The general public doesn’t often think about families who have children with special needs in the Armed Services. Rather we think about hearty young men and women volunteering to enter the Army, Navy, Air Force, National Guard and Marines. We feel proud of them as they put their lives on the line, but seldom do we consider that they may have serious additional problems like children with disabilities.
In actuality, hundreds, probably thousands of families in the services have children with special needs and disabilities, and are often confronted with huge obstacles. There are single parents, as a result of divorce or injury or loss of life, having to deal single handedly with these obstacles. Many parents of these children are deployed with only one parent or a grandparent trying to deal with overwhelming circumstances. Even though the armed services tries to make provisions for their families, many families don’t often have sufficient funds to cover expenses that children with special needs require, such as: having specialized babysitters to care for their children during an absence, or special costly medication not covered by insurance. Addressing the issues of non disabled siblings who don’t have special needs might increase further challenges for these families. Despite the fact they are connected by their membership in the Armed Services, these parents often feel isolated from each other, not unlike most parents of kids with disabilities.
The Armed Services try to serve these families as best they can, but are limited in time and money to assist them in all their needs. Most of the services have exceptional family member programs that offer counseling and specialized kinds of supports for the families, yet as parents move from one base to another, they have to begin again with new medical services and schools. One can imagine the challenges the child has to endure. Treatment requires consistency as his or her doctors and therapists learn about the specific needs of the child with a disability. It takes time and energy for parents to find the right doctors/specialists to care for the child. New schools don’t always offer what the previous schools offered. All parents of children with special needs have to deal with changing situations, but for an Armed Services family, their problems can be overwhelming.
More Americans must take pause in recognizing that the sacrifices these families are making goes way beyond active duty and dedicating their lives. They are trying like all of us to carve out better lives for their children, but their odds are even greater.
