|
|
|
HH6/Resident Beerwench
Group: Community Supporter
Last Login: 12/13/2008 6:58 AM
Posts: 10,243,
Visits: 17,310
|
|
Campbell families cope with separation
By Kimberly Hefling
Associated Press
FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. — Yellow ribbons still line the lightposts into town.
Babies have been born while their fathers are away. High school seniors graduated and left for college or their own military careers without one parent’s hug goodbye.
It has been six months since the soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division began leaving for Iraq for what is expected to be a deployment of a year or more.
Life goes on at Fort Campbell, but these aren’t easy times for the military spouses, their children and those in communities nearby.
Nineteen soldiers from the division have died participating in Operation Iraqi Freedom.
“We are coping, although we miss them and want them to come back quickly and safely,” said Dianna Alfarano, city clerk in Oak Grove, the tiny Kentucky town that borders Fort Campbell, a sprawling installation on the Tennessee border.
Even the exciting news that the 101st conducted a July 22 raid that netted Saddam’s sons in Mosul was overshadowed by the deaths of six soldiers within a week.
Army wife Angie Hardy recalls seeing one of the other wives sitting her porch with her hands on her face crying.
“She said, ‘We’ve just had three soldiers killed in action,’ and then tears start streaming down my face,” Hardy said. “It’s like, I can’t believe this ... that was a horrible week.”
Hope came in late July when the Army announced a date for the 20,000-plus soldiers to return home in February or March, Hardy said.
“It’s kind of a light at the end of the tunnel you can see,” said Cherrieann Diez.
“It’s like the unknown. The unknown is very scary, but once you know what’s going on, you can adjust and move on,” Deborah Malloy added.
Diez’s husband is the command sergeant major of the division’s 3rd Brigade, and Hardy and Malloy have husbands who are command sergeant majors at the battalion level in the brigade.
They sat down recently for an interview in Diez’s home to talk about how wives in their family readiness groups are coping.
Malloy said at one recent family readiness group meeting, she had a woman turn to her and say, “I had a pity party for like three hours. I’m looking at my beautiful baby and my husband can’t even see her, and then I sucked it up and I went on.”
In anticipation of the holidays, Malloy said plans are underway for families to eat together in the dining hall on Thanksgiving if they want company. They’ve also helped wives with no children who can’t afford to fly home — or don’t want to go home and be pitied — find a place to spend Christmas.
Here, “we know exactly how they feel,” Diez said.
Career soldiers with families more mentally prepared to handle long deployment tend to be doing better than others, said E.C. Hurley, a retired Army chaplain who now is executive director of the Marriage and Family Institute in Clarksville, Tenn., near Fort Campbell.
Those with family problems before the soldier left “are ones the extended deployment tends to raise the stress level,” Hurley said.
At first, Hurley said the spouses of deployed soldiers frequently came in complaining their children were acting out.
The issues now tend to be about a family member on the homefront in a crisis, such as a child suffering from epileptic seizures and the mother is pregnant, Hurley said. He said the Army has been good about sending soldiers home for emergency leave.
“By and large what I see there is obviously a disappointment troops are going to be gone longer, but most of the military families are doing a fairly good job of making the adjustments and coping with it,” Hurley said.
Hurley said there is something special about military families and their ability to look after each other.
“Most recognize the need and they reach out to be of help to the other person,” Hurley said.
A letter written July 31 by the division’s commander, Maj. Gen. David Petraeus, brought some encouraging news. He proposed arranging mid-tour leaves of 10-14 days for the division’s soldiers.
No final decision has been announced on whether that will happen.
“If it doesn’t happen, it will be discouraging to a lot of people who get their hopes up,” Hurley said.
Some of the wives said it might be hard on the children if the soldiers come home and then quickly leave again.
“Things are cruising on autopilot now. We went through the adjustment, all that, now we’re just going. We have a routine and used to dad being gone and that’s just the way it is, and it would be hard if he came home ....” Malloy said.
“And then had to leave,” Diez said, finishing her sentence.
“But we would adjust,” Malloy said, laughing.
“I’d hang in there for 14 days,” Hardy said.
- "Hundreds of thousands of American servicemen and women are deployed across the world in the war on terror. By bringing hope to the oppressed, and delivering justice to the violent, they are making America more secure. "
George W. Bush
|
|
|
|