{"id":48088,"date":"2024-04-22T17:38:38","date_gmt":"2024-04-22T17:38:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/uncategorized\/2024\/04\/22\/special-forces-soldiers-in-nw-florida-still-awaiting-child-care-center\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T16:14:34","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T16:14:34","slug":"special-forces-soldiers-in-nw-florida-still-awaiting-child-care-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/smr\/sofic\/2024\/04\/22\/special-forces-soldiers-in-nw-florida-still-awaiting-child-care-center\/","title":{"rendered":"Special Forces soldiers in NW Florida still awaiting child care center"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The much-debated location of a military child development center serving Special Forces families in northwest Florida<\/a> is still under discussion, an Air Force official told lawmakers \u2014 nearly two years after a solution was announced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lawmakers are pushing the Air Force and Army to find a solution for Army families in the 7th Special Forces Group at Camp \u201cBull\u201d Simons <\/b>and other Navy and Air Force families in the area who have struggled to find child care<\/a> in the Florida Panhandle. The shortage has pushed some families to drive nearly an hour each way to the closest military child development center \u2014 if space is even available there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is incredibly frustrating that a solution for the families that need the [child development center] at Camp Bull Simons continues to be delayed, and that families still don\u2019t have access to a CDC that is within a reasonable commute,\u201d said Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee\u2019s military construction panel, during an April 17 hearing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBeing expected to drive over an hour each way to drop off your child or pick them up at a child development center is not an acceptable solution,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Plans to build a CDC in fiscal year 2025 have been pushed to FY26, Wasserman Schultz said, \u201cas it\u2019s not executable in 2025.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ravi Chaudhary, assistant secretary of the Air Force for installations, energy and environment, said Army and Air Force officials are nearing an agreement \u201cin the coming weeks\u201d on where a permanent CDC should go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBull\u201d Simons is an Army camp but is technically part of Eglin Air Force Base. As part of base realignment and closures in 2005, the camp was carved out of a remote area of an Eglin bombing range that the Air Force uses for weapons testing. Though about 2,600 military and civilian workers live and work there, the camp has few amenities: barracks, a chapel, a medical clinic and an Army and Air Force Exchange shopette, but no child development center, family housing or commissary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That lack of local child care has proven a major complication for the 7th Special Forces Group, one of the Army\u2019s most elite units that handles counter-drug, counterinsurgency, foreign military training and other covert missions across Central and South America and the Caribbean. Its soldiers were also heavily deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan throughout the war on terror.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Army officials and 7th SFG families want the child development center on the camp near the chapel, where it would be convenient for soldiers. But Air Force officials have said they are concerned about the children\u2019s safety because the camp is adjacent to Eglin\u2019s active bombing range.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chaudhary told Wasserman Schultz at the hearing that while the Air Force will consider building a child care center inside the perimeter of Camp \u201cBull\u201d Simons, \u201cmy general sense is that the risk calculation is not favorable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to get ahead of our Army secretary and Air Force secretary, because it\u2019s their decision to make,\u201d Chaudhary said. But \u201cthe feedback that we\u2019ve received from the test community [is] \u2026 that it wouldn\u2019t be an option.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe want to make sure we do two things,\u201d he continued. \u201cWe want to ensure the safety of our members who are at a CDC, and at the same time accommodate them as expeditiously as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\t