Nearly 1,000 military spouses attended AFA’s 2023 Air, Space & Cyber Conference in National Harbor, Md.—at no extra cost. AFA’s United Forces & Families (F2) program enabled spouses to attend for free and supported sessions focused on spouse issues, including a leadership panel on the main stage in which Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. and his wife, Sharene Brown, took part just weeks before the former Air Force Chief became Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Also on the panel: Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman and his wife, Jennifer Saltzman; Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force JoAnne Bass and her husband, Rahn Bass; and then-Chief Master Sergeant of the Space Force Roger Towberman and his wife, Rachel Rush, just days before Towberman retired.
Military family life is always a challenge. “We’re just regular people,” General Brown said. “Our families either embraced this lifestyle through marriage or were born into it. We chose this path, but they had no say in it. So, let’s show them appreciation and say, ‘Thank you.’”
Sharene Brown, long a vocal supporter of military families through her Five & Thrive initiative, said there is no magic to getting through the twists and turns in military life.
“We just have to deal with it in the moment and take it a step at a time,” she said.
In another session, Lt. Col. Angelina Stephens opened up about her experience with severe postpartum depression, traumatic child births, anxiety, and suicidal ideation while in uniform—issues that are often hidden, but need to be brought into the open because they’re so poorly understood. Topics that she said need to be openly discussed, no matter how uncomfortable they might be, in order for the Department of the Air Force to begin taking care of its people and their families the right way.
“Caring in this context really means caring for people or finding a way to care for people, no matter the circumstance—whether they are working in a vault or they’re PRP, if they’re Guard, Reserve, or spouses and family members, or civilians and/or contractors,” said Stephens, who serves as the chief of integration for the SECAF-CSAF Strategic Execution Group, the co-lead of the Department of the Air Force’s “Fortify the Force” initiative team, and the lead of the CSAF’s “Barriers to Mental Health, Wellness, and Resilience” cross-functional team. “We all came here to serve, and I think we found that, in some cases, it just takes the right care and the right connection to fill that gap and grow someone, allow them to grow and to serve to their full potential.”
Stephens was the moderator for the panel called “Caring for Airmen and Guardians Wherever They Are,” which featured Lt. Gen. Robert Miller, the Surgeon General for the U.S. Air Force and Space Force; Lt. Gen. Tom Miller, Deputy Chief of Staff for Logistics, Engineering, and Force Protection; and Maj. Gen. Chaplain Randall E. Kitchens, Chief of Chaplains for the Department of the Air Force. Together, the panelists represented what Robert Miller called “the perfect triumvirate” of care.
“It’s not all about the medics, although we play a part and there’s medical healing,” he said. “At times you need chaplains, spiritual healing. And at times you need a strong commander, fellow Airmen, Guardians, others that need to be there and provide that care when needed.”
Each of the four family-centric panels connected quality-of-life issues directly to force readiness. During a panel titled “Creative Community Solutions,” Alex Wagner, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Manpower and Reserve Affairs, and Dr. Ravi Chaudhary, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Energy, Installations and Environment, said their recent work on building and staffing child development centers is not a nice-to-have amenity, but an essential component to building the world’s most dominant Air and Space Forces.
“Everything that I’m doing is focused on lethality,” Wagner said—even child care.
“When Airmen and Guardians are focused on their work—[when] they have confidence that their kids are in the right school, that their spouses are taken care of—they’re not worried about economic security. When they are having challenges, they have access to the right resources—with low barriers to entry.”
The F2 Task Force is dedicated to helping Air Force and Space Force spouses to make the connections they need and to find the resources they need to successfully navigate any challenge. Launched in 2022, it expanded its reach at this year’s conference, presenting its own booth as a “rallying point” for spouses, drawing them to meet others like themselves and to learn more about AFA’s programs.
To further those connections, F2 also hosted its first-ever “Milspouse Mixer,” at which Jennifer Saltzman was a guest of honor. F2 has much more in store in the year ahead. To learn more, visit AFA.org/F2.