Transition for the Spouse, too?

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We're pretty fortunate that the folks at military.com have their strong commitment tothose in and around the US Military. One of the issues of late that has been bouncing around in my head, is that of The Military Spouse in transition.


Transition to "what?" you ask? For now I'm talking about from where we are ... to where we might be going at the end of our Mil Member's current hitch. You know, ... transitioning to the ... Out.Side.World.


The Military Services do a respectable job of getting our Mil Member from here, to there. But what about us? Where's OUR transition assistance program. We could call it: Spouses TransitioningRather EffectivelyProgram, or STREP (Lord knows THAT'S a condition we've dealt with before). When the Mil Member decides to separate or retire, most if not all of them get almost a week of pretty thorough indoctrination on what they need to do and what they can expect.


What about us? Great Scot man, don't you realize that my life is equally and inextricably tied to the US Military as much as my Mil Member? Help me ... help me make the transition too.



We need perspective. We need to understand. We needtounderstand thatHOW this transition occurs, for the first time ... is ... a ... family decision.


We need the perspective of how our lives are about to change, as well as the perspective of what we need to know to support our Mil Member who's about to radically change everything they may have known for possibly 20+ years.


We need to understand how it's going to evolve. What's about to happen? What's this thing called SBP? Why does TRICARE Prime cost so damn much, or maybe, is it rather a great deal compared to what the "outside world" pays for health care?


This is a family decision, yes? Remember, the orders only say "good bye" they don't say "go to." More so than ever before, don't we all need to understand that THIS transition involves TEAM play - the family team and that my vote really is 50% of the deal, no?


DoD has brightened up a bit and Military.Com under contract to DoD, has come on board and developed a program called Turbo TAP -- give it a whirl atTurboTAP.ORG .Since the Services haven't developed any core curriculum built for the spouse from the spouse perspective ... then this program is still one of the best things going.


But, shouldn't the Services be more concerned with my transition as a mil spouse, then simply letting goto this website or inviteme to attend the active duty class as an interested observer?


I'm curious -- we have a number of you loyal SB commenter's who are either at this juncture or have already crossed-over the divide. Did you get good advice focused on you as a spouse? Who helped? What could have been done in your mind?


Oh ... and I want childcare for this week too. Small price to pay to keep me happy ...


Over&Out, MaintenanceToadOne


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