—particularly for mid-grade enlisted members and junior officers—has not kept pace with compensation levels in the private sector. Today’s force is more highly educated than in the past and the current pay table may not include a high enough premium to sustain this more educated force.”
4.
In late 2005, NMFA published results of a follow-up survey, the Cycles of Deployment Report.
5.
For example, in 2004, the first year of its Operation Purple® camps, NMFA allowed Dr. Angela Huebner, a researcher from Virginia Tech University, to conduct focus groups with military teens attending several of the camps. Huebner’s research became the first to be published about military kids and deployment (Huebner & Mancini, 2005; Huebner, Mancini, Wilcox, Grass, & Grass, 2007).
6.
The Millennium Cohort Family Study is a DoD research project at the Deployment Health Research Department: https://www.familycohort.org/. It enrolled its first panel of spouses of service members participating in the DoD Millennium Cohort Study in 2011.
7.
For example, see: https://www.mfri.purdue.edu/newsroom/view-news.aspx?newsitemid=95.
8.
Immediately after the 9/11 attacks, the Army’s ceremonial “Old Guard” unit, stationed at Fort Myer, VA, adjacent to the Pentagon, was tasked with cleanup and the removal of bodies. Said one Old Guard spouse (and NMFA employee) worried about her service member and desperate for information and a connection to other spouses, “Nobody thought the Old Guard would need a Family Support Group.”
9.
In the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2005 (P.L. 108-447), Congress first created the combat pay exclusion for food stamp eligibility. Later it codified the same protections for free and reduced price school lunch eligibility.
10.
To access the most recent Demographics Report, go to: http://download.militaryonesource.mil/12038/MOS/Reports/2015-Demographics-Report.pdf.
11.
I am not making this example up. A reporter from New York asked me to find such a soldier.
12.
One of the toughest interviews I ever had resulted in a USA Today story written by Greg Zoroya (2006, October 19). Zoroya had a long history of covering military issues and usually contacted us when doing a story related to families. I happened to be visiting Fort Hood, Texas, when Zoroya contacted me asking for a comment about the deaths in units deployed from there. He knew the monthly memorial service had just taken place. Imagine my surprise when he asked if I knew anyone who attended the memorial service and imagine his surprise when I said I had as the culmination of a week visiting the post. A good reporter knows when to allow a source to be on the record and when not. The challenge for the advocate is knowing how much to share. This story captured well what I felt was important to say, but waiting for the story be posted is always an anxious time.
13.
If I were facing the situation again, I would encourage my Board to dig into reserves to hire more Government Relations and Communications staff earlier, to provide more staff support services and benefits—to include access to our own Employee Assistance Program (which we did not get until 2015)—and would put in place a staff sabbatical program like that of our partners at the Military Officers Association of America. Robust staffing is the key to making a sabbatical program work—an employer must ensure those not on sabbatical wouldn’t be overwhelmed by picking up extra responsibilities.
14.
For more information on the Abu Ghraib story, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse.
15.
Congress made the increase permanent in the FY 2005 NDAA (P.L. 108-375). NMFA continued to push when it could for automatic annual increases in the FSA based on the Cost of Living Allowance (COLA) and hopes future advocates will note it will probably take another war to spur the next increase.
16.
The DoD provided critical support to these efforts by in a sense becoming an advocate through the creation of the DoD State Liaison Office (DSLO) in 2004. The DSLO works with states to address key issues affecting military families that fall under state jurisdiction. For more information, go to: http://www.usa4militaryfamilies.dod.mil/MOS/f?p=USA4:HOME:0.
17.
NMFA was one of the few that allowed anyone to join—its board welcomed civilian supporters of the military—and did not limit its assistance or eligibility for its programs to members.
18.
See the powerful ad IAVA produced with the Ad Council: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDbqLul97Fg.

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National Military Family Association, Alexandria, VA, USA
Joyce Wessel Raezer

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Joyce Wessel Raezer
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Correspondence to Joyce Wessel Raezer .

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Editors and Affiliations

Department of Human Development and Family Studies, Military Family Research Institute College of Health and Human Sciences Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA
Linda Hughes-Kirchubel
Department of Human Development and Family Studies, Military Family Research Institute, College of Health and Human Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA
Shelley MacDermid Wadsworth
Department of Medical and Clinical Psychology, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, Maryland, USA
David S. Riggs

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Raezer, J.W. (2018). An Advocate’s Lament: Creating a Strong Voice to Support Military Families at War. In: Hughes-Kirchubel, L., Wadsworth, S., Riggs, D. (eds) A Battle Plan for Supporting Military Families. Risk and Resilience in Military and Veteran Families. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68984-5_7

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68984-5_7
Published: 09 January 2018
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-68983-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-68984-5
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

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