Road Construction

The Chief of Staff of the Army and his wife, General and Mrs. Casey, recently visited Korea. I was invited to attend a meeting with Mrs Casey (2nd from my right) in order to share a little insight into being a non-command sponsored family member. It can be a dangerous thing to ask for my opinion, and here they were giving me an opportunity to give an opinion in a very "official" forum.

We attended a "pre-meeting" a couple of days earlier in order to review the topics. Although I told the chaplain I had been trained in the proper care and feeding of a General's Wife, the pre-meeting was a very good idea because it allowed us to become familiar with the topics addressed. Without any topic overlap, the planning meeting provided the focus that would be necessary for a successful meeting (you know how scattered women can get).

Non command sponsored family members now outnumber sponsored family members about 5:1 in our battalion. Things like housing, transportation, health care, education and financial issues are hurdles that must be overcome in dependent restricted areas like ours. These days, more and more spouses are willing to jump those hurdles in order to keep their families together and with more and more of us living up here successfully then sharing our experiences with other spouses (I call us the "Move to Korea Evangelists") the family members here will only grow. So, while we may look like a group of mild mannered women, we are actually road workers and this meeting was one step in paving the way to making Korea an accompanied tour for ALL Army families.