Pay the Piper

People join the military for a variety of reasons. The military is full of opportunities and benefits, from free healthcare for those on active duty to traveling around the world. The military is rich in heritage and duty. Some people feel compelled to serve because there is a legacy of volunteerism in their family. The military provides an outlet to those who need to make an abrupt change to their current situation. The military is a beacon of hope and freedom. It gives a lot, but the military is not a one-way road. There are expectations of reciprocity. Regardless of the motives to join, people joining the military must understand and come to accept that the piper will expect “payment.” 

During my tenure as a military member, there are three primary reservations members have when called upon to participate in a field training exercise, formal training, or deployment. Each point of contention is valid in the grand scheme, but members are in a contract with the military. Albeit run by actual people, who I sometimes feel go way above and beyond out of their way to make concessions and accommodations for those who feel slighted, the oath military members take is sometimes forgettable, yet, still binding.

The first and most common reason for not paying the piper is purely inconvenience. 

“Well, I have my sister’s wedding…”

“I have college finals that week…”

“That’s my anniversary…”

My tolerance for allowing accommodations when called upon to meet readiness and mission requirements is dictated by a variety of factors. First, it depends on the mission’s level of importance. Can a training event be rescheduled? What is the value? What’s the risk of missing this mission? What will happen to the individual if they are inconvenienced? A leader must tread cautiously when conceding to requests of inconvenience as precedence will be set once the first decision is made, although I’m not a fan of the “one size fits all” mentality. Each situation must be weighed on its own ground to ensure readiness and mission success on all fronts.

The second reason, and in my opinion the most common, for not ponying up when needed is due to family care issues. All military members who are either single parents or who are married to another military member are required to have a Family Care Plan (FCP) which explicitly outlines who will take care of the member’s children for short and long durations of time. For the single parents who want to serve, this is a huge challenge. Single parents are at the will of private (and expensive) childcare centers and afterschool programs. Single parents must work with their chain of command if flexibility is needed because the local childcare center doesn’t open until 0730 and PT is 0700. Single parents must employ the help of neighbors, friends, and extended family to care for their children if their number is called up for a 12 month deployment. For dual-military families, the challenges are equally as stressful. If both military parents have a field training exercise in the same week, they are also left to coordinate flying in the grandparents to assist with childcare. The FCP is supposed to force families in these circumstances to thoroughly think and plan for the inevitable. Sometimes the plan works, and sometimes it does not. 

There have been times when I’ve told some military members who have valid and current FCPs on file that they need to prepare for an extended training exercise or deployment, I’m met with, “I can’t…I don’t have childcare.” This remark sends me into a proverbial tailspin. Not because the member has childcare issues, but that they didn’t reveal the issue until called upon to execute the plan. It’s like they were trying to play policy roulette, hoping I would never call them out on it. As one of my colleagues often said, “Bad news doesn’t get better with time.” In the case of being available to fight and win our nation’s wars, transparency is key when dealing with our most trained assets - its members.

And then there are some people who are scared. They won’t say it out loud, but body language says it all. Confusion, discomfort, sweats…these are things leaders must watch out for. Sometimes fear is cloaked with inconvenience. When all other barriers to meeting the mission are stripped away and the military member still hesitates at the thought of being away for a year to a “hot” zone, leaders must ensure training and expectation management are handled appropriately. Leaders must not only validate, observe, and test their members’ skills, but also their grit, creativity, and resilience. The latter could take more time to hone over hard skills. Repetition will build muscle memory, and muscle memory should create confidence. Once members feel confident in their abilities and resolve, fear will be diminished.

We must never forget the same oath we all took.

I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States….

There will be times when the country calls on us to do our job, both near and far, in the classroom and in the sandbox. In matters of life and death, leaders must evaluate true priorities so as not to let subordinates miss their child’s birth or be by their father’s hospice bed. But we must never lose sight of our commitment to freedom, even if we must miss the first day of school for our kids or our sister’s destination wedding in Hawaii.