Saturday, April 07, 2007

Support our men and women in uniform, their families too

My husband and I aren't exactly shy about us being in the military. I just got back from an Army Family Team Building conference. AFTB is a wonderful program teaching people how to deal with military life. I think it is wonderful program. Something that really surprised me at this conference, is the diversity of the people involved. There were spouses of differing ranks, retirees, family members and many of the volunteers are not even related to the US Army. Unlike many things in life this is not a political thing, there is no status symbol, or rank(I made the mistake of asking a person their spouses rank). Rank is taboo!!! They are really people who care and want to make a difference.

One of the hardships this program faces is that family members do not realized the need for this until their family member, usually a spouse, is deployed. This would not be such a bad thing, except, that not only are there many day to day resources for the military family, but there is so much that needs to be known before deployment, and most people do not start looking for resources until it's too late.

Ultimately the reason I am doing this post, is that I would encourage anyone with a friend, family member, spouse or who is otherwise connected to the military to go to the link above and take all 3 levels. If you are in the military this does provide promotion and retirement points.

It really is a worthwhile program that is unfortunately a well kept secret.

So be all you can be at AFTB.

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