The kids are heading back to school soon. Are you considering your own degree program?

Worried that it’s not the right time? Worried about financing those classes? Making time for homework? Not sure you can make it all work?

Bryant & Stratton College can help you make a plan. The school has a long, rich history of working with military spouses and active duty members and veterans. Every student receives personal attention to sort out the details of classwork, homework and financial aid. At Bryant & Stratton College students have direct access to instructors, academic advisors, academic support staff and military family members can work directly with the school’s Military Relations staff for additional questions or concerns.

What makes Bryant & Stratton College different is that the staff understands the struggles of military life. They know what a PCS is. They understand the stress of deployment and the time constraints that come with being attached to the military. They are also willing to help you navigate those challenges and build a degree program that works with the unique military lifestyle.

Bryant & Stratton College has been named to Victory Media’s list of Military Friendly Schools for the last seven years and as a Top College or University for Vets for the fourth consecutive year.

Degree programs are available both online and at 18 campus locations across four states. Campus offerings are available Monday through Saturday throughout the day and evenings at our campus locations while online classes can be accessed 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Bryant & Stratton also strives to help veterans and spouses afford their degree program. The $6,000 Salute to Spouses Scholarship is a unique benefit for military spouse students. It can be used in addition to MyCAA and other financial aid opportunities.

There are lots of reasons to say no, to say the time is just not right. Bryant & Stratton College can help you find a way to say, ‘Yes.’

Check out all Bryant & Stratton College at www.bryantstratton.edu  Today is a great day to begin your own back to school planning.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation is again expanding the programming it offers to military spouses.

The chamber has long hosted military spouse focused job fairs around the nation. Now, it is not just helping spouses and potential employers to connect but is also helping spouses and veterans preparing for a changing job market and prepare to become leaders in their community.

Check out the fantastic offerings below and be sure to go online and register. For a full list of programs for the rest of 2018, visit https://www.uschamberfoundation.org/events/upcoming

Age of Agility Summit

Aug. 9, Chicago, Il.

Register online at: https://www.uschamberfoundation.org/event/age-agility-summit-illinois

Aug. 23, Memphis, Tenn.

Register online at: https://www.uschamberfoundation.org/event/age-agility-summit-tennessee

We are living in a time of extreme and rapid innovation in technology, causing radical shifts in the workforce and, consequently, drastic changes are needed in how we educate students. Technologists, futurists, and business leaders alike are referring to this fundamental shift as the next Industrial Revolution. We call it the Age of Agility, and we are calling for changes in education that match the forces of change in the economy.

Please join Empower Illinois and America Succeeds for the Age of Agility Summit Illinois on Thursday, August 9. This event will present insights and perspectives from business, education, and policy leaders on what the Future of Work means for restructuring the way we deliver education – helping us crowdsource strategies and solutions to take action within our state and across the country.

Children only get one chance at a quality education. We must do everything we can to ensure that they get the education they need and deserve to succeed in the future.

Minneapolis Community Engagement Event-A Call to Lead: Creating Lasting Impact through Innovative Solutions

Aug. 27, Minneapolis, Minn.

As a leading veteran-friendly city, Minneapolis provides the perfect backdrop to host an engaging discussion focused on public-private partnerships and community engagement around military family support—especially from the employment and career support angles. To that end, on August 27th, 2018, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation’s Hiring Our Heroes in partnership with Comcast NBCUniversal will host “A Call to Lead: Creating Lasting Impact through Innovative Solutions".

This half-day event intends to highlight Minneapolis's military community and support, provide best practices for businesses to engage the military community and move from veteran friendly to veteran ready, and highlight pathways to career fields identified as promising options for veterans.

Register online at: https://www.uschamberfoundation.org/event/minneapolis-community-engagement-event-call-lead-creating-lasting-impact-through-innovative

WOMEN IN SPORTS.
WOMEN IN LEADERSHIP

Sept. 17, Washington D.C.

The second annual SPORTS FORWARD summit will explore the future of women in sports.

Join us as we hear from athletes, business leaders, and champions of equality who will discuss the value of sports in preparing women for leadership roles. 

Speakers will address societal attitudes about women in sports and ideas and solutions to boost participation, access, and fan engagement.

Speakers include: 

• Abby Wambach, Soccer Champion, Olympic Gold Medalist, World Cup Champion, American Soccer Icon
• Brenda Andress, Commissioner, Canadian Women’s National Hockey League; and Founder and President, SheIS
• Caiti Donovan, Co-Founder and Executive Director, SheIS
• Dan Black, Global Recruiting Leader, EY
• Heather Garozzo, Director of Fan Engagement, Team Dignitas
• Joanna Lohman, American Professional Soccer Player, Washington Spirit in the National Women's Soccer League
• Katie Warner Johnson, Co-Founder and CEO, Carbon38
• Sasha DiGiulian, Professional Rock Climber

Register online at: https://www.uschamberfoundation.org/event/sports-forward-0

By Amy Nielsen

So unless you live under a rock, you know this week was the longest full lunar eclipse in forever. Full moons are notorious for sending people off the deep end. This was bound to be an interesting weekend for sure.

It is the last weekend of the term at school and we are all busily stuffing BS into papers and cramming our brain cells with knowledge that will come out only at the least appropriate moment in the future like while trying to remember that nice lady’s name.

It’s all a blur and I can’t remember what I wrote an hour ago much less yesterday.

I travelled to school this weekend as I always do, this is a three day instead of our regular two being the end of the term. Usually my husband is home with the kids, but he also had school away from home this weekend. My mom is hanging out directing Camp Nana including fishing trips, ice cream, and knitting. We are lucky to live within a day’s drive from her so she can help out a few times a year. Our most local dear neighbors moved away this week and we sadly lost our last reliable local childcare. Beginning next week, we are going to be scrambling to find coverage.

We have been planning all summer to enroll our kids in school, finally. We are a very happy road schooling family and so far have managed very well. When I decided to attend graduate school, I sorely misjudged my recollection of my college days and underestimated the amount of work my program takes to complete. It is much more rigorous than I expected. I absolutely love it and wish I had been able to focus on being this kind of student the first time around.

Now that I do have the time to really dig into my material, I can spend a full 30 hours or more a week on lessons and homework for my eight credits this term. Granted, I have the time so I take the time. But therein lies the rub in this program. I get to take the time, but it is expensive to our family for me to have the luxury of being a full-time student.

Two weeks ago I interviewed for an entry level job in my field, doing what I am trained to do. I was under the impression the job was a traditional schedule. The setting is exceptional and exactly in line with a part of my profession I really should know more about. Getting paid to do what I do, close to home, full-time – with benefits, and an organic lunch every day would be perfect.

Except that my husband doesn’t work traditional hours and my school is four states away and our school district doesn’t offer afterschool care.

I was hopeful we could come to an agreement about the schedule when I accepted the offer letter. However the more I think about this and the closer I get to the start date where I will meet up with HR to discuss the fine details, the more I get knots in my stomach thinking about organizing child care, my homework load, my clinical load, and my husband’s schedule. Given the already set school, travel, and work schedules, if I add a full-time job on top of it all, I will see my husband for about four hours in mid-September at this rate.

Taking away the hours a day I spend working on my school projects would put such a crimp in my ability to focus on the material that I feel like I would have to cut my credit load each term to a part-time load. If I do that, I lose my funding, which means I lose my school. I could try to work it out and do less detailed projects and spend less time on the optional extras each professor includes, but isn’t that material the whole reason we go to school? To be able to really learn?

So the dilemma now is do I let the job go and focus on getting a deeper education or focus on moving my career forward by getting something on paper that shows someone hired me to talk about what I know. The answer of course is focus. In my line of work, energy matters. What draws one’s focus, what holds it, what is the focus of a daydream or makes one lose track of time. The practical side of paying the gas bill aside, I really don’t want to wear heals every day.

If I don’t take the job, how do I pay the gas bill? Focus, dig deep, jigger the funding with scholarships maybe, and create a new path that includes what was important enough to draw my attention this time. While I have been saying for a long time that I just want someone else to hire me so I don’t have to do the hard stuff, it means I have to do it on their directive. What I learned from this exercise is that I have to be my own boss. That means putting on the Boss Babe Panties and getting all semper Gumby on this life of mine to make it work financially, emotionally, and professionally.

I’m a MilSpouse, I got this.

My teenage son has spent nearly seven months desperately looking for a job.

As a straight-A student, active Boy Scout and community volunteer he has a resume that is as good as any teen. He is 15, soon to turn 16, but figured that wouldn’t be an issue. Most hourly jobs that require little experience could use able, willing workers. Right?

Turns out, maybe not.

Teenage employment, especially teens who work summer jobs, is declining.

Most moms and dads, especially those in their 30s and above remember spending summer after summer hustling to and from their very first job in fast food or at the mall. Today only a third of teens take on summer jobs.

I vividly remember scoring a job at Sea World, selling cups of dead fish to visitors to throw to the sea lions. It was hot, oh so hot. It smelled. Bad. I had to wear a terrible, itchy, polyester uniform in which I recited a silent mantra under my breath, “please don’t let the cute boy from history class visit the sea lions.” 

I learned lessons that summer. First, you don’t make a lot of money working eight hours a day at minimum wage, which at that point meant about $6 an hour. Second, most of that money disappeared into taxes. Third, the rest went into my parents’ gas tank.

Sigh.

But still, I had a job, and it gave me experience that led me to better jobs in an office and retail. I never did manage to nab a position at the movie theater, however, the holy grail of all teenage jobs in our small town.  

Today, my son couldn’t find work doing anything, even typical teen jobs such as bagging groceries and washing cars. Part of the reason, business has changed.

He was told more than once that the minimum hiring age is 18, even though our state law says work can begin at 15 with limited hours.

Also, NPR reported that teens simply do not have the skills that employers want. A recent story by NPR said 46 percent of U.S. employers said they are struggling to find applicants with the skills they need.

It is doubtful teenagers will ever be able to fill that gap.

NPR also reports that the shift away from teenage summer jobs came during the recent recession when so many adults lost jobs they began taking any job they could find, including selling fish to tourists at Sea World. Teens were squeezed out of the market so adults could make ends meet. During the height of the recession teen unemployment hit a record 27 percent.

I told my son to not worry about it: to take the unpaid internship he was offered, to enjoy, to guiltlessly go to summer camp. He had four short years in which to spend his summers as a carefree kid and some day he would look back on them and smile.  

Turns out the NPR report says as a mom, I’m not far off track. Across the nation guidance counselors are urging teens to spend their summers preparing for the future, not working eight hour shifts.

Colleges now offer summer camps to high schoolers, unpaid internships are available in hospitals, labs, newspapers, virtually in any field you can imagine. Those experiences are worth far more than a minimum wage job.

So, if your teen is wearing out his shoe leather on the mean streets of unemployment, urge them to relax and focus instead on experiences that will guide them to their future careers, not a current, crummy small paycheck. They will be richer for it in the long run.

Have you shopped outside the gate lately? Did you feel a slight sticker shock at the price of even the simplest of items?

That’s because prices are rising and it could be bad news for all of us.

CNN reported that the Consumer Price Index, which tracks the cost of common shopping list items, rose 2.9 percent in June, the biggest jump since 2012. Paychecks, however, have not increased at the same rate. The report also says average hourly earnings only increased 2.7 percent. If you fall in this category, it means you can’t buy more, you are just paying more for what you already buy.

In the same time period, sales at commissaries have fallen 21.3 percent since 2012.

Read that again, the military commissary, which military families have routinely named as the second most valued benefit after health care, is not being used as much by military families.

And as far as the calculator pushers at the federal government are concerned, use it, or lose it.

While both the Department of Defense and Congress don’t want to do away with the commissary, they do want it to cost less, according to Military.com.

The DOD wants to lower the amount of money it gives for commissary operations from $1.4 billion in 2017 to $400 million by 2021. The only way to do that? Generate more sales.

That won’t happen if more of us are headed out the front gate to do our shopping. Experts say the commissary is also competing with meal order services. And there is the long-standing argument of just how much you save shopping at the commissary vs big box chains such as Walmart.

We would argue the value is enough for all of us to make shopping at the commissary a priority.

Military life is inconsistent. Changes are constant. Move is inevitable. One constant: the commissary. You can rely on the commissary to keep prices constant and affordable, even when you move to a duty station like Hawaii where staples like milk can cost $6 – 8 a gallon in a civilian store.

You also rely on those constant low prices when you leave your job in the next PCS move and your family drops to a one-income household for what could be months. Few other stores outside the gate can help you stretch your dollar as far as the commissary.

The bottom line: shop at your commissary. We guarantee you will miss it when it’s gone.

We just passed our second Fourth of July since we arrived here in Florida last year and completed our last PCS as an Army family.

In the next 12 months we’ll mark our second school year here, our second birthdays here, our second Thanksgiving, our second Christmas and New Year’s and Valentine’s Day and Easter and Memorial Day.

The first year in a new place is always a learning experience. There is trepidation, but also excitement and challenge and stimulation, usually in a good way.

If you hated your last place, the new place is a fresh start. You can try a new job, new hobbies, new friends. You can completely reinvent yourself if you really want to.

And if you loved your last duty station, the first year is a time to grieve. It’s a time to realize that things change - always. Even if you stayed in the same place, others would have moved on. It’s also a time to open yourself up to new experiences, no matter how hard that might be.

You know what both those scenarios remind me of? A rebound relationship.

And just like a rebound relationship, by the end of that first year you almost always realize that everything will be OK.

Then comes that second year, and it’s a whole new ballgame.

For us, the second year at most duty stations was also our last. So just when we hit our stride and got over that last great (or awful) duty station, and made new friends and passed all our first milestones in our new home, we were celebrating our last ones there, too.

That second year was always a weird time of looking backward and forward all at once. It was when I started to compartmentalize my memories and emotions to make room for whatever was to come at the next place.

But this second year is different.

I was fine with leaving Army life behind and, honestly, hadn’t thought about it much until the past few weeks.

Then, the “seconds” started.

 And so did the looking back.

Suddenly, I’m gripped with emotions. I find myself in tears at anything remotely military-related – a Facebook post about a friend’s retirements, seeing service members in uniform at the commissary, even those USAA commercials.

Is it delayed grief at leaving that life behind? Nostalgia for what was but will never be again? Loneliness? Fear?

Not exactly.

We left the Army at the perfect time for us. We loved that life and have many fond memories and lifelong friends, but we’ve moved on. We’re doing our best to put down roots here and become a part of the community. We’re settling in, hopefully at least for the next five years until our kids are in college.

This time, our second year here isn’t our last. And our third and fourth years probably won’t be, either.

The best way to describe what I feel right now, as the second milestones start hurtling by one after another?

Lost.

Not because of where I am or where I’ve been, but because of where I’m not going.

By Amy Nielsen

I am currently about half way through my Master’s program. I say half way because at every turn I keep kicking the can down the road and am now looking at including post graduate internships.

I did a thoroughly unscientific poll for advice early on in my first or maybe second term, asking my friends on social media how to A) make the best use of my limited time in the program and B) survive the depth of material I was wading into.

The answers that came back ranged from, “Wine. Lots of wine,” to “Find a study buddy from your cohort to tie at the hip to,” or even “buy stock in tissues and Pepto.”

My most favorite answer came from a dearly beloved family member who has been there done that. I took it to heart and have enacted it in plan - “Pick a subject and do every project from the perspective of that subject. It will focus the answers to all your assignments to the six basic questions that should be asked of every question; who, what, why, how, where, when. You will become a subject matter expert and will understand much more clearly how the system works as a whole.”

My program is of a medical nature so I chose a topic – a disease - I felt I needed to learn more about because it touched my life personally. It happens to be a subject that is of interest to a large segment of the population of the world and if studies prove right, a rapidly spreading issue. There is a large body of evidence to work from and has been studied for a significant period of time. It is a global condition that effects many different kinds of subgroups. My particular school and degree program give a spin to my research that allows me to integrate material from a wide range of interesting sources.

As soon as I started viewing the lessons through the disease lens I had chosen, it was like suddenly the fog cleared. I understood how pieces of many vastly different systems could possibly react to each other causing greater imbalance. I could see where I might be able to help nudge a trend to follow another slope towards health. I was able to categorize information as driving towards the catalyst of the problem or as a help in maintaining an even balance.

I started writing lots of detailed evidence based discussions and group projects. Remember those long research papers with references in high school – yeah, lots of those – only with peer reviewed sources. It seems like every class I am writing another five hundred word, five APA style referenced discussion post. That’s not including the end of term assignments at easily triple that length.

To say it’s a good thing I like to write is a blazing understatement.

Research and writing are strong suits of mine. I’m like a pig in – um – crap - doing this kind of work. I was tickled pink when I started to see the same authors pop up over and over again. I began to recognize resources I had used in projects for one class that fit multiple classes. I have begun to build a small library of references I know I can use for the introduction section of any assignment. The hard part is differentiating my tone and topic enough on each assignment so as to not plagiarize myself.

I ran into a time crunch last week when I discovered that I had almost missed the deadline to submit a discussion post. As I started to research the topic, several of the links in my returns were that telltale purple of having been opened before. After the third search turned up a significant amount of purple, I decided to check in my files to see what I had written about this topic before and for what class. Like I said, I write and research a lot, and just because I don’t remember writing an assignment about the topic, doesn’t mean I didn’t.

Low and behold, not only had I written one, I had already written two. No wonder it sounded familiar. Both assignments were written about the same substance as used by the disease and how it is deranged in different subsystems. The challenge now became how to write about this substance and this disease in a new and refreshing way for yet a third system. In five hundred words supported by at least five APA cited references - before midnight.

I looked at the two titles in my document list. I contemplated mushing them together into one giant passive aggressive piece of academic slop. But I stopped myself. Because, integrity.

What I did do was take the reference list, chose the two most relevant articles from each, and use them as a springboard to research a new submission. I did reread the previously written articles to remind myself of how the substance interacted in those systems, then took a different position supporting the new assignment.

By working smarter not harder I was able to write a submission that built on material I already knew. I was able to integrate past research with new that added to the references I can tap for the next assignment. Best of all I was able to cut down my research time and submitted the assignment under the wire.

Joining the Army National Guard? As of Aug. 5 new recruits will not have to serve a full year before using the tuition assistance program.

Currently Guard members must serve one year before receiving assistance with undergraduate degree programs and 10 years for master’s degrees.  Next month new Guard members can use the tuition assistance as soon as they complete the Advanced Individual Training (AIT) course.

Enlisted soldiers working towards a master’s degree must finish the Advanced Leaders Course (ALC) and officers must complete the Captains Career Course before using tuition assistance.

Military members can receive 100 percent of their tuition covered up to $250 an hour and up to 16 semester hours each year. Individual states may have additional programs to cover education costs for National Guard members who reside in that state.

For more information about National Guard Tuition Assistance, visit www.military.com/education/money-for-school/national-guard-tuition-assistance.html

If you have been stationed in Honolulu, you may know the story of Mary, the homeless woman who camped outside of the JIOC building near Pearl Harbor, often protected from the sun by only an umbrella and an American flag.

She yelled at passing cars. She yelled at the building. But mostly she just sat there and waited.

She passed away on July 4^th. A servicemember, who worked in the building she lived in front of, posted a heartfelt eulogy that has made the rounds in military spouse Facebook groups. Read it ‘til the end. You never know the struggles of another or how the smallest kindness can change their world.

The post reads:  

It is with a genuinely heavy heart that I regret to announce the end of an era. Natalie--often derogatorily referred to as "Crazy Mary" or "Bus Stop Mary"--passed away on July 4th at her chosen home here outside the JIOC fence line.

Natalie was an institution here at the JIOC, living outside our fence for over three decades. She was probably most well known for her often abrasive, even vulgar, behavior. Due to a mental disorder that she struggled to manage, she would often yell at our building and our employees, or blow a whistle when she tired of yelling. There were many stories, both real and apocryphal, that have been shared amongst our halls about her: that a departing employee gave her a megaphone as a gift, that she would throw food offered to her if it didn't fit with her vegetarian diet, that she thought we were keeping her husband locked in the basement of our building. With all of these wild tales and antics, it was often easy to dehumanize Natalie. To forget that she was a human being with a story to tell, even if it was often difficult to discern what that story was.

Despite this, in my three years here, I've seen some incredible acts of kindness and compassion by those in the JIOC who sought to treat Natalie as a person who matters, even when she made it difficult. People who refilled her jugs of water for her, or called social workers on her behalf when she asked, offered her food, or even simply said hello or asked how her day was going. Natalie had many terrible days, but she also had some good ones. She had a surprisingly steel-trap mind when it came to names and numbers. I recall one time she'd heard something on the radio several days prior regarding a runner who was injured at a marathon, and asked me if I knew what happened to them. She rattled off the name, I looked it up, and sure enough, that person had been injured as she had said. She was very relieved to find out they were okay.

One of the most lucid moments I personally experienced was when I drove through the gate one day, and my wife was in the passenger seat with her puppy, Kai. As we were waiting to go through the gate, Natalie walked up, and her face lit up at the site of Kai, asking "Is that a King Charles Cavalier Spaniel?" We said yes, and she started excitedly telling us how that was her absolute favorite breed and asked if she could pet her. She was so overjoyed, so happy, that in that moment, you wouldn't know this was the same woman who obsessed about gas trucks driving dangerously fast down the road.

I had the good fortune of striking up a conversation about Natalie with my bus driver on my way to work one day. She told me that in Natalie's previous, more lucid years, she used to take her bus route all the time. Natalie would chat with the driver every day, sharing photos of her daughter, whom she was quite proud of, from an album she carried with her everywhere. She also told this driver her true story...or at least, one that seems true enough that I choose to believe it is real.

Natalie wasn't outside our base because she thought we were keeping her husband hostage. She wasn't there because she thought we were doing experiments or some other conspiracy. Natalie was a military spouse. Her husband went off to war, and he never came home. It broke her. She couldn't believe he was gone. For over three decades, she camped outside our base. When she was moved by social workers, when her daughter tried to intervene, or when she was forcibly moved due to construction, she always came back. Because she was still waiting for her husband to come home.

Natalie was one of ours. May we honor her as such. May she rest in peace. And may she finally discover that after all this time, her husband was waiting to welcome her home.

The official injured count from Iraq and Afghanistan is 32,226. That number accounts only for injuries sustained on the battlefield. It does account for the thousands more who are suffering from injuries sustained during battle but not considered serious enough to send home from war. Some estimates put that number as high as 900,000 service members.

In turn, that means there are a lot of spouses who are taking time away from their own jobs to shuttle their injured service member to appointments and surgeries.

While a service member still on active duty will not see a dip in pay during treatment, the federal requirements are no friend to their civilian spouses.

Currently there is no legal federal requirement for employers to provide paid sick leave. Companies subject to the Family and Medical Leave Act, those that employ 50 or more employees, are entitled to job-protected time off under that program, but, it is still unpaid.

The law allows for

• Twelve workweeks of leave in a 12-month period for:
  • the birth of a child and to care for the newborn child within one year of birth;
  • the placement with the employee of a child for adoption or foster care and to care for the newly placed child within one year of placement;
  • to care for the employee’s spouse, child, or parent who has a serious health condition;
  • a serious health condition that makes the employee unable to perform the essential functions of his or her job;
  • any qualifying emergency arising out of the fact that the employee’s spouse, son, daughter, or parent is a covered military member on “covered active duty”

Also the FMLA specifically addresses military caregiver leave. It allows for 26 work weeks of leave during a single, 12-month period to care for a covered service member with a serious injury or illness if the eligible employee is the service member’s spouse, son, daughter, parent, or next of kin.

Again, this is unpaid leave. However, it dictates that your job is protected while you are gone and that you continue to receive health insurance benefits.

Many employers may require that you take any accumulated vacation days before your FMLA time begins.

Also, under the rule the employee must have been employed with the company for 12 months and worked at least 1,250 hours during those 12 months.

The most important part of FMLA? Talk to your HR department. Keep them updated, ask questions. Make sure you understand all the rules and fill out the correct paperwork.