MyCAA program to resume March 13th - good news for milspouses!

Great news for milspouses everywhere! According to the DoD , the MyCAA program will resume on the 13th of March.

The best part of the article was here:

Thomas also made a point to extend his apologies for the way the program’s pause was handled. “I’ll make no excuses,” he said. “We should have done a better job of notifying our military spouses.”

“We will restore that faith by one: restoring your program and by, two: having the appropriate resources to ensure everyone applying for the program receives the appropriate financial assistance,” Thomas said.

The way the halt was handled was, frankly, abominable. And, I'm happy to see that the DoD realizes the real loss of trust that happened as a result of poor program administration and will actively work to restore confidence in their leaders and programs.

It's a start.

I'd like to say congratulations and thank you to all the spouses, locally and nationally, who banded together to share their personal stories and present their cases to their elected officials and administrative leaders. And, thank you to the military family support groups who created the access and networking ability for spouses to communicate and organize. And finally, to Hampton Road's own Congressman Glenn Nye, who reacted with a sense of urgency that the spouses felt, asked pointed questions, and held a roundtable to give spouses a voice in what was happening.

Bravo Zulus all around.

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Congressman Nye to Host Roundtable to Discuss MyCAA Program with Military Spouses

If you are a military spouse in the Hampton Roads area who has been affected by the unexpected halt to the MyCAA program, please consider coming to a special roundtable hosted by Congressman Nye.

Here is the information from his website:

This Sunday afternoon at 4:00, Congressman Glenn Nye will host a roundtable discussion with military spouses affected by the suspension of the MyCAA program.

Congressman Nye has been leading the fight in Congress to have the program restarted, and to get real answers for the thousands of spouses who were counting on their MyCAA benefits.

When: Sunday, February 28th, 2010 from 4:00 - 5:00 PM Where: Office of Congressman Glenn Nye Address: 4772 Euclid Road, Suite E, Virginia Beach, VA 23462

For more information or directions, please call 757-326-6201

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Military.com has a new FAQ out on the MyCAA situation

This link, provided by Military.com is by far the most comprehensive accumulation of information regarding the status of the "pause" in the MyCAA program and the effects it will have on your educational plan.

Also, I would like to give a shout out to Congressman Nye, always a big advocate for our military families, on his speedy response to the inquires of our military spouses by writing a letter asking Secretary Gates for some answers on the program's rather abrupt halt. The only other elected official to have done so yet was Senator Burr out of North Carolina on his website. Burr even got all interwebzy and tweeted about it ;-)

Oh, and if you'd like to connect with other spouses on Facebook who are talking about this issue, there are two main groups where the action is:

The Military Family Congressional Caucus

and

Take Action against MyCAA Shutdown

Gotta run, I've got a spelling list to go over with Thing 1.

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MYCAA program suspended with no notice, disrupts milspouses ability to go to school

What is worse than not giving military spouses a benefit for pursuing higher education in portable career fields?

Giving it to them and then taking it away (with no notice!)

This article is the first notice that many spouses got that their MYCAA benefits were no longer going to be honored by the DoD (the program is disbursed through Military One Source).

Then, yesterday, there was a follow up by this article which gave little more clarification.

The main source of information for the thousands (Nearly 133,000 military spouses have applied for the program since it launched last March. To date, about 98,000 spouses are enrolled in courses or have been approved for financial assistance) has been through social media outlets like Twitter and Facebook and message boards. The recipients of the benefits, myself included, were not contacted by program officials. Those who have called were told to find "another source of funding."

One of the problems I have with the information being put out about the situation is the vague wording they are using. In the 2nd article I linked to, it says, “Military spouses who already have been approved for financial assistance won't be affected, and spouses who have an account can continue to use the Web site for career counseling and planning, officials said.” But the spouses I’ve talked to say they were told they can’t access the money in their account that they already had approved for next semester (summer semester), they were told to find “another source of funding” - it is effectively leaving them between a rock and a hard place because they wouldn’t have signed up for a program if they hadn’t been assured of the money to pay for it. And now they don’t have the money to pay for it. The message on the site says: "Effective immediately, the MyCAA program is temporarily halting operations. We are reviewing all procedures, financial assistance documents and the overall program. This pause will not affect approved Financial Assistance documents. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. Please check back for updates."

It has disallowed the feature to add classes (like if I wanted to sign up for my summer session) so the statement that it isn’t affecting previously approved financial assistance is misleading. What it means is that people using their MYCAA for THIS semester won’t be affected (which would REALLY be a slap in the face if they decided to not honor payments already made to the colleges!) but the spouse still can’t access any of the money in her account for say, summer session. Which is only 2 months away. What kind of scholarship or “alternate funding” do you think is available, with an applicable deadline/selection process, that will pay out within 2 months? I don’t know of any.

I'll be tracking this issue and encourage you to leave a comment if you have been personally affected by the suspension of this program. It seems like they could have kept the accounts that were already approved going, just not accepted any more applicants, if they had to do evaluation research on the effectiveness/efficiency/salience or any other metric of the program. There are women, signed up to get certificates, Associate’s degrees, and completing Bachelor degrees because they were counting on this money. Now, with no warning, and no explanation, they are going to have to deal with this situation which they entered into in good faith, attempting to pursue higher education, which is hard for military spouses to do anyway for a variety of reasons.

Definitely a #programfail. And the biggest losers are the spouses who were just trying to pursue their education.

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Mullen Finds Little Resistance Among Troops to Gays Serving Openly in Military

Interesting article on Adm. Mullen's question and answer session with service members. Admittedly a small sample of the population but interesting nonetheless. I'd love to see a more rigorous, random selection survey done.

What's your take?

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Article on the Interstate Compact on Educational Opportunity for Military Children

Great article by the DoD explaining the Interstate Compact on Educational Opportunity for Military Children.

Virginia signed on to the compact last year and before he left, Gov. Kaine appointed a council to oversee implementation in our state. According to the council chairman, Sen. John Miller, the council will be meeting for the first time sometime in April. Awesome news for Virginia's military families!

The big areas the compact addresses are:

• Transfer of Records - Official transcripts for military-affiliated children often come from other states or overseas schools. Children are placed incorrectly because some schools refuse to accept hand-carried copies until the official version arrives. Because of the possible time lapse between entry into school and the arrival of school records, this process jeopardizes proper placement for all students and, in particular, those involved in Special Education, Gifted Education, English as a Second Language, and Advanced Placement Courses.

• Course Sequencing - States have varying prerequisite course requirements that can result in thwarting students’ academic advancement, repeating content or eliminating students from Honors or Advanced Placement courses.

• Graduation Requirements - Graduation requirements vary from state to state. In some states, specific courses are required for graduation. The graduation of military students who transfer during their junior or senior year may be jeopardized if they are unable, due to state or local policies or scheduling constraints, to enroll in the necessary coursework.

• Exclusion from Extra-Curricular Activities - Students who enroll in school after auditions, tryouts, elections and membership recruitments are often eliminated from activities that promote socialization and connectedness to their new school community. Often their skills and talents are not recognized or developed or are 1 placed on “hold’ because they are seen as transient or having arrived “too late.” Organizations such as the National Honor Society permit local entrance requirements that can eliminate students even when they have been members in their previous school.

• Redundant or Missed Entrance/Exit Testing - Children who move frequently can be penalized for missing state mandated tests required to enter or exit various levels of the educational system. Tests are often specific to the state and therefore, entrance/exit tests taken in another state, are not recognized.

• Kindergarten and First Grade Entrance Age Variances - Children enrolled in Kindergarten in one state may not qualify by age when transferred during the year to another state. Children who have completed Kindergarten in another state are sometimes denied entry into first grade if they do not meet the age requirement.

• Power of Custodial Parents While Parents are Deployed - Due to circumstances created by military deployment, there are times when children are placed in the care of designated guardians. Legislation is needed to protect the children of these families so that they may continue to attend their school or relocate to the neighborhood school of their newly appointed guardian.

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Lowe's Expands Military Discount

Thanks Lowe's!

My husband's got a lot of work to do around the house when he gets back from deployment and this will surely help with his honey-do list ;-)

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Military Kid Apparel - What's the Scoop?

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The Sisterhood of the Traveling BDUs - two California military teens get organized!

My friend who volunteers with IA/GSA spouses here locally sent me this link to a story on NPR about two military teens.

"The high school girls, who will start their senior year in the fall, have decided to do something that nobody has done before — not Pentagon officials, not governors, not mayors (at least, NPR can't find a record of it). They are trying to organize the first major get-together for the children, specifically daughters, of troops who have gone to war."

Leave it to military brats (and their ingenuity!) to organize their own support group.  We constantly hear that as military spouses we must be proactive and self-reliant.  Is it any wonder, with such role models, that our children are wont to do the same?  Good on em!

In case you want to support their cause, the NPR staff put this information up at the bottom of the page:

To everyone who has commented asking for ways to financially support the Sisterhood of the Traveling BDUs:

You may send a certified check, made out to "California (CA) Military Department (Dept)" -- with the letters "MWR" in the memo line -- to:

Stephanie Breaker Sisterhood of the Traveling BDU's Box 37 CA National Guard J1 9800 Goethe Rd Sacramento, CA 95827

Also, if anyone would like to get something like this started here, leave a comment and we'll see what we can come up with together!

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How to OD on Sappy Love Songs While Your Spouse is Deployed

It started when I was visiting my in-laws for the wedding of one of my husband’s cousins. When my mother and father-in-law went to the rehearsal dinner, I stayed at their house with Thing 1 and Thing 2. I had planned to work on reading a mountain of journal articles I was behind on for school after they went to bed.

After I got them tucked in, and settled in for some heavy reading, I decided to treat myself to some light music. I logged on to iTunes and went about picking a album to listen to when I remembered a kinda sappy romantic song I’d heard on the radio on the drive up. Knowing only the title, “Longer,” I searched for it and came up with Dan Fogelberg. Quickly, I downloaded it.

It was a downward spiral from there.

With the help of the “Genuis” feature, which very obligingly suggested other songs I might like according to what I was listening to currently, it was only too easy to download about 30 other must-have sappy love songs. I got sentimental about the young couple getting married the next day and remembered taking my own vows with Mr. Wonderful - which seem so long ago now. I wondered what their first dance would be, remembering my own was “When I Fall in Love” by Natalie Cole. I found myself immersed in a series of 80’s soft rock songs wherein I renewed my long forgotten love of Phil Collins, Michael Bolton, and Peter Cetera. 

I thought about when we were dating long distance when Mr. Wonderful was in flight school and I was in supply school and I always listened to “Wouldn’t it Be Nice,” by the Beach Boys when he left. Forget living together, living in the same state would have been a luxury at that point. I revisit that song every so often now when he’s deployed.

I also found the old beloved “Leaving on a Jet Plane,” which, in a quirky fluke of fate, played on the radio on the way home the very first time I dropped him off for a deployment.

I went through a veritable rabbit hole of music anthology with a little push from “Genius,” ferreting out long forgotten songs by Huey Lewis as well as current hits like “Come on Get Higher” which describe my feelings better than I could ever put in words. And, in such a simpering, emotion-filled, over the top way…I just can’t resist.

The only thing that stopped me was his parents’ return and the ensuing discussion of my new-found treasures (or obsession, whatever you want to call it). My mother-in-law and I then had a fun discussion of what songs she played at her own wedding as well as other love songs we like – she’s a Joni Mitchell fan. 

Since then, I admit, I have been playing this new concoction of gushy loveydoveyness practically non-stop. I don’t know why it makes me feel better, but it does. I’m calling it my deployment soundtrack. Listening to these carefully picked songs reaffirms and sets free emotion that I tamp down during the day so that I can get through what needs to be done to function. It allows me to revel in the relationship we have built that withstands these long periods of separation. Allows me to think romantic thoughts, reflect on happy times, and think about the entire lifetime we have together. Which, happily enough, puts perspective on this whole being-gone-for-a-year thing.

Call me lame, sentimental, corny – even maudlin.

I’ll still let you see my download list if you want ;-)

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