Welcome to the Army Family. You are very important to the Army because Soldiers and their Families are the Army's greatest asset.

You will find that military life can be a wonderful experience, although it has some challenges. You will notice right away that it is a community, but it definitely is not like living in your hometown. For one thing, you'll find that the Army has its own special language and uses a lot of abbreviations that will be new to you—to include the name of some of your benefits.

The Army makes a special effort to bring together, and make available at every post, a large number of resources and benefits. To make the most of them you need to learn as much as possible about what is available at the installation to which your Soldier is assigned. This will help you learn your way around quickly and will help you experience a positive and satisfying time as an Army Family.

Even though military Families come from varying backgrounds, and sometimes different cultures, being the Families of Soldiers means they share many things in common. One of these is that from time to time Families must be very self-reliant, such as when a Soldier is at training, a special duty assignment, or even deployed overseas.

Another thing that Families have in common is that at some time every Soldier receives a new assignment, and the Family shares in the excitement of moving to a new part of the country or of the world.

Military life encourages Families to support one another, and one of the most valuable assets a Family can have when adjusting to change is the network of Families who have undergone exactly the same thing. Friends are easy to make in the military community, and an experienced Family member, who was once new just like you, is always available to show you around. They can also give you some tips on the features of the Army post to which you have moved and how to best make use of what is available.

This kind of networking can help ease your change from civilian life to the military community.

You don't have to wait to join your Soldier before you start learning a lot about the Army. In fact, you can get an early start on your transition into the Army Family before you ever leave home through Army Family Team Building, an online resource that offers progressively more advanced levels of knowledge about the military.