Lunch-and-Learn Speakers Celebrate Accomplishments of Military Spouses
During a HEROES lunch-and-learn on May 2 titled “The Strength of the Military Spouse,” speakers Maria McConville and Stephanie Brown informed a virtual audience about that strength—past, present and future.
McConville, a registered dietitian and certified personal trainer who is married to Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville, began the presentation with a history of military spouses, going back to Martha Washington.
“Support of our service members is not new,” McConville said. “We have supported our service members all the way back to the Revolutionary War. Martha was expected to raise her children, oversee the staff and receive guests to their home. But when George Washington took over command of the Continental Army, her life changed very, very much. He was actually gone for eight years.”
McConville then detailed how, during the 19th century, the Army de-incentivized marriage for Soldiers, a practice that continued through World War I, when enlistees could receive a deferral from military service if they were married.
But during World War II, spouses began serving alongside troops, McConville said, showing a photo of Katherine Tupper Marshall, wife of George Marshall, the longest-serving Chief of Staff of the Army during the war. “She became Gen. Marshall’s supporter and confidant in so many ways,” McConville said. “Not only did she lose one of her sons to the war, but she kept on going. She said she didn’t have time to grieve because her war work was waiting.”
McConville noted several other military spouses through history:
- Ruth Bader Ginsburg, whose husband, Marty, was a Reserve officer in field artillery. When he was sent to Fort Sill in the early ’50s, she accompanied him and got a job as a typist. Recognizing her potential, her supervisor encouraged her to take a civil service exam. She qualified as a GS-5 but when she disclosed that she was three months pregnant, she was told she wouldn’t be sent to a two-week training course and did GS-5 work while getting a GS-2 salary. “And they said, ‘We assume you’re going to quit when your baby is born anyway’,” McConville said. “This was the first time she realized how military spouses can be discriminated against.”
- A group of women who petitioned the government to reopen the recently closed Schilling Air Force Base to house families of troops deployed to the Vietnam War. Their story is told in “Waiting Wives: The Story of Schilling Manor, Home Front to the Vietnam War” by Donna Moreau, whose mother, Beverly, is an important figure in the book.
- Julia Compton Moore, wife of Lt. Gen. Hal Moore, whose story was told in the Mel Gibson movie “We Were Soldiers.” “During that time, when a Soldier was killed, the death notice was delivered via telegram by a taxi driver,” McConville said. “Julia saw this horrible practice going on, and she created the program where the chaplain and the casualty assistance officer and someone who knew the spouse would follow after the notification was served to console the grieving wife.”
McConville then talked about Operation Deploy Your Dress, which was founded by a group of military wives. “These lovely women started this organization where people can donate ball gowns,” McConville said. “There are now 13 brick-and-mortar stores at Army installations where ball gowns, jewelry, shoes and handbags are given to enlisted spouses who may not be able to afford them.”
McConville also cited Jaime Chapman, chief operating officer of the Military Spouse Chamber of Commerce, which she co-founded with Stephanie Brown—the other lunch and learn speaker, who spoke during the second half of the program.
Brown led off with a description of what military spouses are capable of.
“We are resilient, we are problem-solvers,” Brown said. “We know how to make things work on a budget. We hold higher levels of education than our civilian counterparts. We’re paid less than our civilian counterparts for the same jobs. We’re volunteers.
“And the unemployment and underemployment rates of military spouses are some of the highest in the nation. It has been deemed by a former secretary of Defense as a national security crisis. The financial stability of our military families, which directly impacts retention and mission-readiness, is often tied to military spouses and the financial stability of the family, but also to the military spouse and (their) ability to pursue career over small-business ownership.”
Brown, who is chief executive officer of the U.S. Military Spouse Chamber of Commerce as well as CEO and founder of the Rosie Network, is the widow of retired Navy SEAL Admiral Thomas Brown and the daughter of an Air Force Vietnam Veteran.
“My father served overseas in Vietnam twice,” she said. “He had a bomb drop on his leg. He came back 100% permanently service-disabled. He served 20 years before retiring in California, where he opened up a music store. That’s really where the entrepreneurial bug bit me.”
As a teen, Brown helped her father run the store, including balancing the store’s financial books. Her father tended to be generous, especially toward Veterans and their families, offering products and services at a discount and even for free.
“I’d say, ‘Dad, we’re not making any money! Look at all this stuff you gave away or discounted.’ He turned to me and said, ‘Stephanie, can we pay the bills?’ And I said, ‘Well, yeah, Dad, but we could be making a lot more money,’ and he said, ‘It’s not about making money. It’s about impacting lives.’ … That stuck with me. When you start a business, it shouldn’t just be about making money.”
When she married Brown, she ran her own business and made more money than he did. But when he received command and was stationed overseas, she sold the business and went through a period of unemployment. Now that she is a CEO again, she sees herself as an advocate for military spouses.
“My military spouse career went from being a CEO to being unemployed to being a CEO again and helping other military spouses who were unemployed or unemployable to become CEOs themselves,” she said. “That is my role as an advocate.”
Asked about juggling personal life and career, both speakers said it can be difficult. Brown said it’s important to develop a support network of other military spouses. “Having a military spouse where you can go ‘Can you watch the kids? Please? Tonight? I’ll do it next weekend.’ Building that is massive, and you have to build it for yourself,” she said.
McConville said she had to learn the hard way, overextending herself while she did all the things she thought a military wife should do, especially after her husband became a one-star general. With help from her husband, she realized that she was doing too much.
“A lot of the expectations, I put upon myself,” she said. “I also learned that I was doing a lot but I wasn’t doing it very well. So I decided to set some limits on my time and on my energy. What I’ve learned since then is it’s not about managing time but about managing my energy.”
Brown’s Rosie Network has worked with the Exchange on several Veteran Business Expos at PXs and BXs. The expos are events for small-business owners, including military spouses.
Exchange Director/CEO Tom Shull appeared after the presentation to praise Brown and McConville for their partnerships with the Exchange, and noted the Exchange’s goal of hiring 75,000 Veterans and military spouses by 2026. He also talked about his own mother’s sacrifices as a military spouse.
“My dad was 30 years in the Army and served over 40 months in combat,” Shull said. “My mom was on my dad’s side every step of the way through Korea and Vietnam and was just amazing. My dad used to comment ‘as long as my family is taken care of, I’m all in for the Army.’ And that says it all. My mom earned her place at Arlington as surely as my dad did.”
Brown and McConville spoke highly of the Exchange’s support for military spouses and families.
“We have a fond place in our hearts for the PX and the Exchange, because it was the one place that our kids got to go and hang out with their friends,” McConville said. “I, as a parent, knew it was a safe place for them to go. They loved to go to the food court and GameStops, and now my daughter loves that there’s a Panera on the Exchange at Fort Campbell.”
If you missed the lunch and learn, which was presented by special emphasis group HEROES, you can view it here.
