Letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates

Dear Secretary of Defense Robert Gates,

I am the author of the Military Family Fitness Program which was a portion of the packet you received from Congressman Frank R. Wolf dated 6 August 2009. Renee Champagne and I represent overseas military families requesting free military family fitness programs in recognition of the extraordinary challenges they face when stationed overseas in support of their active duty family member. How those free fitness programs are implemented is of a secondary concern to both of us, but I believe the current revision posted at http://militaryfamilyfitness.blogspot.com/ is the most functional and would prove most beneficial to military families.

I am requesting a trial run of a Military Family Fitness program, involving at onset only the twelve largest overseas Army and Air Force Installations which host a significant number of forces who deploy to war zones. The program's success in significantly reducing costs associated with symptoms such as depression, divorce, illicit drug use, gambling, and chronic health issues (including obesity-related conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, and several forms of cancer), and its success in significantly improving overall community fitness levels, will justify discussion concerning its implementation in domestic or smaller installations.

In order to be effective and sustainable, while applicable across a broad range of installations, two additional GS-11 Health Educators need to be hired within Health and Wellness Centers supporting overseas Army and Air Force Installations (position descriptions are provided online). These individuals will be responsible for planning and implementing a family-oriented fitness program and for designing an optimal framework for ability-group instruction (alternately and when more cost effective, they can choose to outsource hiring of trainers). Health Educators will also be responsible for participants' periodic completion of fitness progress assessments, and for formal submission back to the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports detailing strengths, weaknesses, and lessons learned, prior to fiscal year close. This will enforce Health Educators' accountability on a public scale, will stimulate pursuit of excellence through competition between U.S. Forces Installations, and will allow broad-scale knowledge-sharing of optimal fitness programming (the Council will post fitness programs' scores and lessons learned online). Such a program will allow freedom of specification and execution within military installations, while encouraging fierce competition among installations and insuring monetary accountability to American tax payers, holding two GS-11 Health Educators responsible for annual quantifiable fitness improvements.

The total cost of the Military Family Fitness program to the US Government is approximately 2.4Million (estimating a median figure of 10k military/civilian family members per installation, the cost of funding two GS-11s per participating installation to be $150k/year, restricting Fitness Specialists' total expenditure on trainers to under $50 per eligible client per year and restricting total new equipment costs to under $10,000 per fitness facility).

Military family members, especially those stationed overseas, currently struggle disproportionately against depression, stress, gambling, illicit drug use, and other destructive behaviors. Fitness programs and activities encouraging whole-family participation provide sources of reliable and quantifiable support, and deserve standardized support throughout U.S. Air Force and Army installations overseas. The adage "We recruit soldiers but we retain families" is used to attest the criticality of a healthy family relationship to the overall effectiveness and long-term retention likelihood of the military soldier for good reason. Military families are justifiably regarded to be as important to national security as uniformed service members. No other program or service with such so nominal a price tag could deliver as qualitatively comparable a measure of improvement on self-esteem, health, social support, and mental stability as a Family Fitness Program.

Overseas military communities have proven the community need for family-member-accessible fitness programs. Testimonials (provided online) report improved mental health, radically changed outlooks, and reformed lifestyles. Military Community support is concrete and overtly numerous enough to justify further development of such family fitness programming, and to justify devoting additional personnel positions in permanent support.

Thank you sincerely for your time and consideration of this request.

Respectfully,
Ginger Sladky