"My Path from Civilian to Veterans & Military Family Political Activist"
My husband Mike joined the Army at 18 and put in 13 years. When he got out in 2000, he met and married me, moving to Seattle to work in law enforcement. I didn't know anything about military life or being a military spouse. In fact, I was pretty comfortable in my life as a civilian.
After a year or so, he asked if he could join the local reserve unit in Seattle (in his MOS or Job Description) and I said "Sure, why not?" Well, the whole unit was activated two months after he was in! Luckily, his main assignment was at Ft. Belvoir (DC area) with only occasional trips to Iraq, so I was able to visit often though it was officially TDY. (Temporary Duty)
The army put us up in an apartment in Alexandria, VA. I'll tell you.... I got an eyeful of the kind of sacrifices our country expects not only from our service members, but the family members who love them. It was so hard....This whole "Mission First" concept was foreign to me.... can you imagine that when Mike was first deployed my initial response was "Why don't you just give the Army your two weeks notice and quit? :) He finished his assignment in April 2005 ... for a total of 1 year and 9 months.
While I was in the DC area I served as a Red Cross Volunteer at Walter Reed Army Medical Center working the medevac flights. After our wounded are airlifted to Landstuhl they arrive at Andrew AFB and then Walter Reed. I would be there waiting with the wives and other family members, provide companionship and information about Walter Reed, lodging, the DC area, etc. until the doctors had their soldier triaged and in ICU. I then would accompany the family up to be briefed by the doctor and be present when they finally could see their soldier. Since they stayed for months, I would become friends with some of the families and stop by a couple times a week to visit or take them shopping. I tell you, the families were so brave and the doctors at WRAMC were amazing, but I am sure you understand that it was no pretty picture.
I really was upset by the whole thing, not just what I saw at Walter Reed, but the use of our military that put these usually young (but not always....a lot of reservists were in their 30's and 40's) in harms way.
I wanted to get involved to make sure that our military was used responsibly and have gone on to help found Veterans & Military Families for Progress so we could work to not only assure that folks on Active Duty have the pay, gear and support needed to do a good job, but to ensure that the commitments we as a nation make to our veterans are upheld. Things like full funding for the VA, getting rid of concurrent receipt, and generally those veteran benefits I am sure most civilians are vaguely aware of.
VETERANS and MILITARY FAMILIES for PROGRESS is a new, non-partisan, 501(c)(4) grassroots organization dedicated to ensuring that the rights and needs of veterans, active-duty service members and their families are:
- understood by the American public,
- endorsed by our elected officials, and
- protected by legislation, regulation, and public policy initiatives.
It is the first VSO (Veterans Service Organization) to actively endorse and support candidates who are in alignment with our position on issues. Our goal - bring the tools used by activists to create political will for change to vets and their families.
It is time for us to get political! To learn more about VMFP or to join please visit www.vmfp.org.
This diary will keep you posted of our activities and share with you specific things you can do to truly support our troops and honor our veterans. I look forward to communicating with you all.
God bless you, and keep the faith!
Posted by: ERNurse on November 20, 2006 02:07 PMYes, Truesoldier, VMFP does try to raise the level of debate to one of issues and will not be distracted by attempts to "swiftboat" those engaged in the conversation. Also, VMFP has no official position on the war, we are not a war or foreign policy group.
Our Mission statement states that we are dedicated to ensuring that the rights and needs of veterans, active duty service members and their families are:
- understood by the American Public
- endorsed by our elected officials
- protected by legislation, regulation and public policy initiatives.
We will work with any party or person who will bring their energy, wisdom and efforts to our group. Below I will give you bit more history of our group, but as my post suggests, I began this journey as an informed, politically active citizen ,unaware of all things veteran, got quite an eyeful of V3 warfare (vet vs. vet) at our Founding Convention. I observed that if someone can throw a "you support John Kerry" or "I hate Jane Fonda" bomb into a group of vets and totally distract them from the mission of creating political will for change, then it was no surprise to me that after 30 years we still don't have mandatory full funding for the VA, that concurrent receipt is still cheating veterans out of what is due them, and a whole host of issues that should unite all veterans and military family members goes unaddressed, to the detriment of us all. And I made a promise to those many families with loved ones in Walter Reed something will be done to mitigate the pain of their journey (not getting political AT ALL with those families , by the way)
Yes, you will see our original organizers came from the left, but we understood that only by finding common ground on issues with our brothers and sisters on the right will we be able to gather enough "troops" to accomplish our mission. We also need folks from the right to help inform, temper our positions (in healthy debate, not name calling) and to assist in outreach and lobbying those elected officials from your side of the aisle. We welcome you to the table as it is only together that we will prevail.
Also, if VMFP vets can let military families join them at the "big table" with full voting rights, I think that demonstrates that we welcome ANY person who is sick and tired of year after year of the disgraceful way this country treats its veterans.
In this spirit, I searched out a right leaning political website on which to share some ways we can work together. And keep your bloggers informed. I will email you (as soon as I learn how, ERNurse, with the requested information.
For now, here is the "Story" of our founding, which I posted on WASHBLOG, my chosen "left" blogging site:
As a note, I did go to John Kerry Headquarters in DC (this was 2004) and volunteer to work full time at the Vets for Kerry outreach desk. My thought was to get our troops a new commander in chief.... Not to be... That lead to the connections that resulted in my attending the VMFP Organizing Convention described below:
To a bloggers question about VMFP being the eventual outgrowth of Vets for Kerry I wrote this:
Yes, the organizers of our first convention were about 20 of the Vets for Kerry State Coordinators from across the country. Washington State VfK members Debby & Bob Pattin, Dennis Mansker, Ralph Chappell and others came to Milwaukee, WI in February 2005 to explore "where do we go from here".
Also in attendance were members of the American Legion, VFW, Vets for Common Sense, The VVA, Vets for Peace, The VVAW (!), vets soon to run for congress, including Tim Walz from the MN-1 CD and assorted members from about 20 different veteran organizations. Everyone was excited to see what would happen.
Much to my surprise, the veterans did not seem to be planning on capitalizing on one of the most important lessons learned late in the Kerry Campaign.... to include military families in this organization.
I gathered some of the "Moms with a Mission" Kerry campaigners and attended. It was there that we made a compelling argument that a political organization was about $$, votes and grassroots volunteers and families would increase our influence exponentially.
After two days of breakout sessions, proposals, arguments, floor fights, an inspirational speech by Congressional Medal of Honor recipient Paul "Buddy" Bucha, and calls by Kerry, Max Cleland and others the basic tenents of VMFP were agreed upon:
• We would be incorporated as a 501(c)(4)
• We would abandon the "auxiliary" model and military families would be involved at every level with full voting rights
****** • Most importantly, we would be non-partisan and work with all who embraced our position on issues ******
I served on the temporary board of directors, who over the next six months crafted our by-laws and completed the necessary paper work to become a legal organization.
At our founding convention in September 2006 in Washington, DC, the membership in attendance, this time including 10 (!) members from Washington State, passed our by-laws and VMFP was born.
I was elected to serve as National Secretary, I post I currently hold, in addition to being the interim President of VMFP-WA.