General Peter Pace, USMC
Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff

Marine General Peter Pace, 16th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made it a point during his tenure to have continuing direct contact with our service members and their families, emphasizing how important family issues are to retention.

Here we have archived several noteworthy messages from or about General Pace when he served as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

July 17, 2007 -- Marine General Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is currently in Iraq, assessing the progress made since the recent troop surge. While there, Pace is making a special effort to meet with the families of military members stationed in Europe but deployed to US Central Command in Iraq.

"It's important to remember that it is not just the men and women in uniform that are making the sacrifices," he said. "The families are the ones changing the calendars on the refrigerator doors." He recognizes that the extension of their deployments from 12 months to 15 months also has an impact on the families, and wants an opportunity to explain directly to them himself why that decision was made, and get their feedback on its impact to the families.

Pace said there are many ways to quantify morale of the force. Reenlistment is strong, "but that's not good enough for me," he said. "I want to get out and talk to the families. I want to look the spouses in the eyes and talk to them about what we're doing and why we're doing it and get their reactions."

Pace recognizes that families are incredibly important to the equation, particularly since the force today is an all-volunteer, "all-recruited force."

"You recruit individuals, but you retain families," he said. Pace's personal involvement in communicating directly with the troops and advocating family issues has been a hallmark of his tour as Chairman.

More information about General Pace's visit to Iraq.

On Memorial Day weekend, the nation's senior military officer reminded Americans to remember and reflect on the sacrifices of service members past and present.

We're pleased to present General Pace's tribute to military spouses on May 11, Military Spouse Appreciation Day.

In the days when I was a Navy spouse, the Navy Commissaries had paper grocery bags imprinted with this saying:

I believe there's a lot of truth to that statement. The greatest fear is that of the unknown. So often, our military spouses cannot tell us exactly where they are, or exactly what they're doing, and that adds to our sense of fear.

Often, our imagination is worse than their reality, and causes us to worry perhaps more than we need to. It is that element of fear and worry that makes the job of a military spouse the hardest job in the US Military.

We'd like to add our thanks to those thousands of men and women throughout the world who are helping, by their support, to make it possible for their spouses to serve.