From the Senate Desk

Statement

Today, more than half of our military members are married. And over 60 percent have children. There are about 1.2 million children in our active duty military families. Almost 65 percent of military spouses are in the workforce.

Last week Georgia Sen. Saxby Chambliss joined me in chairing the seventh in a series of joint Senate hearings to focus on the needs of military families. He is chairman of the Armed Services Personnel Subcommittee, and I serve as chairman of the Children and Families Subcommittee.

These hearings are helping us to understand and find ways to address the unique challenges facing military families today, especially spouses and children of deployed servicemen and women and the families of National Guard and reservists who have been called up for service in our war against terrorism.

In the six hearings we held last year, we learned that the top issues for these families are: education; child care; health care; housing; career opportunities for spouses; and communication resources and counseling for family members.

We learned that several important issues to families can be addressed by governors within their own states as well as across state lines.

And we continue to hear that problems for families of National Guard and reservists have become more significant as more have been called to active duty and asked to serve for longer periods of time.

This year over 40 percent of the troops deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan will be from our Guard and reserve forces. The 1.2 million reservists have 400,000 spouses and 500,000 children, who are directly impacted.

Since those hearings, a lot has been accomplished at both the federal and state levels to lend meaningful support to military parents raising children in these extraordinary times.

The focus of last week's hearing was to examine what states are doing to respond to the needs of military families. While there are things the federal government should be doing and is doing, there are also specific ways that states can work together to help military families.

For example, if a military family was transferred from Fort Campbell to Fort Benning in Georgia, a senior in high school in that family who has taken Tennessee history as a graduation requirement, may not fulfill Georgia requirements and would be unable to graduate. In our hearing, we heard that states are now working together to alleviate those kinds of problems.
Witnesses at the hearing included:

*Florida Governor Jeb Bush;

· Indiana Governor Joseph Kernan;

· Charles Abell, the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness;

· Nolan Jones with the National Governors Association;

· Gen. Dennis Reimer with the Military Child Education Coalition; and

· Holly Petraeus, the wife of Lt. Gen. David Petraeus who served as commanding general of the 101st Airborne and is now charged with rebuilding Iraq's security forces.

The War on Terror continues and must continue. But we know that being at war is hard on families. Our service members serve a grateful nation well and with extraordinary dedication.

There are things we are doing and more we can do to improve their quality of life and lighten their load. I will continue to explore what can be done to support our military men and women around the world who are protecting our freedom and their families at home.

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