Fleet and Family Support Center gave a “Married in the Military” class for Training Support Center Great Lakes students getting married or interested in getting information Oct. 8.

Over 30 attended the class intended to guide them through the process, requirements and entitlements.

“These sailors are young and, for a lot of them, this is their first time away from home and away from the people they have always gone to for answers,” said Rachael Nitz, work and family life consultant/ombudsman coordinator at Fleet and Family Support Center. “So we provide these answers to them. Fleet and Family Support Center is known by sailors as the place you go to when you have questions about something. We are supposed to be the experts in military life. Sometimes, a part of that life involves getting married.”

Staff at the center meet one-on-one with sailors asking about the process of getting married. In addition to that service they wanted to do something more.

 “We decided to move it into the school house because the location and timing simply works better for most Sailors,” Nitz said. “Our goal is to bring this class to our sailors instead of them coming to us in order to make them better informed of what is expected of them before and after getting married.”

Topics covered includes subjects such as the process of applying for and getting married, defense enrollment eligibility reporting system, record updates, name change, basic allowance for housing and Tricare.

“Over the last few years, a lot of changes have happened in the navy, specifically how sailors update their information,” Nitz said. “The Navy no longer has specified people to input who is married to whom and where they live or who has children and who doesn’t. Instead they have a few different systems that, without education on, are confusing and can be hard to navigate, especially when it’s a system that you don’t deal with very often. That is where Fleet and Family Support Center comes in. We learn how to navigate these systems, what steps need to be taken when, and then pass along this information to the sailors and walk them through some of the processes when need be.”

According to Staff/Student Training Division Officer Navy Military Training Instructor Senior Chief Tamika Williams, being uninformed, unaware, or overwhelmed by the process, might cause a Sailor to miss out or delay entitlements. The Married in the Military Class provides an excellent map to steer Sailors towards available resources to help them stay the course after getting married.

“As an organizer of the Married in the Military class I think this class is important because it highlights unique things that a Sailor needs to do,” Williams said. “Unlike civilians, planning to get married requires a service member to go through a unique process in updating various documents, getting dependent identification cards, and applying for entitlements.”

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