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Page 6 November Edition Seven Lakes News<br />
Military Families To Go<br />
Hungry At Thanksgiving?<br />
Awaiting the arrival of the Feeding<br />
San Diego truck that gives out free<br />
groceries every other week the<br />
vast majority are the husbands<br />
and wives of U.S. military service<br />
members.<br />
I knew we wouldn‘t be wealthy,<br />
but I thought it would be a lot<br />
more manageable, said Desiree<br />
Mieir, a mother of four whose Navy<br />
husband‘s most recent deployment<br />
lasted almost eight months. Mieir<br />
can‘t afford cable and often leaves<br />
her home‘s air conditioning shut off<br />
to keep her utility bill down. I didn‘t<br />
know I‘d have to try this hard.<br />
To make ends meet, Mieir and<br />
thousands of other military families<br />
around the country routinely rely on<br />
federal food assistance, charities<br />
or loans from family. Their struggles<br />
are caused by a variety of factors:<br />
the high cost of living in cities like<br />
San Diego, difficulty qualifying<br />
for federal food assistance, and<br />
a transient life that makes it<br />
challenging for spouses to build<br />
careers. Dan Mieir, her husband,<br />
works in Naval communications<br />
and makes $34,279 in basic pay<br />
before taxes. That‘s just under the<br />
federal poverty line for a family of<br />
six in most of the country<br />
Data obtained on 2018-<strong>19</strong> school<br />
year, a third of children at DODrun<br />
schools on military bases in<br />
the United States — more than<br />
6,500 children — were eligible for<br />
free or reduced lunches. At one<br />
base — Georgia‘s Fort Stewart —<br />
65 percent were eligible. 2017<br />
data from an annual Census<br />
Bureau survey showed that more<br />
than 16,000 active-duty service<br />
members received food stamps,<br />
known as the Supplemental<br />
Nutrition Assistance Program, or<br />
SNAP.<br />
I think it is a national outrage,“ Sen.<br />
Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., a former<br />
army helicopter pilot, said. Can you<br />
imagine being deployed and you‘re<br />
in the Persian Gulf, or you‘re in<br />
Iraq right now, and you‘re worried<br />
whether or not your kids are able to<br />
have a meal? We‘re willing to spend<br />
hundreds and hundreds of millions<br />
of dollars on a fighter jet — which I<br />
want our troops to have — to carry<br />
them into battle, Duckworth said.<br />
But if the people that are working<br />
on them can‘t focus on turning the<br />
wrenches and maintaining the<br />
equipment because they‘re worried<br />
whether or not their kids are<br />
hungry, what‘s the point of having<br />
that fighter jet?<br />
When she‘s not getting free food<br />
from Feeding San Diego, Carlisle<br />
normally shops at the military<br />
commissary, which is tax-free, or<br />
at Ralph‘s, a grocery store in San<br />
Diego where purchases of food<br />
accrue points she can use on gas.<br />
You don‘t need to decide, do I<br />
need gas, or do I need food? If you<br />
sneeze hard, a flat tire goes out,<br />
that‘s it, she said.<br />
The lower-ranked enlisted service<br />
members in all branches, those<br />
with pay grades from E-1 to<br />
E-5, make somewhere between<br />
$18,648 and $40,759 in basic pay,<br />
depending on their rank and years<br />
of service.<br />
Operation Homefront is a national<br />
nonprofit whose mission is to build<br />
strong, stable, and secure military<br />
families so they can thrive — not<br />
simply struggle to get by — in the<br />
communities they have worked so<br />
hard to protect.<br />
At Operation Homefront, 92<br />
percent of expenditures goes<br />
directly toward delivering programs<br />
and services to the military families<br />
who need it most.<br />
operationhomefront.org/donate<br />
Edited By: Brittany Samuels <strong>SLN</strong><br />
Source C. Macfadden
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