May 07, 2009 
Dear Michelle Obama:
You have the best job in the world. Not only do you have it, not only do you know it, but your approval rating during your first 100 days as First Lady has been through the roof. In an April 2009 USA TODAY/Gallup Poll, 79% of those polled said they approve of the way you are handling the job.
But you are an A+ kind of woman, aren’t you? You didn’t see that score and congratulate yourself for breaking the First Lady grading curve or even for outscoring your own husband. Instead, I bet you looked at that 79% and saw a C+. And that score wasn’t good enough for you, was it? I bet right now you are looking around for ways in which your already stellar performance can be even better.
Fine by me, Mrs. Obama. Because I have a suggestion for a way you can outperform every single First Lady in the history of the country. I have a way for you to win the approval of Democrats and Republicans alike. I want you to focus on military families.
Now I know that you have already proclaimed that helping military families is one of your primary goals. That’s admirable. No one is going to twit you about that. However, focusing on the military family isn’t exactly an original topic, is it? It’s like picking George Washington as the subject of your fourth grade president report. Nice, but it’s been done and it’s pretty easy. First Ladies in general already have a good track record at being sympathetic and grateful toward military families. I don’t remember Barbara or Laura or even Hillary spitting on us or anything.
It’s just that I want you to be a really different First Lady, Mrs. Obama. I want you to do more than just dance with our wounded warriors at an Inaugeration Ball. I want you to do more than express outrage that military families are ever on food stamps. I want you to be the only First Lady to see military families in a volunteer force as…dare I say it…..normal.
Because the truth is that the greatest proportion of military families are normal. I know it may not seem that way to you. Military families don’t seem normal to many of the people in our country. Most Americans can’t understand why anyone would agree to leave their family for six or twelve months at a time. In a
Woman’s Day "Money Matters" poll, only 17% of readers would live apart from their families for even $100,000. And no one is even shooting at them.
Yet we forget that many of these military folks with the uber-demanding jobs somehow manage to stay married to the same person for 20+ years. They raise kids who go to college and/or get jobs and/or turn out like Robin Roberts and Tiger Woods (both military brats).
That’s what normal looks like in this country -— meaningful work, meaningful family. What I’m hoping you will do to set yourself apart from the decorous treatment other First Ladies have offered military families is to allow yourself to see us as more than the stereotypical heroes or fools. Instead, be the only one who can accept that military families fall on a broad continuum. On the far end, you are sure to find families who should never have joined the military. They have such problems that they can’t cope with the demands of this life. They will never cope. Help them see their way clear of the military and on to better jobs.
Next on the continuum you’ll see families that are troubled and barely hanging on. These are the folks that Military OneSource and the Chaplains and Navy and Marine Corps Relief Society and all those other good hearted folks are there to help. Make sure these organizations get funded and managed and audited correctly. Burnish their reputations by paying attention to these families and their champions in public.
Then we have our average military families. Those who are just doing a job. Those who trundle along. Those who teeter on the edge of being beaten down by too many demands since 9/11. Nag your husband about his plans for world peace.
Finally we get to the families that no one ever thinks about. I’m talking about those military families who are in the Strong, Stronger or Strongest groups. These are families that boast a military member who is doing so much more than a job in a uniform. These are families in which the soldier or sailor or airman or Coastie or Marine is doing what he or she IS.
That’s why I think you can help. Because I know you understand what it is like to be married to that kind of person. I know you have been in a position in which you are the one who holds down the fort. Look who you are married to.
The majority of us are married to a person just like him. Like you, we are willing to do what it takes to raise a family and build a life in that context. You get it. You must get it. In an O magazine interview, you told Oprah that your prayer the night before the Obama family moved into the White House was that you stay whole as a family through this process. That’s the prayer of every military family, too, Mrs. Obama. We want to stay whole. We want to stay together.
So if you want to be the only First Lady in the history of the world who has truly helped the majority of military families, focus on that. Focus on the kinds of things that will keep us whole through this process. You be the one who reminds the White House that military families will need to be able to cut through mortgage red tape when we’re going through a PCS move in this economy. You be the one that pushes the programs that let the licensing requirements for teachers who are military spouses valid through all 50 states. You be the one who identifies our Strong, Stronger and Strongest families and helps us to learn from them. That is the best way for you to help us move up a notch and transform our lives.
You do all that Mrs. Obama, and the A+ is yours.