On Wednesday, Blue Star Families joined with Service Nation to celebrate Veterans Day, write letters for BSF's Operation Appreciation, and pack hundreds of thank you care packages for the families of deployed service members. 

Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden were on hand to help launch Mission Serve, a network of 36 initiatives partnering military and civilian service organizations to support the needs of our troops, veterans and military families.

Here are the remarks of BSF founder, Kathy Roth-Douquet, explaining more about the Veterans Day event:

Two months ago today, on 9/11, I sent my husband to Afghanistan for a year. It’s the fourth combat deployment of my daughter Sophie’s eleven years. She’s seen seven schools during her daddy’s absences too – hers is the life of a military child. She - and I - are a different kind of veterans of today’s war. We’re unspeakably proud of my husband, but there’s no hiding that its hard too. The group I’m involved with – Blue Star Families, and all these groups here, are about solutions for the hard parts of military life. In Blue Star Families we believe as Service Nation does that solutions come in part from our own action, and it comes from the help of the larger community. Many of you here today have helped us with that – packing our ThxBox to the families of deployed servicemembers – these today will go to Kansas National Guard, Virginian individual augmentees, and to North Carolina regular families. The Operation Appreciation letters you all are writing today will go around the country, including to the shaken community of Fort Hood. MissionServe has shown wonderful leadership in helping groups like mine connect to those who care in the larger community – in ways that makes us all activists, all agents in our own solutions. Its terribly fitting that we celebrate those partnerships today, on Veterans Day, a day that recognizes Americans – veterans – who serve so selflessly. Here’s just a smattering of the partnerships engendered by the leadership of Be The Change:

Blue Star Families is partnering with PBS to create reintegration toolkits for families, ones we packed in the ThxBoxes today, and to connecting Greater DC Cares to the National Guard community around the Capitol region. Student Veterans of America are joining with Big Brothers Big Sisters to mentor youth. American Legion Auxiliary is engaging with Operation Homefront’s adopt a military family for the holidays programs. Sierra Club is partnering both with the National Military Family Association’s Operation Purple® to offer a free week of summer camp fun for military kids with parents who have been, are currently, or will be deployed, and with Armed Services YMCA to provide post-deployment family reintegration camping trips. MCEC and America’s Promise Alliance are working with military-connected schools to ensure their kids are adequately represented in the Gallup Student Poll, a nationwide survey of 5th through 12th graders measuring hope, engagement, and well-being.

Thank you all for being here today, for caring, and serving.

Now that I can look back on almost 4 months as a military spouse, there are a lot of things I wish I knew about the military when I got married.  The thing that would have helped the most was a list of things I should do, now that I am a military spouse.  My husband was not much help, because it’s a little different being a spouse than a sailor, and, you know, he does work all day.  So I was on my own.  I wanted to share some resources that were very valuable to me in my quest to figure out what being a military spouse is all about:

- COMPASS. This is an introductory class for Navy Spouses (I know they have a similar one for Marines and imagine the other branches have one too), but you don’t have to be brand new to take it. In fact, the spouses in my class ranged from one month of marriage (me) to 28 years.  It was amazing!  Experienced, enthusiastic spouses teaching other spouses the ins and outs of military life.  It was a lot of information to absorb, but you come away with a ton of resources and websites, phone numbers, etc.  I highly recommend it, and you can check out the website here.

- FFSC.  The Fleet and Family Support Center is really your go-to place for questions and help.  I would not hesitate to visit or call!  They also offer a lot of classes ranging from childcare to car buying to job searching, and the employees are helpful and friendly.  One great example of what they do: when my husband (then fiancee) was first activated from the Reserves, a FFSC representative called me each month to check in and see if I needed anything- now that's service!

Hello to all the military spouses out there!  I am not only new to BSF, but new to the military experience, and I thought that for my first post I would introduce myself and give you a little background information about me.

I have been a Navy Reserve spouse since July 3 of this year.  My husband is a Reservist (and former Active Duty) who is serving an IA tour in...Little Creek, Virginia.  I know.  We are so lucky that it’s not Iraq or Afghanistan, and my heart goes out to those of you in that situation.  I will be the first to admit that my husband is not your typical sailor, even with 13 years in the service.  He has never been deployed.  He has never been on sea duty.  And he has been a Reservist for the last 9 years, so his (and our) military experience is a little unusual, compared to his friends and his co-workers.

Although I am new to the Navy, I do have a brother who recently left the Army’s infantry and had deployed to both Iraq and Afghanistan, and my brother-in-law is also in the Army, with one Iraq deployment under his belt.  So I have a bit of experience sending packages, worrying, and missing my family member - even though it was not my husband.