“It’s difficult for everybody these days,” said Jermaine King, a sergeant. “It’s tough.”
Other nonprofit groups that work with military families are also seeing rising need. Requests for food assistance have doubled in the past two years at Operation Homefront, a national group based in San Antonio.
Jennifer Cernoch, executive director of the group’s Texas chapter, said that military wives at Fort Hood stayed up past midnight one day this month to try to be the first to register online for the operation’s holiday turkey giveaway. The list for 450 was filled in about an hour. The group also installed a food pantry two years ago, something officials never thought they’d have to do.
“I had a couple of weeks ago a wounded warrior, who was a single father applying for assistance,” Cernoch said. “I asked him if he needed food, and he said, ‘I think we can make it.’ Then his son came in, and I asked, ‘Are you guys okay?’ and he said, ‘It’s okay, ma’am, we can eat ramen again tonight.”
Many soldiers are too ashamed to ask for help, Brantley said. “They don’t want to be a burden to society, and that’s especially true of the military,” she said. “They feel they should be able to take care of themselves . . . the ‘pull yourself up by your bootstraps’ mentality.”
This summer, the Defense Department took steps to help some of the families with an effort to link spouses with private sector employment, Thompson said. It has resulted in 8,000 hires.
The high cost of living in the Washington area adds to the burden for local military families, experts say. The region has the eighth-highest cost of living in the United States, according to the Council for Community and Economic Research, which tracks the index quarterly.
Mary Ann Jones, 22, the pregnant wife of a Marine lance corporal, said that the high cost of food makes her dread going to the grocery store. She and her husband, Matthew Jones, have been losing sleep, wondering how they are going to make it on his $22,000-a-year salary when the baby arrives in March, she said.
Mary Ann had to quit her job as a clerk because of pregnancy complications and said she is pessimistic about her chances of finding other work. The couple make do with a monthly free box of groceries for military families from an aid organization in Stafford County and picked up a holiday bag at the USO giveaway.
“We’re taking it as it goes. At least I am,” said Matthew Jones, 24, a military police officer. “If it comes down to it, and they have to eat first, I’m happy.”
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