Working with Military Families

2013 SC Children’s Trust Fund Prevention
Conference
9/24/2013
Prevention Conference
System Wide Solutions, Inc. 2013 1

 Purposes
 Who are veterans, career military and their
children and families
 Who you are most likely to see
 Mental models that influence our decisions
 Most important influences of the military life
on children and families
 Some of the results of the military life on
children and families
9/24/2013
Prevention Conference System
Wide Solutions, Inc. 2013 2

 To provide an overview of the cultural and
social influences on military children and
families that are different from civilian
influences
 To provide a framework into which to fit your
existing knowledge
 To provide information based on empirical
and observational evidence rather than
institutional and legal constructs
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9/24/2013

SERVICE BY GENERATION
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
Greatest
Generation
Silent
Generation
Baby
Boomers
GenX’rs
Millenials
GENERATION
PERCENT
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0
5000000
10000000
15000000
20000000
25000000
Total Veterans Non-Career
Veterans
Active Career
Veterans
Military
Retired
Veterans
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Wide Solutions, Inc. 2013 89/24/2013
0
5000000
10000000
15000000
20000000
25000000
Total
Veterans
Post 9/11
Only
Pre/Post
9/11
Active
Duty
Res/NG

 Served on active duty and chose not to
be, or were not allowed to be, career
military
 Veterans average 64 years of age in US
 The number gets fewer and the average age
gets a little higher every year
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9/24/2013
0
2,000,000
4,000,000
6,000,000
8,000,000
10,000,000
12,000,000
14,000,000
16,000,000

0
2000000
4000000
6000000
8000000
10000000
12000000
14000000
16000000
18000000
20000000
Retired Active Duty Reserve/NG Total
9/24/2013

0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
All Single Parents Women Single Parents
9/24/2013

0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
All Dual MiIitary Spouse Women Dual Military Spouse
9/24/2013

0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
Career Military w/Families Non-Career Military w/Families
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Ten times as many veterans served before 9/11 than after
9/11
Most veterans are older individuals with largest proportion
from Vietnam Era
There are almost four times as many retired career
personnel than active duty career personnel
If you are working with children, you are most likely to see
the children of active duty personnel, younger retired
personnel and recent veterans.
Women in the military with children are more likely to have
less support than men.
9/24/2013

9/24/2013
Mental models that
influence our decisions

 War and combat are the root cause of
problems among military and military
families/BRATS
 The US Military is a microcosm of the US itself
culturally, socially and demographically
 Veterans and Regular Military Professionals are
pretty much the same

0 1,000,000 2,000,000
Deployed in Support
On Ground
Contact with Enemy
Combat MOS
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 Overall veteran rate up 10% since 1999
 Overall civilian rate up 31% since 1999
 Mean age of veteran suicide is 55
 Veterans under 30 have lower suicide rate than
non-veterans under 30
 Among post-9/11 veterans who suicide, 53% had
not deployed and 85% were not in combat

 Younger than US population as a whole
 Better paid than US workers as a whole
 More likely to be from rural areas or small
towns
 More likely to be from the South
 More likely to be white, non-Hispanic
 More likely to be married with children
 More likely to identify self as conservative
 Much more likely to come from a military
family
9/24/2013

Career Military view Civilian view
 To the career military
and their families
military service never
ends even after
retirement.
 The DoD and the
military branch is the
provider of services and
what one identifies
with.
 To the public and the
non-career person who
served and their
families, military
service has an end
point.
 The VA is where one
goes to receive help
after separation or
discharge

George A.
Appenzeller
George W.
Appenzeller
George N.
Appenzeller
Lauren
Appenzeller
George Forest
Appenzeller
Katherine
Appenzeller
Matthew N.
Appenzeller
Gail Appenzeller
Riddle
Tony
Appenzeller
Peggy A. Martin
Forest P.
Newman, Jr.
Susan Newman
Appenzeller
Forest P.
Newman III
Roger Newman
Mark Newman
4 generations
4 career military
1 veteran
11 military
BRATs

 Combat doesn’t appear to be the most important
factor in the effects of military service on most
individuals who serve and their children and
families
 People who have served in the military since the
All-Volunteer Force was instituted are not
representative of the general population
 Career military and non-career veterans are
different from one another in a number of
important ways
9/24/2013

9/24/2013

 To maintain civilian control
 To control the violence implicit and explicit in
military service
 To make what in civilian life is aberrational
become aspirational
 To normalize what would in civilian life be
unacceptable social and work conditions
Military Life and its Families
System Wide Solutions, Inc. 2013 259/24/2013

 Limited rights and different laws- Title 10 US
Code of Laws
 Can-do optimism
 Limited candor
9/24/2013

 Amoral
 Authoritarian
 Obedience expected and demanded
 Accountable only to the chain of command
 Loyalty, duty and honor highly valued

 Aggression highly valued
 History and tradition honored
 Only minimal casualties acceptable
 Social interactions based on caste system
9/24/2013

 Social dependency through all-
encompassing system of care
 Nationalistic
 Priorities are:
◦ mission
 institution
 career
 fellow members and retired members
 families

 Civilian culture values individual freedom -
military culture must limit freedom
 Civilian culture values equality - military
culture depends on inequality
 Civilian culture values achievement, with
limitations - military culture is ruthlessly
achievement oriented
 Civilian culture values self-interest -
military culture values self-sacrifice
9/24/2013

 The occupational-social spectrum under the
special mission of the military - no civilian
analogue
 Military organized by status
 Rank and caste system is visible everywhere
 Social dependency limits growth
opportunities and maximizes social control
opportunities
‣ Behavior of military member is the
responsibility of the commander at all times

 Highly structured society requires that all
members of military family be accountable
for their actions
 Behavior of a family member is a direct
reflection on the military member so child’s
self-worth and identity are directly tied to the
family
 Pressure on the child and family to conform
to values of the culture
 Developing and maintaining beliefs worth
dying for may be necessary for the family to
survive as a unit

 By moving continuously, self-identity could
be lost through the loss of those who become
part of that identity.
 A new life must be reconstructed in a new
community with new roles at each move
 Many military families and BRATS display
typical military determination when they
relocate by denying their grief and loss

 The military family and the military BRAT may
project unresolved feelings from previous
relationships with new relationships - there is
no time to resolve feelings.
 In an ultimate betrayal, for the BRAT, even the
security and structure of the military is
eventually taken away from them
9/24/2013

 The life of military families, especially of
military BRATS, could be described as a cycle
of
loss, grief, reorganization, loss, grief, reorgan
ization and so on.
 Unfortunately, for the BRAT, the loss and
grief may very well be disenfranchised by the
parents and other authority figures.

 The social construction of the military family is
◦ Based in military culture
◦ Supported and controlled by all needs being taken care of
by the military
◦ Isolated in a social matrix with no civilian analogue
◦ Formed as an identity in a military context
◦ Lived in a cycle of grief, loss and reorganization
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9/24/2013

• Living in a subculture of social dependence within a
dominant culture that highly values independence
• Living in a classist subculture within a dominant culture
that denies classism
• Limiting family life by continuously moving in a
subculture that extolls the virtues of family life
• Required to be team players in a culture that is highly
competitive
• Loss of contact with community and extended family
outside of military in a dominant culture that emphasizes
community and extended family.

 The competition for career status and living
in the double binds leads to stresses that
create problems even for those families who
make it to career status
 For those families who don’t make it to career
status, the personal investment in the military
is lost
9/24/2013

 Family construction for military families is
different from family construction for civilian
families
 The military family lives in an environmental
bubble
9/24/2013

 Purposes
 Who are veterans, career military and their
families
 Who you are most likely to see in your
practice
 Mental models that influence our decisions
 Most important influences of the military life
on members and families
 Some of the results of the military life on
families
9/24/2013

 Some of the problems we see with military
families have to do with their environment
 Some of the problems we see with military
families have to do with their culture.
 We often interpret behavior from the
viewpoint of mainstream culture and
experience including the conceptual frame of
and DSM.
9/24/2013

 Working With Military, Military Families and
Military Brats is All About:
◦ Cultural Sensitivity
◦ Accepting the Person in their environment
◦ Understanding their environment
◦ Helping them understand their environment
◦ Helping them accept and use or reject and leave
their environment
9/24/2013
Wide Solutions, Inc. 2013
44

 You do not need to know “special” methods
to work with military families any more than
you need to know “special” methods to
work with anyone else. You use what you
are comfortable with and knowledgeable of.
 What you do need to know is the context
and particulars of the life experience and
life style of the individuals and their
families.
 You then need to decide what, if any, of
your skills and knowledge may be helpful.
Prevention Conference System Wide
Solutions, Inc. 2013 459/24/2013

George W. Appenzeller, LISW CP and AP
PO Box 11391
Columbia, SC 29211
(803)771-6663
georgea@swsolutionsinc.com
www.swsolutionsinc.com
9/24/2013

Working with Military Families

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