A few thoughts

Inadequate, delapidated housing
High incidents of on the job fatalities and injuries
Low wages
Inadequate safety equipment
Drug abuse
Systematic discrimination

A picture is probably in your head from the preceeding images.
Is it a ghetto neighborhood with corner filled with pushers and hookers straight from a movie?
A third world country where the only people with a decent living standard steal international aid to line thier own wallets?
A Trailer park in an economically depressed rural communitee where the local family farms have all either gone bankrupt or were sold to multi-national companies in a last ditch attempt to keep the family fed and housed?

All three are too common, but I was thinking of another group of people. I was thinking of the United States military. Of course they have a couple advantages over the other groups. They have medical coverage as long as they are actively serving their country, and they are highly trained in one of the two professions that always seem to survive regardless of changes in governments and social mores.

More and more often the government is turning to the private sector to provide housing for our troops and their families. Long term contracts are signed and houses are being built and renovated around the country. I'm just wondering what will happen to these houses when the bases close.

It might be because I am by nature a collaborative person, but I would hope that we could provide the people who are risking their lives on a daily basis adequate housing on base, where their families are in a community that understands the fears and joys of a military life, reassignments, extented tours, the daily uncertainty, the triumph of loved ones returning from a successful deployment or taining exercise. The elements that only other military families are familiar with.

Perhaps I'm just romanticising the situation. To me, however, the community of military families sharing their experiences is more powerful than:

MILITARY SPOUSE. Bob has been overseas for 4 months, so far he's been lucky, but they go into an occupied city tomorrow.
CIVILIAN SPOUSE. I know how you feel, Rodger was in Vegas for 2 weeks at a conference, and the hotel didn't even have a casino attached to it.