A lot of literature on the contributions of armed forces to the security of nations has been written but there are very few books penned that concentrate on the crucial role played by military families in providing the bedrock of stability for the men and women in arms. The Military Family: A Practice Guide for Human Service Providers by James A Martin, Leora N Rosen, and Linnete R Sparacino is one such unique work where the authors have put together a comprehensive collection of research articles focused on military families of the United States which this book review strives to objectively examine.
The book encapsulates the complexities and challenges faced by military families in an era where military families in the United States have become multicultural, diverse, and now consist largely of dual-income where both the husband and wife are working either in the military or outside. The strain of a ‘long-distance marriage, separation, absentee parent and its effects on the siblings is examined in great detail as also the remarkable resilience of military families to cope with such difficult challenges. The book chronicles the military’s efforts to deal with the social challenges and how the operational dynamics have forced the military to outsource and privatize many of the family support functions to civilian service providers who increasingly would assume a greater role in providing the formal support system for the military. The book, therefore, provides civilian service providers unfamiliar with the complexities of military lives, ethos and dynamics, a reference to firstly understand the population set that they are dealing with, and secondly, to formulate the correct policies and responses so that the formal support system can adequately deliver the service that it is designed for. The authors demonstrate their intent when they state that “this book is intended to encourage civilian providers to involve themselves in the provision of services to military members and military families and to proactively engage the military community in this process” (Martin, Rosen, & Linette, 2000, p. xvi).
The book is holistically arranged in three parts with Part I dealing with the cultures and conditions of military life, Part II, the unique aspects of military life and part III focusing on family advocacy issues. The authors point to the long tour of duties involving separation from families, poor pay, and inherent danger to life as markers that distinguishes military career from civilian careers. The authors observe that the U.S. armed forces shifted to an all-volunteer force in 1973 and this shift brought in far reaching changes in the social structure of the force. Before 1973, the force was more diverse, consisted of lesser married people but after 1973 that changed to a more defined social structure where a larger percentage of the force was married. In 1973 51 % of the force was married that increased to 58% by 1997 (Martin, Rosen, & Linette, p. 6). Pre 1973, the US armed forces only recognized families of career officers but after 1973, families of first time junior enlisted soldiers also came to be officially recognized as part of the organization that faced equal challenges and privations as the earlier more privileged lot. The civilian provider learns how military leaders cope with the overriding concept of ‘service before self’ and how that requires to be balanced by equally real human issues of husband-wife-sibling relationship. The introductory chapter makes it clear that the growing need to rationalize the operational and the personal parts of military lives will increasingly require the help of professional civilian service providers as the armed forces are too busy fighting global wars and challenges to be able to spare precious manpower for such a task (Martin, Rosen, & Linette, 2000, p. 20).
The issue of force composition is outlined to point out that almost 50% of the U.S. armed forces strength now comprises of the National Guard and the Reservists. Both the National Guard and the Reservists (also called as ‘Citizen-soldiers’) have families who need to be cared for as both the organization are crucially required for domestic emergencies, defense of Homeland and can be called upon to be deployed “anywhere in the world” (Martin, Rosen, & Linette, p. 26). Though this book was written in 2000, the importance today has only increased post 9/11 terrorist attacks where both the National Guard and the Reservists now play an important role in keeping America safe. While the national Guards and the Reservists form half the total force strength of the U.S. armed forces, they do not receive the same family support benefits as the active duty force does, though this segment is increasingly being deployed under the same conditions as the active duty force. The challenge for the formal family support system is to rationalize the real needs of these citizen soldiers within the fiscal and infrastructural resources alleviating the negative social fallout of imbalance.
The young enlisted families are particularly vulnerable segment of the military family as their total incomes are wholly inadequate to cater to the educational needs of their children while the operational requirements of service strains every aspect of human relationships ranging from personal psychological balance, separation, having to split financial resources, broken relationships, psychological toll on the children due to absentee parent and such other difficulties. A large number of junior enlisted service members are single parents (Martin, Rosen, & Linette, p. 45). Imagine how would such members look after their children and proceed on extended deployments to warzones such as Iraq and Afghanistan if there was no formal support system? Do the members depend upon their parents or relatives to do the needful that may lead to greater complications or does the system take this responsibility. These are the intricacies that a civilian service provider must hoist when deciding upon an action plan. Providing financial management assistance to better handle their meager resources (Martin, Rosen, & Linette, p. 46) is one such arena which the authors suggest the service providers must look at.
The book provides an insight into the stressors perceived by families arrived at by the authors through analysis of a survey of five army family surveys conducted during the 1980s and the 1990s (Martin, Rosen, & Linette, p. 55). The data set analyzed primarily consisted of ‘male military husband and a civilian wife’.
Role senior military officer’s wives played in providing psychological support and at times material support to the families of junior officers, non-commissioned officers and enlisted junior service personnel is explained to bring out the difference in today’s changed circumstances. In olden times, these wives played a significant role and did shoulder responsibilities such as running discussion forums, vocational training centers and arrange social gatherings. However, in the changed circumstances of the modern world, where most senior officer’s wives themselves are full time professionals, they are now less willing to devote time to the needs of the junior officers and NCO’s families and now senior NCO’s wives are stepping into the shoes of the senior officer’s wives (Martin, Rosen, & Linette, p. 83). To help military families’ better cope with the financial responsibilities, the formal support system has to find ways and means to employ the spouses of military personnel. This is extremely challenging task as military personnel relocate frequently and most corporate or firms demand stability from their employees and are not willing to take such a transient population into their work force. So most military spouses resign to the fact that their careers will become secondary in comparison to their military husbands and this becomes exceptionally difficult when the military spouse is a woman as it reverses the traditional man-woman relation. Truncated careers mean that most military spouses tend to take up jobs such as part time teachers in primary schools and less paying vocational jobs. When military personnel retire they face a new set of social challenges as well as monetary challenges. The authors point out that it is only on retirement that families really come in contact with the civilian world and now have to adjust to the changed social reality. Despite a pension for those who serve twenty years, many service personnel take up a second career. Pensions and retirement benefits which were better in yesteryear have now diminished with service personnel having to contribute greater amounts of money to avail the same pensioner’s benefits that they did previously.
The stressors that exist during peacetime get exacerbated during wartime and some very real and special anxieties build up in the lives of military families as was documented during a survey of army families carried out during the Gulf War. Other than the emotional stress of not being able to communicate with their husbands deployed, other problems such as limited powers of attorney given by banks made it difficult for the wives to handle financial matters when conditions changed. This happened because most spouses had limited exposure to handling financial matters when their husband’s were around. Also, some families complained that local businesses took advantage of the fact that the husbands were away and charged them higher rates for certain services for example car repair (Martin, Rosen, & Linette, pp. 124-126). During the time husbands were away on deployment, families try to adjust to the missing parent and many succeed. However, many did not. The uncertainty, loneliness and separation often became the reasons for infidelity and affairs (Martin, Rosen, & Linette, p. 157) leading to messy divorce proceedings at a later date. Because of the separations, uncertain living conditions, emotional stress and suspicions that build up due to living separately, spousal abuse in the military has been reportedly higher than that is found in the civilian world (Martin, Rosen, & Linette, p. 170).
The book also looks into the conditions of adolescents in military families and find that their physical and mental health were comparable to those found in the general public and that the additional stress of military life did not significantly impact their overall growth (Martin, Rosen, & Linette, p. 225). Chapter 17 gives the civilian service provider an overview of what the future challenges are likely to be faced by the U.S. armed forces and how the service providers would have to factor these changed circumstances when deciding upon the right course of action with regards to formal support systems. The chapter has rightly pointed out that though the Cold War had ended, the deployment of U.S. armed forces in peace keeping, peace building missions and war on terror will increase exponentially and that will create additional strain on military families who will have to cope up with longer periods of absenteeism of parents. Economists have categorized the entitlement of junior enlisted personnel to be the ‘low income category’ (Martin, Rosen, & Linette, p. 261) and that is not likely to change making it all the more challenging for the civilian service providers to formulate support systems that is affordable. The demise of Officer’s club, NCO’s club, subsidized recreation centers to privately run firms mean that such benefits will reduce adding more financial strain on the families. Dependency on the state will be discouraged and there will be greater integration of civilian enterprise and military support systems using the best of the wired technology to reduce costs.
While the book adequately provides a newcomer service provider, the basic knowledge towards understanding the complexities faced by military families, the studies draw insights from primarily U.S. Army surveys and may not represent the conditions faced by the US Air Force or the U.S. Navy families whose service conditions differ significantly. The book is informative but offers no prescriptive advice to a civilian service provider except some generalizations, which are short on specifics. For example, the book says that subsidies and subsidized services to the armed forces will reduce but does not provide any suggestions as to how the service provider can make good the shortfall.
In conclusion, it can be reiterated that the book delivers on its promise of being a comprehensive guide for civilian service providers who are unaware about the complexities of life faced by military families and who would be increasingly be called upon to take charge of the formal family support system and thus is recommended as compulsory reading for all civilian service providers.
References
The Military Family: A Practice Guide for Human Service Providers by James A Martin, Leora N Rosen and Linnete R Sparacino, Westport: Praeger Publishers, 2000, 282 pages, ISBN 0275965406, 9780275965402, Nonfiction, Social Sciences