About Us

Our Approach

This website the Military Dependent Support and Training Network is designed to honor the many contributions military connected families make and have made in supporting our active duty service members, veterans, and the mission of our armed forces. Thank you for your service! We also recognize the important role family health and wellness and connections can have to limit the impacts of trauma within the community.

Our Founder’s Story

Michael Crandall, son of Medal of Honor recipient Col. Bruce P. Crandall (ret.) experienced first hand the pros and cons of the military connected lifestyle and brings an insider perspective to the discussion and research surrounding military connected families.

His experience growing up traveling the world, moving between states and countries provided an invaluable skill set and laid the groundwork for his future career as an International Educator who would spend two decades split between two of the top public universities in the nation. His experience spending a decade at The Pennsylvania State University and then transitioning to the Arizona State University where he would eventually serve for four years as Assistant Director at the Nations largest public university destination for international students would not have been possible without the benefits gained by a military connected childhood.

However, he also understands and wants to bring light to the traumas which the military lifestyle can have on military connected families. To name just a few: the challenges of reentry dissonance when returning to the United States, the challenges of identity on the parents separation from service, the struggle with identity issues, the emptiness when grasping for an answer to the question “Where are you From?” and unresolved grief and feelings of displacement and depression.

Our goal is to celebrate the strengths the military connected lifestyle often provides such as cultural and linguistic skills, an expanded world view, discipline and dedication to a greater good among others, while also recognizing the challenges so that we can enhance the former while limiting the negative impact of the other and fostering resiliency and healing.

This website will be updated with articles, research, videos and other links to information which will provide insight into the lived experience of military connected families as well as resources to help with discussions, training and support service development. Otherwise if you wish to contact us please click the link.