The National Military Family Association shares efforts to improve military quality of life on the Tango Alpha Lima podcast.
The National Military Family Association (NMFA) is celebrating 55 years of advocating for American military families by addressing their critical needs and creating solutions for a better quality of life. NMFA CEO Besa Pinchotti is this week’s special guest on The American Legion Tango Alpha Lima podcast, where she discusses the nonprofit’s advocacy efforts, programs to support military spouses and children, and her why for joining NMFA after being an award-winning journalist.
NMFA “started with five women sitting around a kitchen table and their friends, whose husbands, loved ones, were killed in Vietnam and weren’t being taken care of,” Pinchotti said. “There was no survivor benefit. So those women marched up to Capitol Hill and they started fighting for it and that was the start of our organization, and we’ve been doing advocacy work like that ever since.”
One of the many current advocacy efforts for NMFA on Capitol Hill is getting a 19.5% pay increase for junior enlisted servicemembers in the National Defense Authorization Act of Fiscal Year 2025 to ensure military family financial security.
“They (Congress) are talking to us about what a big number that is and the budget. And it absolutely is but our military families are not doing OK when they have 25 percent food insecurity,” Pinchotti said. “When you look at the fact that military families are making on average $14,000 less a year than civilians, and that’s the family’s income so it’s considering military spouse employment, and you’re asking military spouses to get up and move and change jobs and get their kids in new schools and set their families up for success with no support system over and over and over again, their careers are suffering and the families’ finances are suffering too. We find that that is most true in the younger enlisted families. So we are really pushing for that pay increase.”
In support of their advocacy efforts to improve quality of life, NMFA has programs that serve military spouses and children. These include:
- Operation Purple Camp are free camps for military kids around the country where they put down their electronic devices and enjoy nature, activities, being around other kids who understand what they are going through all while learning stress tolerance, teamwork, communication, and more.
- Military spouse scholarship program supports higher education, licensing, certification and entrepreneurship to help military spouses contribute to their family income.
- Bloom Military Teens is NMFA’s newest program that they adopted from two military teenagers who started it after having a difficult time mentally and socially following a permanent change of station. It’s a place for military teenagers to share stories, artwork, music and more, all while building leadership and giving them a voice.
Pinchotti’s hope is for every military child who needs the camp experience to have it, for military teenagers to find other teenagers to support them, and for military spouses to find employment.
“I want in every room when our military is discussed, there is someone raising their hand and saying, ‘What about the families?’”
Additional resources for military families, along with issues that the nonprofit is focused on, are on the NMFA website at https://www.militaryfamily.org/. “You don’t know what you need until you need it, so we want to make sure it is all there and ready for you.”
Pinchotti, a military spouse, joined NMFA 11 years ago. She has had a deep gratitude for the U.S. military who saved her family’s life during the Kosovo conflict, while her desire to support military families was a result of her encounter with a Gold Star wife and a father’s fight for the PACT Act as a journalist stationed in Camp Lejeune, N.C.
Their actions “inspired me, moved me, made me want to do this all the time because they experienced something themselves and wanted to make it better for others,” Pinchotti said. “Now I get to make change for the families who serve silently, sacrifice so much. It’s an honor to do this work every day.”
Also, co-hosts Stacy Pearsall and Adam Marr discuss:
· The REDDIT debate of if politicians should be required to have served in the military
· A statue heist of a 600-pound Tuskegee airman gone wrong
Check out this week’s episode, which is among more than 280 Tango Alpha Lima podcasts available in both audio and video formats here. You can also download episodes on Apple Podcasts, Google Play or other major podcast-hosting sites. The video version is available at the Legion’s YouTube channel.
- Tango Alpha Lima