Military Construction Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee - Fiscal Year 2005 Hearing on Quality of Life-Spouses

Federal News Service February 25, 2004 Wednesday

February 25, 2004 Wednesday

HEADLINE: HEARING OF THE MILITARY CONSTRUCTION SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE HOUSE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE

SUBJECT: FISCAL YEAR 2005 HEARING ON QUALITY OF LIFE - SPOUSES

CHAIRED BY: REPRESENTATIVE JOE KNOLLENBERG (R-MI)

LOCATION: B-300 RAYBURN HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D.C.

WITNESSES:

SUSAN SINCLAIR, WIFE OF ARMY SERVICE MEMBER;

JOSEPH S. DAUGHTRY, HUSBAND OF NAVY SERVICE MEMBER;

ANGIE BARRETT, WIFE OF MARINE CORPS SERVICE MEMBER;

TERESA A. CLARK, WIFE OF AIR FORCE SERVICE MEMBER

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

REP. KNOLLENBERG: I think, Mr. Kingston, you're out of time right now. But to add to-I believe the comment that was made this morning among the four services is that they are concerned if deployment is expanded to a greater number of years, that might have some impact on retention. I think that's what I gathered from that, so that may help a little bit.

Also, the mere fact is there's a great many more married families, I know it breaks down differently with the services and almost twice as many as there were in '70s. And very likely you've got a marriage, they've married the Army or the Navy or the Marine Corps, whatever it is, in greater numbers than they used to. I don't know if that helps a little bit, but I do remember that coming up, but I think it was in regard to the retention relative to extended deployments.

Mr. Bishop?

REP. SANFORD D. BISHOP JR. (D-GA): Thank you very much.

Let me thank you ladies, so very much for-and Mr. Daughtry, for taking the time to come and talk with us because certainly you probably are where the rubber needs to roll when it comes to the family aspect of our military service and so I want to thank you for what you do and the support that you give to our military men and women.

Ms. Barrett, did I understand you correctly to say that retention from your experience, was low?

MS. BARRETT: No. In regards to Reserves I was commenting on personal experiences with, you know, friends that we have who have been happy to stay.

REP. BISHOP: What about active duty?

MS. BARRETT: As well. I know Marines are pretty dedicated to the job and --

REP. BISHOP: Let me ask you with regard to the Department of Defense education, DOD education, there's a move underfoot to eliminate that or drastically reduce it and I have from the experience I've had with the family members who have their children in the Department of Defense schools and of course the people who are employed there, the teachers and principals, they're expressing a great deal of misgivings about that policy. What is your take on that? All of you, I'm sure, have some direct knowledge about it and I'd be happy to hear from you on that.

MS. SINCLAIR: Sir, I know for the Army families it's extremely important. Everywhere we've lived that has come up as an issue and families very much want to keep the Department of Defense schools on post.

REP. BISHOP: Would that have an effect on recruitment and retention do you expect?

MS. SINCLAIR: I don't know, I can't say that.

REP. BISHOP: If service members were of the opinion that their children would have to go to school off post in situations that are not the most desirable, they would be less likely to stay in, to have that-in other words, allow their families to be subjected to that?

MS. SINCLAIR: I can say that one of the big drives for Fort Campbell was the fact that they do have a high school on post. And at some of the other-like at Fort Rucker, we're in a different situation because there's three towns connected to Fort Rucker and everybody has a choice of which high school to send their kids to, which is also a plus. But in some communities or posts where you don't have that choice, people choose to live off post in the area of the school district they want because they don't like being told that that's the high school they have to go to.

REP. BISHOP: Thank you very much, I-someone else is to-or the others?

MS. CLARK: I personally, the only experience I have with a DOD school is that I actually graduated from one overseas.

My daughters have never attended a DOD school, we've never been to a base that actually had a school on base. And that is one of the issues that I discussed with the-the fact that it's very difficult for members, if you have children in high school to have standards that are equal across the United States and DOD schools would certainly solve that problem.

REP. BISHOP: There were a couple of questions I asked of the gentlemen this morning, and I'd like to ask the spouses for your perspective on one. The war in Iraq has had tremendous impact on the lives of people who've served in theater and the families of those who've served. There's been a rise in the number of social and psychological issues that have arisen since the war began and of course in previous wars too. In your experience, do we have adequate social services, related resources dedicated to meeting the growing problems that we are seeing stateside, spousal abuse, suicide, divorce, substance abuse and the other strains on the family, given the deployments and the war that we are now involved in. Are the social services adequate?

MS. CLARK: If I may, no actually. In fact, that came up in a discussion. I met with the enlisted wives at the base that we were stationed and it's a growing concern that TRICARE does not afford for a family to attend counseling unless there has been an event. Meaning, unless there's been spousal abuse, an affair, if you will, or some type of tragic event has occurred, there is no counseling provided to a husband and wife or to families for that matter, unless there's been something occur. So you have to reach that point before you can actually fix your marriage, which at that --

REP. BISHOP: Do commanding officers try to assume that role, and-do you know?

MS. CLARK: I'm sorry?

REP. BISHOP: Do commanding officers --

MS. CLARK: First sergeants sometimes, other spouses, that kind of thing. It's not likely that the member will go to another member of their unit because of the-obviously the repercussions that will come about, you know, if you're having marital problems, that's not something you want your commander to know. So quite frequently --

REP. BISHOP: It comes to them anyway.

MS. CLARK: It comes up because you reach the point of either abuse, or some type of other tragic event.

MS. SINCLAIR: Sir, I think that's one thing that the Army's One Source program will help with because one of the key things with that is you can get counseling up to six sessions for one issue. So, it's something you don't have to go through the military TRICARE system to get. You just call this number, you speak with a licensed psychologist and social worker with masters degrees and you can get set up in counseling without going through post.

And another thing that Army's doing is these units come back, they're not giving them immediate leave. They're taking, you know, seven to 10 days of working half day schedules to integrate back into the family because, you know, it's hard for the wife to give up total control when her husband comes home, although he wants to resume his role. So they're thinking that this working half days will help with some that.

REP. BISHOP: I would like to add one point about the One Source. It's a multi-lingual program which is very, very important, I believe it came up earlier in the session, multi-lingual 24/7.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

REP. KNOLLENBERG: I guess it's Mr. Bishop.

REP. BISHOP: You touched on employment opportunities for family and spouses, particularly where the spouses accompany their service members to posts. You have the prospect of having to start your lives over again and not necessarily just finding new housing accommodations but also finding employment. What kind of employment assistance is available for spouses? Are there any base sponsored job training and assistance programs that can facilitate that?

MS. BARRETT: There are. From experience at Camp Pendleton we have the job fairs, we have a lot of opportunity for spouses. And the websites are now posting jobs that are available.

REP. BISHOP: On post or off post?

MS. BARRETT: On post. There are facilities though for off post job opportunities.

(Cross talk.)

MS. CLARK: We have a wonderful family support center that has a job-I think it's spouse assistance. They do training for employment for the spouse and unfortunately they are undermanned and understaffed and there aren't enough of them to go around, but we do have that available.

REP. BISHOP: So you want more money for staff?

MS. CLARK: Of course.

REP. BISHOP: It's my understanding that the Department of Defense continues to work on the programs to enhance morale of service members and families. It looks as if significant progress has been made in areas such as rest and recuperation leave (change of area ?) benefits and incentive options for extended tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, childcare and communication initiatives. Are there any other areas that you think that we might be able to provide improvements for the soldiers and for their families? Can you think of any other things that we might be-which we ought to be thinking about doing?

MS. CLARK: My husband was offered all kinds of extra leave and extra stuff to do an extra tour of duty and unfortunately he's never had a position that afforded him that much time off. Even if he has it he's unable to take it. I believe that if and when he retires he will probably have four months of paid leave left over that he can use to find a position which is wonderful and is a great benefit because I know in the private sector if you don't use it, you lose it. So that's a very good opportunity for him to have, but unfortunately at the moment they're so short handed he couldn't use it if he had it.

REP. BISHOP: So corollary to that would be the need for a better rotational force structure so that he would be able to take more leave and spend more time with the family as opposed to being deployed and away from the family.

Is that a pretty consistent feeling throughout the spouses across service branches: Army, Marines, Air Force?

MS. SINCLAIR: I think it's self-imposed. The Army might close if he takes off. He does try to take leave. It's hard sometimes but it's important to the family.

REP. BISHOP: I was speaking not just for the commander but for the service members and their families. The ones who are not necessarily the men who have a little more flexibility.

MS. SINCLAIR: I think it's generally encouraged for them to take their leave, I mean if they need it.

REP. KNOLLENBERG: Are you looking for a response?

REP. BISHOP: Yeah, I was. I was wondering-I have heard that the deployments come so close together for such extended periods of time that it places a great strain on the families and results in poor morale for the soldiers, the service members I should say, and also results in some of these social problems when they return. After having been away a while and finding out that things weren't going exactly the way they thought they should have been going. So what I'm asking is-and it has to do with the rotational structure of the service, more support, more bench strength if you will, to allow better quality of life, more leave time, because the time away from their positions or away on deployments puts a strain on the family. And if they had replacements to do that while they were getting their R&R back home and getting quality time with family, would that improve morale, particularly for dependents?

MR. DAUGHTRY: Mr. Bishop, if I may respond to your question. The country is at war, a very unusual scenario. The last time it was Vietnam, on this scale. Many of our forces were deployed across the services to the point that the majority of the Navy service vessels were all deployed. We have to reset that.

REP. BISHOP: We have to what?

MR. DAUGHTRY: We have to reset that operational tempo. So in that process of taking it and trying to re-establish a peacetime rotational basis, there are some hardships with the amount of vacation-if you want to call it leave-a person can take. I know the naval forces are fitting in as much as they can upon return and as much as they employed before they go and a mixture in between. But there's a level of readiness that has to be maintained in that who two month training cycle. So the family tries to fit to best family needs. It doesn't always benefit the family or the service member to take two weeks leave if the kids are in school because it doesn't fit the children's schedule. So that has to be fitted in with a lot of the different schedule priorities. It's not always an easy process.

REP. BISHOP: Well, if we had more personnel that would provide more of an opportunity to accommodate those needs, would it not?

MR. DAUGHTRY: Absolutely. You're talking force structure.

REP. BISHOP: Right.

MR. DAUGHTRY: More force structure would allow better opportunity for others to do things, correct.

REP. BISHOP: That was the gravamen of my question.