Making enormous sacrifices every day, military families are diverse and strong, resourceful and patriotic. They suffer daily hardships and disruptions, inconveniences and separations. I know this from long personal experience. During my more than thirty-six years as a Naval Reservist, I missed anniversaries, birthdays and graduations. Not to mention Mother s Day, which really got me into trouble a few times.
Families are an essential factor in the overall readiness and well being of our armed forces.
And within the context of military families, families of Reservists are in a special category. While they are community-based, dependents of many Reservists often don t have regular interaction with other military families or with our military community. Reserve families may not know where to turn when a spouse or relative is mobilized. Many don t have a dependent s ID card. But thanks to Conferences like this, thanks to the hard work of all of you here today, things are changing.