October 13, 2016

By Gina Harkins, Senior Staff Writer

After 15 years of war, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford said it's crucial that Americans continue honoring military families.

The demographics of the military have changed drastically in recent decades, Dunford said Tuesday during a leadership luncheon hosted by the National Military Family Association, a member of The Military Coalition.

As a young company commander at Camp Pendleton, Calif., in the late 1970s, Dunford said only a handful of his Marines were married. Now more than half of all servicemembers are married, he said, and another 6 percent of them are single parents.

“With that changing demographic comes a change in responsibility and change in requirements for support,” Dunford said.

Military families are resilient, the chairman said, but their lifestyle can be trying. Frequent moves, training exercises, and deployments affect families. Dunford recalled watching his daughter graduate from college via livestream video from his computer and telling his son they had to move across the country during his senior year of high school.

Strong support for military families hasn't always existed, and it's crucial that it remain a priority, Dunford said. MOAA spoke to the Joint Chiefs chairman about some of the challenges facing military families after Tuesday's event. Excerpts from that interview are below, edited for clarity.

Q. You talked about the resilience of military kids, including your own. What's your advice for young officers and military family members dealing with some of the challenges that come with this lifestyle?

A. One thing that I think we found out relatively late were all the services and support that are available. One of the first things I tell young couples that are challenged is to get out there and go to some of these events.

Each of the services, for example, have orientation courses for young spouses. Many times people don't take advantage of that so they don't learn about the services and support that is out there. I'd recommend they do that.

Q. With nearly 300,000 U.S. servicemembers currently deployed, operational tempo remains high. How can you help relieve the burden that has on military families?

A. The most important ingredient for family readiness is predictability, and that's one of the things we're really working hard on. My experience has been that folks can put up with the sacrifice, but it's the unexpected that really makes it difficult. To the max extent possible, what we're trying to do right now is to make sure that the deployment cycles are predictable for our service people and their families.

Q. With budget cuts and personnel drawdowns, what are the biggest challenges facing troops today that worry you?

A. The thing that keeps me up at night is not giving them the support they need to accomplish the mission, so that's really what we're focused on. We have high-quality men and women, and I'm really proud of that. What I want to make sure is that we're providing them with the training, equipment, and the leadership that they deserve.

Q. As part of those budget cuts, servicemembers and their families have seen their pay raises capped, changes to their retirement and health care policies, and possible housing allowance cuts. Are you concerned that will impact your ability to retain top talent?

A. I wouldn't zero in on any one of those issues because to me, compensation is the perspective of the family holistically. It starts with the conversation the young sergeant or petty officer has at table after four years in the Army, Navy, or what have you.

They're looking at the challenges, the deployments, and their finances. At the end of the day, they need to be able to say, “I really like what I'm doing, I like the people I'm doing it with, and I believe in it.” That's the first important piece of the conversation.

The second part of the conversation is, “We can educate our children - the quality at the schools is good, we have proper medical care, and our housing is adequate.”

I think if we make sure servicemembers can have that kind of a conversation with their family, we can continue to retain high-quality people.

Q. How can advocacy organizations like NMFA and MOAA help ensure servicemembers and their families have what they need?

A. What the services do and what I can do as a leader only go so far. When you PCS and your kids need to change schools or your spouse needs to change jobs, you have to cut through the bureaucracy. For example, we moved from the West Coast to the East Coast when my son was going to be a senior in high school. Getting the courses set, getting college applications out, and getting teacher recommendations were all challenges we confronted. But because of the policies that have been put in place, it was a lot easier for us than it was for people 20 years ago.

Same thing for spouse employment - my wife was a physical therapist and she had to be relicensed in every single state that we moved to. She had to take a test and pay a fee just to work. Now, we have reciprocity in many states now, and the reason we have that is because these support organizations fought for it.

We've been at war for 15 years, and it would be natural for people to forget the sacrifices made by military families. I think organizations like MOAA and others advocating on the Hill and frankly reminding the American people of what our families are dealing with is a really important part of the network of support that makes us who we are.