In honor of Military Moms everywhere, this story is provided and presented by our sponsor The Army & Air Force Exchange Service. The Exchange was established by General Orders No. 46 in 1895 to provide goods and services to military members and their dependents. Mother’s Day looms large in the retail world. But when you serve the military customer, you need to be aware of the special role that mothers play in the military family.

"When Exchange creative teams started brainstorming about our annual Mother’s Day campaign, it was clear we needed to tell a much larger story about the significance of the military mom" said Ana Middleton, Chief Merchandising Officer for the Exchange.

"The Salute to Mom campaign features lots of images of moms, but we wanted take it a step further than featuring models who looked like moms," said Middleton. "We wanted to talk to real military families to build an experience that gives a first-hand account of military moms and the sacrifices they make. So we asked our customers about the moms in their families."

Exchange Digital Media Networks Producer, Amy Mitchell visited Fort Hood and NAS Fort Worth JRB (Carswell) to speak with Exchange customers about the military moms in their families and she heard a fairly common theme: Mom is the backbone…Mom is the glue that holds it all together.

Through her interviews, it became clear to Mitchell that it was not always an actual "mom" who was holding the family together. "Military families are much bigger than just moms," she said. "There are a lot of people stepping in to do a mom’s job. It could be a grandmother, an aunt, a sister—there are a lot of other ‘mom’ figures."

One example of this is Lisa, a military grandmother whose son is a single parent. He is deployed and she and her

(See the video.)Mitchell received a mixed reaction when she approached customers to do a shout out to their moms. "Hi. Would you like to talk to me about your mom today?" It seemed the impromptu nature of the request caught some people off guard. "You kind of catch people in a different light when you ask them to talk about their mom," said Mitchell. "Sometimes people were hesitant to share. In some cases their mother or wife had recently passed and it was too emotional for them to speak on camera."

But when customers did want to speak about their moms, there were some pretty common themes:

"My mom works so hard…"

"My mom makes so many sacrifices…"

"My mom is the backbone of our family…"

"My mom does all the work to keep our family together…"

An Exchange associate whom Mitchell interviewed about her mom was Makayla. In addition to working at the Exchange, she is also a reservist and is working on a nursing degree. She expressed a great amount of gratitude to her mother for "pushing me when I want to quit." (See the video.)

As the relatively new mom of a two-year-old, gratitude was a sentiment Mitchell felt as well—gratitude for the sacrifices of our military members and their families.  "I was extremely moved by other people’s stories about their moms," she said. "Over and over they expressed gratitude for their moms being the backbone of the family. The support they provide to their spouses, children and communities is priceless. It’s refreshing to know that I am serving people who serve a greater cause."