We should never forget the families of those who have served suffered and died for Australia. Only the mean spirited or ill-informed could dispute that as those veterans serve, suffer and die, so their families serve and suffer in an obscurity that is perhaps not understood by their veterans. As much as we commemorate those who render service of any kind in our ADF, we must also remember their Families. As much as we care for veterans who deploy in defence of Australia; we must also care for their families.

Both Departments of Veterans’ Affairs and Defence spend lots of dollars on lots of programs to rehabilitate and/or compensate veterans who do not always return from their wars to good health and well-being. Let me contextualise with respect to funding such Departments: Recent Defence budgets, exceeding $26 billion per annum, are about twice the amount of recent DVA budgets, which regularly exceed $12 billion per annum. This means the allied businesses of fighting wars and tending to the consequences of war fighting cost Australians in excess of $38 billion per annum.

There is an impeccably strong argument that research and education into the health and well-being of Military families should attract sufficient of such funding to support an appropriate and relevant tertiary level research and education program. Demonstrably, our political classes don’t share such concerns for the community of Military families.

This is why AFOM fits so comfortably into this partial vacuum. It fits because AFOM aims to care for the families of the Military through research and education into the field of military families.

Just as various government agencies recognise the need to conduct and apply research and education into the effects of war fighting on veterans, so should they recognise the need to conduct and apply research and education concerning the impacts of war fighting on military families. The obligation remains unsatisfied and into the breach steps AFOM. AFOM receives no government funding so its ability to fund the best research by the best researchers in Australia is entirely dependent on our material support.

Ideally, you can support AFOM in a financial sense by making donations, either one-off each year or regularly each month or quarter as it best suits you. Your donations will help to establish a research program being set up at the University of New England in pursuit of the aims and objectives of AFOM. You can contribute best by visiting the AFOM home page at: http://www.afom.org.au/index.php/donate

I wish you all the very best that Christmas offers and I hope you’ll join me in wishing AFOM every success in pursuit of its goals.

Yours sincerely

Frank Benfield OAM

Buderim Qld