Kimberly Hatcher
English 122
B. Kern
March 1, 2010
www.nytimes.com/2010/02/us/26wives.html
Two weeks ago, the Department of Defense suspended grants for military spouses and career aid. The program started last year and spouses were receiving up to $6,000 for college and career training. The program was so popular that the DOD quickly reached its budget for the aid. All spouses who were already enrolled in schools were not affected, but those who had already been accepted to receive aid and were not yet enrolled, lost their grants. One spouse responded in the article, “To me this was a huge slap in our faces.”
Military spouses suffer greatly when it comes to careers. I know this all too well. The frequent moving, instability of having a spouse around to help out, and often raising families with one spouse deployed, puts a lot of holds on a career. When a military spouse does find a job, it is often hard to get promotions because we are not living in one place long enough to establish ourselves. Giving grants to spouses is extremely important because spouses give a tremendous part of themselves to the Department of Defense and only the active duty soldier receives the pay. We deserve to better ourselves in every way available. The decision to have this program was a huge step in acknowledging the sacrifices of military spouses,taking it away from spouses is like taking away a portion of respect that the Department of Defense had established.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I agree with your take on this topic. Being a military spouse myself, I would have been more than thrilled to recieve grants for school. Being a military spouse is hard, it is like a job. You are always moving and things never slow down. I think that they should still continue the grants but maybe put a restriction on how much one person can be rewarded. A little bit is better than nothing.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Kim's oppinion. People in the armed forces work very hard to get where they are. They are not the only ones though. Their spouse also works very hard maintaining the home, a steady life for themselves, and children if they are involved. Finding a job is also difficult because although moving around gives you experience, it doesn't make you a reliable employee. This makes it hard to get a raise. Spouses should get something or more should be given to the men to share with their families. It takes more both the spouse and person in the military to get where they are today.
ReplyDelete