When fire broke out on the Royal Canadian Navy supply ship HMCS Protecteur, leaving it disabled in the Pacific, it carried, besides its crew, 17 family members. That caused some people to wonder why civilian relatives were travelling on a military vessel.
But there’s nothing untoward or unusual about it. It’s a common naval practice, in Canada and elsewhere, for family members to take part in the last leg of a sail when a ship returns from extended operations.
It’s called a tiger cruise, says Lt.-Cmdr. Desmond James, a spokesman for Maritime Forces Pacific, in which “family members of a ship’s crew are invited to become guests during the last leg of a significant deployment … to provide loved ones with an opportunity to share the experience of life at sea on a warship.”
We shouldn’t begrudge them that experience. It’s good for morale for both crew and families, and comes at little, if any, public cost. Guests are are required to provide their own transportation to the ship’s last port of call — Hawaii, in this case — before it returns to its home port.
Military life puts a strain on families. Many occupations require constant balancing between family and career, but for those in the army, navy or air force, the scales are often heavily weighted toward the military side at the expense of family life, especially during deployments.
We know a little of this — our son’s military career has meant being separated from his family for months at a time through four Mideast deployments as well as other assignments. Maintaining a strong family life is a constant focus for him, his wife and their five children. Skype, phone calls and emails are valuable for keeping in touch, but they are no substitute for being together in one place.
Canada’s military ombudsman Pierre Daigle released a report last November in which he urged the government to consider more about how military life affects the lives of the spouses and children of those serving in the military.
He said frequent moves, long deployments and the risks that come with the job take a toll not just on military personnel but on families as well.
Daigle said support for Canadian military families is good, but there remains much room for improvement.
He said families are not looking for special treatment. “They are simply looking for an opportunity to raise a family in a relatively stable, nurturing family environment.”
The greatest challenge for military families is how often they move. Relocating frequently, especially from one province to another, is disruptive. Military families often have to change health-care coverage from one province to another, and they are four times less likely to have a family doctor than civilian families.
Switching schools and neighbourhoods takes its toll on children, who are affected even more when parents are deployed to conflict zones.
“From a health perspective, children of deployed military members were found to experience physical issues, including increased stress, sleeping problems and more than double the rate of occurrence of other ailments compared to similar children within the civilian population,” Daigle’s report said. “Families and providers/supporters repeatedly conveyed situations of healthy children becoming sick during deployments.”
Helping to ease the strain for families associated with CFB Esquimalt is the Esquimalt Military Family Resource Centre, one of 43 such centres established across Canada. When the fire occurred on Protecteur, the Esquimalt MFRC went to work notifying families and keeping them informed as subsequent events unfolded.
In its day-to-day functions, the MFRC, a non-profit organization with 50 employees working in four locations in Colwood and Esquimalt, provides a variety of programs and services, including assistance with relocating, work-related separations and counselling. It also operates two daycares.
Such support is valuable, and not just for military families. Those who are serving can function better knowing their families are thriving. They sacrifice enough as it is — they should not have to sacrifice their families, too.
