You want me to WHAT?!

A couple months into my Soldier’s current commander I kept getting the feeling he was trying to bring something up. But he couldn’t quite spit it out.

I enjoy this. I like talking around things and making him be direct. I’m so direct that I take a lot of the work out of difficult conversations for him. When the opportunity presents itself, I enjoy making him be direct.

So back to that particular summer evening.

After a rather torturous conversation, he finally comes out with “The Colonel wants me to stand up an FRG for the company.”

I kept my face completely deadpan for approximately 30 seconds. Then laughed. Loudly, actually. I told him good luck.

“Actually, he asked if you’d handle it. Col FormerCO told him you were really good at it.”

I stopped laughing and glared. *sigh*

And about a month later, I spent 10 hours over two days at the Family Resource Center going through Ft Campbell’s new FRG Leader training.

For the non-milspouse readers (or those Mil Wives who haven’t gotten involved with their FRG), FRG stands for Family Readiness Group.  An FRG is defined by the Department of the Army is:

“An FRG is a command sponsored organization of Soldiers, Civilian employees, Family members (immediate and extended) and Volunteers belonging to a unit.”

FRG’s can be a contentious topic in the Army.  I wrote a bit about that in FRG vs. Technology. I spent just over year during my Soldier’s last command as an FRG leader. It is time consuming, often thankless, and frustrating. There is no way to make everyone happy.

But I honestly believe that the FRG plays in important role in today’s military community. While there is a tremendous amount of incorrect information and perceptions floating around the community, the FRG’s real purpose is to provide a system of communication among a unit’s family members and chain of command, welcome new families to the unit, help families to be self-sufficient when a soldier deploys, and assist the unit to share accurate information with families. Nothing in that purpose is detrimental to families, causes drama, fuels gossip, encourages infidelity or any the other negative impressions some people have experienced. Those are people issues. Issues you will have when dealing with any cross section of the population as varied as the United States Army.

My Soldier’s battalion commander was right- his company should have their own FRG. The current setup often results in families not getting the information and resources they should have. So, I spent my 10 hours in a really fabulous, well constructed training class (although I had taken one at Ft Lewis- there’s always more to learn, right?). I’m spending my evenings putting together the paperwork to launch the organization. And I am confident that it will contribute positively to the Soldiers and Families of the unit.

I’m also recruiting another spouse to take over as FRG leader after I get the ball rolling.

And avoiding our FRSA who keeps sending me emails about taking the Battalion FRG position.