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ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – It’s a long way from Alaska to Texas, just ask Pfc. Mike Godinez-Martinez. The 18-year-old reported to Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson from Texas just a month ago for his first duty station.
“Alaska to Texas, that’s the farthest north point of the United States to the farthest south,” Godinez-Martinez said.
And up until recently, going back home to where his family lives in San Antonio was not in the picture for him, or many of his other fellow rookies — not even for Christmas. But that’s all about to change after Godinez-Martinez and countless other service members received an early Christmas gift.
“We’re able to see our families this Christmas and have reason to why we join,” Godinez-Martinez said.
Service members stationed in Alaska are eligible to receive a free, round-trip ticket to their home of record one time during their three-year tour. Service members who bought a ticket home since Dec. 23 can apply to be reimbursed for their ticket. The provision is part of the Don Young Arctic Warrior Act, which Sen. Lisa Murkowski spearheaded in last year’s National Defense Authorization Act. Murkowski worked alongside Sen. Dan Sullivan and Congresswoman Jackie Speier to write the act.
“Our servicemen and women deserve to be able to be connected with their families,” Murkowski said. “It’s a morale booster. It’s something that says, ‘We appreciate you but we also recognize that service in Alaska can sometimes be challenging.’”
From 2018 to 2021, Alaska documented 29 military deaths linked to suicide. In April of 2022, Sullivan along with Speier attended listening sessions on military bases within the state to learn more about the crisis.
“Ensuring Alaska’s service members and their families are properly cared for has always been one of my highest priorities. Last year, former Congresswoman Jackie Speier and I held listening sessions at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson and Fort Wainwright following the tragic increase in suicides on Alaska’s bases,” Sullivan shared in a statement. “During these sessions, we heard from hundreds of soldiers, spouses, and mental health practitioners about the special challenges they faced being based in Alaska. These listening sessions resulted in our Don Young Arctic Warrior Act.”
Murkowski says there is not one silver bullet when it comes to the treatment of mental health, but said there needs to be more mental health professionals in the community and on base and less of a stigma surrounding seeking help.
“Sometimes it’s the little things that make the difference … for a solider who is just feeling like he’s got to have some family love and then he can give it [his] all. He can do everything that his country is asking of him, come back to Alaska and be strong and be the soldier that he wants to be,” Murkowski said.
Godinez-Martinez said he now plans on going home in December in time to celebrate his older brother’s 21st birthday. Right now, he said his mother is the only one who knows about his plans to return home. His arrival this winter will be a surprise for his father, brother, and 15-year-old sister.
“I hope they don’t see this,” Godinez-Martinez laughed.
John Pennell, the 11th Airborne Division Chief of Media Relations, agreed that connection with family is critical for military members,
“What we find across the military really, is a really strong tie to the family back home. So for us to be able to do our job, it’s important to be able to maintain that relationship,” Pennell said.
That rings true Godinez-Martinez, who said his family is what inspired him to join the Army.
“I love them dearly,” Godinez-Martinez said.
Copyright 2023 KTUU. All rights reserved.
The Anchorage Hillside is at high risk of wildfires, and between the abundance of flammable materials and the low number of roads, residents of the area could be in danger if a large fire breaks out. On this episode of Alaska Insight, host Lori Townsend and her guests discuss the ways researchers and the local fire department are working to help inform and prepare for wildfires in Anchorage.
This week’s headlines:
The U.S. Forest Service is planning to build a few dozen new cabins in the Tongass and Chugach National Forests in the coming years. The agency is proposing higher fees – $75 a night – to help keep up with the increased cost of maintenance.
Lifelong Petersburg resident Brian Richards and his wife stay at Forest Service cabins every summer. The 40-year-old said they reserve several cabins that they travel to by boat.
“It’s like a bucket list,” Richards said. “We want to use them all. I’d say we prefer cabins by lakes or rivers, you know, water, it just kind of adds another element.”
The couple sees their cabin stays as good for their mental health. Richards calls it “natural therapy” that helps them reconnect.
“The more we get out there and walk around and look at the trees and listen to the birds and just, you know, disconnect from civilization, I think it’s just incredibly beneficial,” he said.
Richards is excited to see more cabins coming to the area. The Forest Service plans two new cabins in the Tongass this year at El Capitan Interpretive Site and Mendenhall Campground, and four next year at Herbert Glacier in Juneau, Woodpecker Cove near Petersburg, Little Lake near Wrangell and Perseverance Lake near Ketchikan – they’re mostly on the road system for increased accessibility.
Similarly, there are six new cabins scheduled for the Chugach, with half built this year at Porcupine Campground in Hope, Meridian Lake near Seward and McKinley Lake near Cordova, and half next year at Granite Creek and Turnagain Pass. That means the Forest Service needs to set the nightly fees for the cabins soon. The agency is required to have fees set six months before they charge them.
“It can be tricky,” said John Suomala, the recreation program manager for the Tongass.
Suomala helps set the cabin fees. He uses a cost analysis that looks at several factors such as local economies and what similar cabins are going for.
“Part of it too is just, you know, local expertise, from the districts, people that live in these communities,” said Suomala. “Just kind of thinking about, you know, what are the prices within these communities now and what do you think your neighbors are willing to pay.”
The nightly fees for staying at a Forest Service cabin in Alaska mostly range from $35 to $75. All of the new cabins are proposed for $75 a night except for two – one near Ketchikan is $65 and one at Juneau’s Mendenhall campground is $125 because it has electricity and nearby showers.
The new cabins are just a fraction of what’s available to the public. The Tongass has 142 cabins just in Southeast. Most are remote and get visitors less than 10 nights a year. Last year, it cost the Forest Service $700,000 to maintain them. The nightly fees covered about $500,000.
Suomala said the popular, more accessible cabins help subsidize the remote ones – and that’s their hope with the new cabins coming on board. But ultimately, he said, the public will help set the price.
“We want feedback to, you know, to get an idea, like are we way off here?” Suomala said. “Do you think it should be higher? Do you think it should be lower? We can’t raise the fee based on feedback from the public but we can lower it.”
As for Richards, he said $75 a night won’t be a deal-breaker for him and his wife, Ola.
“Because, it’s worth it for us,” he said. “I guess my concern is for a lower-income family. I would hate to think that someone wouldn’t stay at a cabin because they can’t afford it. I think that’s a real shame.”
The deadline for public comments on the proposed cabin fees is July 2. People can comment in person, online, by phone, email or snail mail.
Rural Alaskans who face worsening climate conditions — from sea-level rise to melting permafrost — often don’t leave their homes for safer, more urbanized areas, according to newly published research from Pennsylvania State University.
Rather, such communities are more likely to adapt in place. For a handful, that means making hard choices about physically moving homes, buildings and infrastructure to secure ground nearby. But that costly option may not be available to many small, indigenous Arctic communities, which are among the most climate vulnerable in the world.
“Community relocation from climate-related environmental changes is a possible option in Alaska, but it is an unpopular and expensive process,” said Guangqing Chi, a professor of rural sociology, demography and public health sciences at Penn State and lead author of the paper published in the journal Regional Environmental Change.
The issue is not unique to Alaska. It is playing out in climate-threatened communities around the United States, from the Sea Islands of South Carolina, the ancestral home to the Gullah/Geechee Nation, to Isle de Jean Charles in Louisiana, where members of the Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw tribe lived for two centuries before their island succumbed to storm surges and rising seas. Today, most former Isle de Jean Charles residents have moved to a new community 40 miles inland.
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