As Fort Lewis and McChord Air Force Base take small, subtle steps toward reorganizing as a joint base, many soldiers, airmen and their families are logically asking: "What does this mean for me?"

As it turns out, there are some nice perks that come with joint basing. Like a free membership at any of the five Pierce County YMCA centers.

The YMCA of Tacoma-Pierce County announced Monday that up to 900 local military families are eligible for memberships at no cost starting this month.

In most military communities, the benefit is limited to families with a service member who is deployed for at least six months. The idea is to provide family-strengthening activities, wellness programs, respite child care and other services to these households at a time when they need it most.

“Families are the most affected when a loved one gets deployed, so we are deeply committed to providing them with support in spirit, mind and body," local YMCA Executive Vice President Michael Ketcham said in a news release.

That's great news for 81st Brigade National Guardsmen headed to the Mideast now, and a pair of Stryker infantry brigades likely headed to Iraq next year. Not so great for McChord personnel, whose deployments typically last 120 days.

Fortunately, the door is open even wider at a handful of military bases, including Lewis and McChord, that are being brought together under the Joint Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) umbrella. Active-duty service members and their families at these joint bases may be eligible for a free YMCA membership, regardless of deployment status.

The Department of Defense is underwriting the fees through a new “Outreach Initiative,” developed between the DOD and the Armed Services YMCA. It's in response to the National Defense Authorization Act of 2008, which contains extra provisions for military family readiness.

Ketcham said about 1,600 individual soldiers already have enjoyed free membership at local YMCAs for the past few years. This expands it to entire families.

Those who are interested should take their completed DOD/YMCA eligibility form, their military ID and their deployment orders (if applicable) to their nearest participating YMCA.

In Pierce County, all the Y facilities (Tacoma, Lakewood, Puyallup and Gig Harbor) are participating.

My colleague, wire editor Kathleen George, sent me this article from the Washington Post. The newspaper reports that, as the security situation improves in Iraq, Western media outlets are beginning to pull correspondents out of the country.

Of course, this is good in the sense that the country is getting much safer. But bad because there will be less information during this crucial time.

Some of the Post's findings:

● Embeds with U.S. troops dropped from 219 in September 2007 to 39 last month.

● Only four newspapers staff full-time Baghdad bureaus.

● CBS and NBC no longer have a year-round presence in Iraq.

● The New York Times, Los Angeles Times and Washington Post published 858 front-page stories from Iraq in 2003. It dropped to 379 last year and to only 138 through the first nine months of this year.

Ouch. There are a bunch of reasons: Stateside stories like the election and the economy are pushing Iraq off the front page. And newspapers aren't exactly awash with extra cash these days. Still, I don't think too many people want to see Iraq coverage go the way of Afghanistan: A few outlets have one or maybe two guys on the ground, their stories destined to run somewhere way inside the paper or deep into a broadcast.

UPDATE: The McClatchy Co., The News Tribune's parent company, still maintains its Baghdad bureau and hasn't pulled anyone out. Our sister papers are continuing embeds, too.

Army Times has an article discussing funding for ongoing modernization programs of several programs, including the Stryker. (The story has info about improvements to the Bradley and information about the Future Combat Systems program.)

Among the variants to the Stryker is a prototype built with a trailer and crane to recover damaged vehicles -- even if a Stryker is "catastrophically destroyed." Another plan the Army wants full funding for is a nuclear, chemical and biological reconnaissance variant. And one upgrade apparently already being implemented is a Stryker with “an armor kit along the lower sides of the vehicles designed to stop deadly shaped charges such as explosively formed penetrates.”

“The Stryker modernization program will allow you to put more weight on the system. There is a hull protection kit, an armor package, that is being put on selective Strykers right now. It is on the lower part of the side. EFPs impact around the tire area,” the newspaper quotes U.S. Army Col. Christopher Lockhart, the capabilities manager for the Stryker for U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command.

Here’s an interesting piece about “the biggest untold mortgage crisis”: military families facing foreclosure.

The piece says “one recent study” – if anyone knows what this study is, lemme know – states that foreclosure rates in military towns are four times the national average. (Again, without seeing the study, I don’t know if that’s talking about the small communities immediately abutting some more remote installations, or if it takes into account urbanized bases and posts like Fort Lewis and McChord.)

Either way, here’s the explanation why:

Military families were targeted as customers during the boom in subprime lending. Their frequent moves, overseas stints, and low pay meant they were likely to have weak credit ratings. The initial low rates and easy terms of these loans made them more attractive than the traditional route of taking out a Veterans Administration (VA) loan. In fact, at the peak of the U.S. subprime lending, the number of new VA loans fell to their lowest level in 12 years.

But, the piece says, the federal Servicemembers' Civil Relief Act was specifically created to protect the troops from losing their homes. The law itself isn't new -- President Bush signed it into law in 2003 -- but I'm sure it's receiving much more attention because of the recent economic crisis.

So I'll throw the question out to y'all: Have you or someone you know found relief under SCRA? I'd like to do a localized version of this story. Shoot me an e-mail at scott.fontaine@thenewstribune.com.

And if you want to know more specifics about the law, click below:

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