Middletown (NY) Time Herald-Record
October 31, 2007
Army Steps Up For Families
By Alexa James, Times Herald-Record
West Point — In his first six months as Army Chief of Staff, Gen. George Casey Jr. traveled across the country, asking soldiers' families what they wanted from the Army.
What could the military create to make their lives better? What could they do to keep them enlisted?
The answer was always the same.
"(They) don't want fancy new programs," Casey told a crowd of officers, cadets and children gathered at a youth center at the United States Military Academy yesterday. "(They) want us to fund what we've got."
Casey was on post yesterday, along with Secretary of the Army Pete Geren, to sign the new Army Family Covenant, a mandate to improve family programs at military installations worldwide. It means bigger schools and day-care centers, better housing and health care, and more career and personal opportunities for the families attached to soldiers. The covenant also comes with money — $1.4 billion in 2008 to rebuild, refurbish and staff this higher standard of living.
This, Geren said, was the Army's belated commitment to catch up with the demands of today's soldier in an "era of persistent conflict."
"We're in the seventh year of the war in Afghanistan, as you all know better than I," Geren said. "We're in our fourth year in Iraq. We're in uncharted territory."
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are the largest and longest conflicts the nation has faced using an all-volunteer force. To sustain the numbers it needs, the Army will have to win the hearts and minds of its troops' families.
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