Michelle Obama Remarks to Military Spouses

From the Obama campaign:

Remarks of Michelle Obama
Roundtable Discussion with Virginia Military Spouses
Norfolk, VA
August 6, 2008

As prepared for delivery

“Well, it's not every day I'm introduced by a three-star general.  Thank you, Claudia Kennedy, for those generous words.  We are all so grateful for your service.

“And I'm joined up here by a true American hero – Medal of Honor winner, and my friend, Bud Bucha.  He's been advising my husband, and he'll be actively participating in our discussion today.

“I'm so glad to be here in Norfolk.  I knew it was big; I knew hundreds of thousands of military personnel and family lived and worked here; but I wasn't prepared for just how big it is.  It goes on forever!

“I wanted to come here because one of the things I've enjoyed and found so important over the course of this campaign is traveling from city to city and holding these roundtables with women, sharing our stories, and listening to their concerns.  So my job here today is easy – I'm going to be doing a lot of listening.

“I'm humbled to be joined up here by six remarkable military spouses, some of whom served as well.  They each have their own deeply personal idea of the way things should be – a VA system or TRICARE without red tape, a better education for their children, or improved resources for returning servicemen.  But they all know what it's like to balance a career and raising children while having their husbands away much of the time.  And they are all united in their vision for a system that does more to support its families when a spouse is deployed – and long after he or she returns.

“I'm honored to be here with all of you.  We are so grateful – Barack and I and all Americans – for the sacrifices you make as you serve this country that has given us so much.

“In my life, I know I've been blessed by all I've been given.  This is a country that allowed my father to provide for his family on a single salary as a shift worker on the South Side of Chicago, and still send my brother and me to college.  This is a country that allowed my husband to be raised by a single mom of meager means, and still grow up with the chance to run for President.

“And that's why we've tried to serve people the best ways we can.  Early in my career, I left my job as an attorney because I wanted to give back to my community – to ensure that people like my father received the opportunities they deserved, and young people enjoyed the same opportunities I did.

“That same desire to give back led Barack to enter public service more than two decades ago – to turn down more lucrative jobs so he could work for a group of churches on the South Side of Chicago to give job training to the jobless and hope to the hopeless after local steel plants closed down and jobs dried up.

“But few sacrifice more to serve their country than you.  And I know that too often, it seems like you're doing it on your own.  I've heard stories all over this country of families trying to hold it together with insufficient support.

“I've heard from mothers struggling to make ends meet because their salaries aren't keeping up with the cost of groceries.  But if they take a second job, they can't afford the additional cost of childcare.  Moms who are nervous about taking time from their jobs to care for a sick child.  Moms-to-be who are scared of getting fired if the boss finds out they're pregnant.  Women who work hard every day doing the same jobs as men, but earning less.

“And I am amazed at how you do it.  You struggle with all this and more.  If there's one thing I've learned from these roundtables, it's that when our military goes to war or deploys at sea – their families go with them.

“You become everything at home while your spouse is away.  You're running the checkbook.  You're Mom, you're Dad; you're the disciplinarian. You're making dinner and doing homework; and when the bills keep piling up, and that list of chores seems endless, you find yourself with yet another job: worrying late into the night.

“And you don't just struggle with the economic downturn like everyone else; it's often more difficult for you to find jobs.  I've heard from military wives who enter the job market with solid resumes, but find themselves fighting for jobs that pay seven dollars an hour.  Employers look at your resume and wonder why you can't keep a steady job – even though it's only because you're already doing your job as a military spouse by moving from base to base.

“One spouse, former military herself, told me she gave up looking and went back to school to become a nurse – but now faces staggering student loans and $500 in monthly child care costs. Others have children stuck on base waiting lists, or face rules that don't allow them to use on-base child care.

“And I know your marriages face unique challenges.  Your husbands or wives may be deployed for months at a time, working 16 hour days or more, in the toughest conditions imaginable. They sometimes come home with problems you're simply not equipped to deal with, and there can be a stigma attached to asking for help.  Or they come home, life is good, but it's a readjustment period – and as soon as you get back to where you were before he or she left, the bags are packed for another deployment.

“One woman told me, ‘For better or for worse, in sickness and in healthbut it is tough sometimes.'  Another said that during the day, she puts on her pretty clothes and her bold face and holds her head high and holds the fort down.  But at night, she lies in bed and cries.

“You end up taking care of each other on base – from babysitting to delivering bad news – but you're rarely trained or prepared for any of it.

“I hear these stories everywhere I go, from women doing everything that's asked of them and more.  These women aren't asking for much.  They're not asking for government to solve all their problems.  They're just asking for a Washington that understands what's happening to our military families, and the variety of challenges they face as part of their extraordinary commitment to our country.

“My husband deeply understands that commitment – and the commitment America must make to our military families.  Because without that commitment, he might not be here today.

“His grandfather enlisted after Pearl Harbor and went on to march in Patton's Army.  His grandmother worked on a bomber assembly line while he was gone, and his mother was born at Fort Leavenworth.

“When his grandfather returned, it was to a country that gave him the opportunity to go to college on the GI Bill; to buy his first home with a loan from the Federal Housing Administration; to move his family west, all the way to Hawaii, where he and Barack's grandmother helped raise him.

“And so Barack is determined to see that America makes the same commitment to today's military families that it made to his grandfather's generation.

“That's why when he arrived in the Senate, he sought out a seat on the Veterans Affairs Committee – so he could fight to serve our returning heroes as well as they have served us.  He led a bipartisan effort to improve facilities at Walter Reed, because recovering servicemen should go to the front of the line – and they shouldn't have to fight to get there.  He helped pass laws that give family members health care and a year of job protection – so they never have to choose between caring for a loved one and keeping a job.

“But he knows there's more we must do.  Washington talks a lot about family values, but he believes it's time we had policies that value families – and especially our military families.  That's why today, I've brought along copies of a new brochure containing my husband's plan to support our military families.  It's also a resource guide of the services currently available to you here in Virginia -- to help you find a job, get the health care you need, or the family support you deserve.  I'm sure we'll get to a lot of it in our discussion, but I encourage each of you to read through it and share it with others.

“Barack's plan will ensure predictable deployments, so that units have proper time to retrain and re-equip, and families have time to reconnect.  It creates healthier families, healthier troops, and a healthier military.  And Barack will expand the Family and Medical Leave Act so that it covers reserve families – so that when a reservist is called up, the spouse can take time off work to get their family's affairs in order.

“He'll expand the Vet Centers that provide critical services like counseling, mental health care, and employment assistance.  And he'll create a 21st century VA that offers world-class care and rejects the idea that we should only treat combat injuries instead of those sustained in training or on the deck of an aircraft carrier.

“And when our loved ones return home, we will offer them the same opportunity Barack's grandparents had under the GI Bill – the guarantee of a real chance to afford a college education.  That's why Barack was such a strong supporter of our friend Jim Webb's 21st Century GI Bill – legislation that allows servicemembers to share their benefits with their families and achieve the American Dream.

“After all, that's the very idea that's at the core of my husband's campaign – that we are all in this together.  And what has touched me, what has inspired me so deeply at these roundtables, is seeing these amazing support networks you've created while your loved ones are deployed.  You're helping one another – with finances, with day care, with counseling, with babysitting – you're taking care of one another.  That's what America's story has always been about.

“At one of these roundtables, a woman talked of her struggles to make it all work.  As she finished, another woman stood up and said, “I don't know her.  But when she leaves here, she will have my phone number.  And she will be able to call me anytime.  She's got the support of this friend right here.”

“That is the America we believe in.  That's the America we are working to restore.

“And if Barack has the distinct honor of serving as your President, and I have the privilege of serving as your First Lady, I'm going to keep taking your stories to him.  Because the Commander-in-Chief doesn't just need to know how to lead the military; he needs to understand what war does to military families, and what he can do to make their lives better.

“So we're going to keep having these conversations about what we need to do as a society to make sure our military families aren't just surviving – they're thriving.  That's why I'm here, and that's why I'll keep doing this.

“And with that, I thank you – and I want to turn it over to all of you.”