Our mission is to mobilize diverse military partners, family members, and veterans to vote and advocate for their communities, especially on issues of foreign policy and national security.
We are a nonpartisan group of proud military spouses and family members, united by our love of country and commitment to service. We understand better than anyone the consequences that decisions over war and peace have here on the homefront. We are ready to make our voices heard.
Too often, military service is leveraged on the political stage to push for aggressive, hawkish policies. Not only is this the wrong direction for U.S. foreign policy, but it does not accurately reflect the sentiment of many of us in the military community.
Sending our troops into protracted conflicts is one of the exacerbating factors that drive many of the unique challenges facing our troops. Veterans suffer from a suicide rate that is double the civilian average. Frequent deployments and a wartime operational tempo mean that care-giving responsibilities fall disproportionately on spouses and partners. Military children are more likely than their peers to receive a mental health diagnosis and suffer from higher levels of stress and anxiety.
No amount of Department of Defense-sponsored family support programming can solve these problems: we must instead focus on tackling the root causes of these issues. We need to end these forever wars and reprioritize diplomacy as our foreign policy tool of first resort.
This is a solvable problem.
We believe that mobilizing members of our military spouse community to vote and advocate is not only the right thing to do on principle, but an effective way of reshaping our country’s conversations around military intervention. Foreign policy decisions have consequences for our military families, which is why we deserve a voice at the table.
The Secure Families Initiative (SFI) exists to train military spouses and family members on how to be effective spokespeople on these issues, and encourage them to share their stories fearlessly.
In January 2020, SFI launched as a program within Foreign Policy for America. SFI now operates independently as of January 2021.