Veterans Families Serve Also

Sandy is a remarkable 11-year-old young lady. She has a special needs brother and tries to be a good older sister to him. Her father is in the Air Force reserves and consistently gone from home. Her mother works full time and goes to college causing Sandy to struggle with her position in the family and her perceived responsibility to help her mother take care of her brother especially when her father is deployed. Sandy, like her mother suffers when her father comes home not knowing where she fits in with her duties once her father returns.  Her brother takes a lot of her mother’s time when she’s not working or in school so Sandy steps in to help while her father is gone. Sandy must work through the constant upheaval of her father coming and going, with the rules changing every time he leaves and comes home. Sandy is an especially bright and smart young lady, reading 3 levels above her current grade. She frequently has a fantasy life and “lives in her head” because its feels safe for her, especially when her dad is gone. Even with all the added responsibility she feels she is surviving and thriving. She reads every chance she gets as an escape. Her mother stated that Sandy is sometimes too smart for an 11 year old. Her case is not unique. Many children of Active Duty, Guard, and Reserves parents deal with similar issues, the consistent upheaval of their family’s lives due to military requirements are the norm for them. Sandy has found a constructive way to deal with her feelings by reading and living in her fantasy world. Many people say that Sandys way of dealing with her situation is not good for her, but it seems to work for her right now. Many children don’t find a positive way to work through the loneliness and requirements like Sandy. Some children negatively act out having trouble with day to day life and struggling with school  

Children of military members suffer with the coming and going of their parents. Children’s reactions to deployment, parental concerns, and the effects of reintegration increase family stress.  Children’s emotional and behavioral reactions change as they try to adjust to the unstable environment of their parent being deployed. In some cases, children become resentful of their parents because they don’t understand why they are consistently coming or going, in others children place their deployed parent on a pedestal. It has been proven that absent parents create social and academic declines in children, no matter the reason. This instability can cause a gamut of problems for the children. These problems can filter down to the family. Often younger military children do not understand where their parents are or what’s going on.  Worrying about their parent is normal for a veteran’s child to work through, especially for teenagers. Different children react differently, to some the possibility of losing a parent is real. Children are smarter than we give them credit for, many of them know exactly what’s going on and try to emotionally separate themselves from the parent who deploys. These children continually struggle with the uncertainty every time their parent leaves, unfortunately this is the family’s life while their family is a military one. Being a parent is tough enough, but being a part time single parent with the consistent coming and going of the spouse is frustrating for everyone involved. 

The military has their own take on families, if they had wanted you to have a family; they would have issued you one. Supposedly that has changed, married military members number 52%, Dual military (military married to military) are 12%. Military personal are more likely to be married than civilian peers because of the benefits of being married while in the military. The lure of more pay, better housing, free utilities, and more freedom looks appealing to many military members. Many people enter the military single and marry young. Eighteen to twenty-four-year-old males are twice as likely to get married while in the military. This can cause its own problems.

Young spouses are often left at home with no family nearby while their spouse is deployed. This opens the door for depression among many other psychological effects on these young spouses. These families must deal with the consistent leaving and returning of their family member often to a war zone or a dangerous situation. This constant in and out can cause several issues within the family. Deployed spouses lose their place in the family unit, they can feel un-needed when they return. The disruption in the family can be profound. In many cases the military member returns and the spouse has changed the way they do things. Repeatedly deployed military members struggle fitting in when they return home. It’s important to note, the military member comes back a different person than when they left, some suffering from the battles of war. The stay at home spouse wants to keep things the same and the returning spouse want’s things the way they were. The children struggle and sometimes feel they need to take sides, often siding with the deployed parent because of the separation anxiety caused by the deployment. Some children do the exact opposite and resent their parent for being deployed. When the military member is deployed spouses experience loss of emotional support, increased responsibility and a need to re-adjust their role. This causes anxiety, anger, depression, and even physical illness to both the spouse and their children.

Frequently the parent’s ideas on how to handle the children and the day to day operations at home upon the return of the military member are at odds with each other. Divorce rates are higher for military members than civilians. Some families feel the deployments strengthen their marriages while in the military. For some it’s great during the honeymoon period until the military member brings the war home, and the “new” spouse shows themselves. Other families continue their path before deployment and live a “normal” life. Once the family leaves the security of the military, the divorce rates increase and are higher than civilians of the same age. Being married in the military has multiple benefits. These benefits include pay security, and medical care. Once members leave military that security goes away, causing stress and sometimes bringing marital problems to the forefront.

World War II, Korean War, and Vietnam veterans feel social support from comrades, wives, and family members were the key to lifelong coping with their military service. Members of today’s military are more likely to be married with children than predecessors when on active duty. This causes families to play a bigger role while their loved ones are deployed. The modern military still recruits individuals, but retains or fails to retain families. No one joins the military and stays the same. Military families give up a lot to support the military member. The deploying spouse’s family life changes, and the stay at home spouse’s life continues while the military member is deployed. I met a veteran who made a statement that hit the nail on the head, “I am not the hero, my wife is the hero; she stayed home and raised the kids while I was gone”. The families of our military and veterans have given and give a lot to this country. Next time you see a military family, or you see a family with someone wearing their veteran clothing, thank the families too. They deserve your respect.

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