Every year, more than 600,000 active duty military families move because of new deployments. And most of those families are living off military bases and installations – meaning they need to get used to new towns and cities on a regular basis. That’s why Blue Star Families, a nonprofit supporting military households, is kicking off it’s 5th annual “welcome week” on September 21st to help servicemembers and their loved ones adjust to their new surroundings.

Hoping to provide service members more affordable housing options near military bases, a bipartisan pair of House members wants to offer developers a tax incentive to build that housing.

Blue Star Families – an organization founded in 2009 to help support military families through connection – launched Blue Star Welcome Week, a celebration launched in 2020 intended to bridge the military-civilian divide and create a greater sense of belonging and community for everyone.

After the 9/11 attacks, military enrollment jumped in the U.S. — but that has plummeted to record-low numbers today.

Moving may be a part of military life, but for families of color and other groups, military moves pose more than an inconvenience: They threaten their safety. That puts our nation’s readiness at risk.

The Department of Defense estimates there are roughly 1 million military spouses of active duty, reserve, and National Guard members. The U.S. Military Spouse Chamber of Commerce estimates there are an additional 11.2 million spouses of veterans, bringing the total number of military spouses to 12.2 million. But, according to the 2023 Blue Star Families Military Families Lifestyle Survey, the number of spouses who would recommend military service is grossly dwindling.

Blue Star Families can have a stressful life with loved ones actively serving in the military, and possibly overseas. On Friday, Patriots players made a group of Blue Star Families feel right at home with a front row seat to training camp, and a special two-wheeled gift delivered by the team.

First Lt. Daniel Weiss was a 25-year-old Army Ranger preparing for his fourth combat deployment to Afghanistan when he died by suicide at his Tacoma, Wash., apartment in 2012. There were difficult days after that, recalled his father, Andy. But what proved both surprising and hurtful, he said, were efforts to ensure his son’s death was viewed differently than those of fellow service members who had been killed in action.

The family learned, for instance, that Daniel’s name would be excluded from a monument at Joint Base Lewis-McChord memorializing casualties of war. A few years later, at a brunch for military survivors back home in Illinois, the Weisses were told their invitation had been an accident. Though they were allowed to stay, he said, it was made clear the event was for Gold Star families.

For military families stationed in the Pacific Northwest, an assigned base doesn’t often double as home. Most service members — roughly three in four at Joint-Base Lewis-McChord, the region’s largest installation — bring their families to live in surrounding communities. They face the same sticker shock as anyone living here — but Congress has failed to appropriately cover housing costs in Western Washington, as it has elsewhere for men and women in uniform.