Military families represent a special group which because of the specific characteristics of a military way of life they lead, needs also special research attention and also special institutional support. Article presents main characteristics in a life of military families and sources of stress for family members of the military staff. Military families have been ignored for a long time, and they have been given more institutional attention from the military organization since the second half of the twentieth century, when attitudes toward military families have begun changing. Several researches have confirmed the importance and strong influence of a family factor on readiness of a single soldier, as well as on his or hers unit's readiness. Theinfluence of family on a soldier's satisfaction with his or her job as wellas on his or her plans for retention, is a known fact. Article also pointsout some problems of families of members of the Slovene Armed Forces (SAF), who until recently have not been given greater research attention and still represent an unknown in the relation among a soldier and SAF. Last part of the article is based on first empirical findings on opinions and expectations of families of members of SAF.
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