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AUSA - Day Two
This was my first FULL day at AUSA - I attended a large session with dozens of FRG leaders in the audience. This was directed at the Reserve and Guard Components - lots of memories of the last deployment for me, when my husband was with the Minnesota Guard. Those Guard Parents out there - Changes are coming, at the usual Army glacial pace - but they are coming.
I have lots of links etc to share with you. A new format/page structure will be coming soon on PZ, and they’ll be easy to find.
But - I am really psyched about vFRG. One point I checked on with the ArmyOneSource folks - If your soldier’s unit has a Virtual Family Readiness Group Site - you can click in, and request that you be added - this email goes to your soldier and supposedly all he/she needs to do is click Yes (or whatever the box says) and you will be added to the list. Now the VFRG is only as good as the support from the unit, that’s its one drawback - but it IS a start. So talk to your soldier - tell him to get off his tail and add you!
I collected many many cards from “Family Resource” booths and talked about the need for Parents to be included in that umbrella of “Family”. And I was heartened by how many groups are realizing this! Military Family Network even has a portion of their site for Military Parents.. Another group, for the caregiver for a wounded servicemember, is very open to helping Military Parents - they are called Operation Life Transformed . The Brass - ie Senior military - also talked about Extended Families. So there is hope out there for Parents - who won’t be relegated as just “some soldiers mom“.
As mentioned above, we are going to make some changes here, let us know what you want to see, and what you need to see, and what you don’t want to see.
LAW
Report from AUSA - Day one
First - AUSA = Association of the United States Army - This is the Annual Meeting, being held here in the Convention Center in DC. It is MASSIVE!! I haven’t seen this much “brass” (officers Lt. Col and above) in one place in a long time. There is also a HUGE Expo - and lots of “family” support folks. So I trolled the floor for an hour or so - and met some folks who KNOW there is a problem with including the Parents.
Then I went to a Bloggers Roundtable with Maj. General MacDonald - the commander of the Family Morale Welfare and Recreation Command, together with others. They are listening! One of the points brought up, was the fact that there are now Casualty Assistance officers for ALL family members. This means that even if the soldier is married, there is someone else there for the parents. A reporter from Army Times was in the group - she was telling me that early in the war, parents weren’t being notified, the Army thought the spouse would do it, there were instances of divorced parents being indescribably vicious to the “other” parent and not notifying him of the funeral arrangements~ this won’t happen - should I say shouldn’t happen- again. I mentioned the problems with Basic Training and parents being in the dark about what, where, how, graduation, etc. Since I’ve been told the Marine Corps does a splendid job, I told Gen MacDonald - he’s interested in doing the same for Army Parents - so there is hope!
On a much lighter note, Army One Source rolled out something call the vFRG - The Virtual FRG. The way this works - from how it was explained to me - the soldier needs to “register” his family members and that definitely includes parents, and siblings - with the person at the unit that is in charge of the vFRG. You would then be able to sign in, and connect with other family members in the unit. The unit has to request a site, and there are thousands that have done so. When I was at the Army One Source booth (and I’ll be back there today, believe me!) a rather bored Bird Colonel was defending the Army rather stridently when I told him our concerns, seems they have been hearing this - from our very own Some Soldier’s Mom!!! Thank you, SSM - they ARE hearing it!
I’ll report more tomorrow - I’ll be at the convention all day, and I’m going to let PZ Techmama tell you herself about meeting Mrs. (Gen) Gates and the conversation they had about ParentsZone!
Exciting times, folks. Exciting times.
LAW
