SOLDIERS HAVE PARENTS??

We are a military family. All three of our sons enlisted while they were single (unmarried) and many of "Our Guys" (soldiers we consider family) have also been single. As a result, I have from time to time done some complaining about how about half of Army soldiers are UNmarried but that "family" resources and information were principally for spouses -- parents left out of the loop. (I actually asked what was being done for the "other half" of the Army while participating in a blogger's roundtable that included the Secretary of the Army...)

While recently cruising the Army Home Page on Military OneSource, I was pleased to see the following prominently featured on the page:

New to the Army? Help Keep Your Parents in the Loop

If you’ve just joined the Army and your parents aren’t familiar with military life, keep them in the loop with these materials:

• Resources for Parents of Soldiers
• When Your Son or Daughter Goes Through Basic Combat Training

I don't know how long that's been up there and I'm sure the Army didn't need any prodding from parents... however it got there and however long it's been there, THANK YOU!!

The information under "When Your Son or Daughter..." is pretty basic (it's a starting point), but you should also seek out additional information from sites specific to the military installation/branch of service where your child is undergoing training.

The "Resources..." page provides links to official and unofficial web sites that you might, as a parent, find useful, but also be sure to check out blogs like ParentsZone.org and other military blogs ("Milblogs" -- you can find blogs by branch of service as well as those blogs by parents at www.milblogging.com).

As the parent of a soldier, you should become familiar with some of the other resource information contained on other Army and Dept. of Defense sites for future reference... such as the Army Well-Being site and the Military Homefront page.

I'd really like the Army and the other services to produce content specific to parents (or non-spousal family) with the idea that these people are usually remote (away) from their soldier's military installation and typically have no idea how to contact the installation or chain of command (or even who that might be) in an emergency... or what resources are available to their soldier/sailor/marine/airman/coastie or to the family member (be that a parent, aunt, uncle, sister or brother...) when faced with serious issues involving their child (for example, post-deployment issues). (And, yes, I know that there are those who actually joined the military to AVOID their parents... but every soldier has a next-of-kin somewhere -- that are not "in the loop" but should be!)

I did also find some parent-related information for the other services (some official, some unofficial):

for Parents of Marines
A Parent's Guide to the Marine Corps
USMC - Recruit Training

Marine Parents.com

For Navy Parents
Navy for Moms
Navy Dads


For Air Force Parents
Parents of the Enlisted

AF -- you could do better... information or links for parents could easily be added to AFCrossroads.

For Coast Guard Parents (nice job CG!!)


For National Guard Families

General informational links for all branches, Guard and Reserves at Today's Military and Military.com