New military spouse commission accepts comment submissions

A new presidential commission created this week to review and improve the experiences of military spouses has opened an online form to submit comments.

The President’s Military Spouse Commission was established by executive order Monday “to strengthen readiness by improving the quality of life for military spouses and families,” according to the White House.

The submission form on the White House website allows for comments within about 700 words.

Jennifer Hegseth, the defense secretary’s wife, is chairwoman of the commission, and its members are the spouses of service secretaries, the joint chiefs of staff and each service’s senior enlisted leader. The spouse of the homeland security secretary is also included because the Coast Guard falls within that department.

Desiree Thompson Sayle, a deputy assistant to the president, will serve as the commission’s executive director.

The membership does not include any spouses of the junior enlisted ranks, which make up about 42% of the active-duty force, according to Defense Department statistics. However, Hegseth said she has already begun meeting with spouses as she has traveled with her husband over the last year.

“It’s the same from Kentucky to Singapore — it’s housing, it’s health care, it’s employment, it’s child care, it’s education,” she said in the Oval Office when President Donald Trump signed the order.

Blue Star Families, the Military Family Advisory Network and the National Military Family Association, all nonprofits that research and advocate for quality-of-life improvements for military families, have thrown support behind the initiative.

Shannon Razsadin, CEO of Military Family Advisory Network, said she looks forward to sharing the organization’s research and the perspectives of families across ranks, services, locations and stages of military life.

“Military families understand their lives and their needs better than anyone,” she said in a statement. “When we listen to families, believe what they tell us, and pair their experiences with rigorous, evidence-based research, we can build solutions that strengthen families and the force.”

Blue Star Families said that strengthening families will strengthen the military.

“Our research continues to highlight why this work matters. According to the 2025 Military Family Lifestyle Survey, while 69% of active-duty family respondents say military service has added value to their lives, only 32% would recommend military service to someone they care about,” the organization said in a statement.

Hegseth and Trump acknowledged the challenges facing military families are “generational” issues and, for at least the past 30 years, presidents have made similar efforts to improve the quality of life for spouses.

President Bill Clinton signed the law allowing for military family housing to be managed by private companies in an effort to improve housing conditions. That has come under fire over the past several years as the military has acknowledged to Congress that a lack of oversight of these companies led to slow and poor maintenance and sometimes dangerous conditions.

President George W. Bush established the Pentagon’s Military Family Readiness Council, which is on hiatus after the Defense Department last year ordered a pause on all advisory committees and fired all committee members.

Under President Barack Obama, first lady Michelle Obama and second lady Jill Biden launched the Joining Forces Initiative to build public-private partnerships to tackle spouse hiring. Biden brought this initiative back when her husband was president.

For more than 15 years, military spouse unemployment has sat around 20%, well above the general U.S. unemployment rate of about 4.2%.

In his first term, Trump aimed to improve federal employment opportunities for military spouses, though in his second term, he slashed federal employment positions and instituted a hiring freeze.