Military (Family Life) Myths, Part I

Recent conversations with non-military Tampans has me thinking about how little the average American knows about military life, even when they live very close to a military installation like MacDill. A few myths debunked, and not too much of a rant, I hope.

Military kids drain local schools of resources.

Most military kids do not live in government housing, so someone is paying the same property taxes everyone else pays for schools. For those who do live in housing the feds provide "impact aid." Children of service members all have access to health care and at least one parent is a high school graduate who reads and writes English fluently. They are less likely to need special services than their non-military peers.

Pay is so low lots of military families are on food stamps.

While some service members with children qualify for food stamps, they usually do so because of the size of their families. Advancement beyond the lowest ranks comes swiftly and they soon climb beyond the threshold for food stamps, unless they have more children.

Our military would be a lot less expensive if we got rid of those frivolous things like golf courses, and other recreation facilities. Only the brass uses them anyway.

This really frosts me. The military needs to attract and retain physically fit young people. MacDill has a lot of brass, and retirees, but the typical user is just a regular guy or gal who likes to spend off duty time on sports. To my mind, one of the best retention tools around is the opportunity for athletic participation beyond the high school or college years.