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" Leaving the Kids Behind Kathy and Frank Turner first met 14 years ago during training at Fort Rucker, AL. He&amp;#039;d graduated from West Point, and they were both lieutenants going through training. The two bonded instantly over a love of their country--and pretty soon they fell in love with each other, too. They were married two years later. In 2004, Frank deployed to Afghanistan for a year, leaving Kathy home with their two daughters, then only 6 months and 3 years old. In 2009, when Frank and Kathy deployed, they decided to serve together to ease their separation as a family. &amp;quot;If we deployed one at a time, it would be a never-ending cycle of the girls having one parent,&amp;quot; Kathy says. So she and Frank requested a reassignment that resulted in dual deployment in Iraq. Frank was to leave in January 2009; Kathy would follow behind in March. The girls would live with Frank&amp;#039;s parents, Karen and Frank Sr., in Florida for the year. &amp;quot;At 8 and 5, they were young enough that uprooting them from their home in Washington to stay with their grandparents didn&amp;#039;t seem too disruptive,&amp;quot; Kathy explains. She knew it would be hard to leave the girls, she says, &amp;quot;but I also knew that if I could see Frank every day, we&amp;#039;d draw on each other&amp;#039;s strength, which would make it easier to be away from our kids.&amp;quot;  Staying Close, 7,000 Miles Apart Though the decision to serve together was a clear one, Kathy says she debated whether she and Frank should live in the same housing unit. &amp;quot;I didn&amp;#039;t want to be selfish,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;If we lived together and our unit was attacked, my kids could end up as orphans.&amp;quot; In the end, the couple opted to bunk together because they were stationed in a green zone [of relative safety]. Kathy, a public affairs planner, and Frank, then a maneuver planner and mission analyst, also worked in the same building. The girls seemed to take comfort in knowing their parents were looking out for each other, Kathy says. &amp;quot;They&amp;#039;d ask me, &amp;#039;Did you see Dad today?&amp;#039; And I could tell them we&amp;#039;d eaten together at the Chow Hall.&amp;quot;  Kathy and Frank stayed as involved as they could in their daughters&amp;#039; lives. In addition to phone calls, they watched a video of Grace singing in a talent show and Skyped with her and her classmates a couple of times, answering questions about the food and animals in Iraq. But when Kathy missed the girls&amp;#039; birthdays and other milestones, the gulf of 7,000 miles widened: &amp;quot;It upset me that I wasn&amp;#039;t there for Abby&amp;#039;s first day of kindergarten and that I only found out she&amp;#039;d lost a tooth through Skype,&amp;quot; she says. In those low moments, she leaned on Frank. &amp;quot;It was good to have my husband here because he&amp;#039;s very calming. I would have gone crazy by myself, realizing all the little things I was missing.&amp;quot;  Proud to Serve, Happy to Go Home Back in the States, after hearing a particularly blunt television report, Abby announced to her grandparents: &amp;quot;If you go to Iraq, you&amp;#039;re going to die.&amp;quot; When Karen heard this, her heart broke a little, but she reassured her granddaughter: &amp;quot;I told her that it wasn&amp;#039;t true, and that her parents were stationed in a safe area.&amp;quot; After that, the grandparents put Grace and Abby on a no-news diet.  Frank returned home before Kathy did; on her flight home she was excited but apprehensive. &amp;quot;The girls were so much taller and had transformed from little girls to young ladies,&amp;quot; she remembers. &amp;quot;Their likes and dislikes had changed, and in a way I&amp;#039;ve had to get to know them all over again.&amp;quot; But Kathy insists she wouldn&amp;#039;t trade a day of her deployment. &amp;quot;I feel proud knowing that Frank and I are helping to make Iraq a better place,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s gratifying to witness the violence diminish and to watch a democracy mature. We&amp;#039;re serving a cause greater than ourselves and teaching our kids what it means to be a good citizen.&amp;quot; Mothering Her Soldier Daughters Overseas Marcia Reid served as a Marine for eight years; she got out when her older daughters, Nikita and Qualynn, were 7 and 1, and before younger daughters Chandra and LaShawn were born. But by 2005, all the girls were grown up, and Marcia was missing the camaraderie of the military. So she quit her job in customer service and printing operations and reenlisted. She never expected Chandra and LaShawn would enlist in the National Guard a year later--and that three years after that, the three of them would end up deployed to Iraq for the first time. When Marcia learned her two &amp;quot;babies,&amp;quot; Chandra and LaShawn, would deploy in May 2009, she immediately requested a transfer to their unit. &amp;quot;If they were going to get hurt, I wanted to be with them,&amp;quot; she says. Although Marcia&amp;#039;s individual transfer request was denied, her unit ended up volunteering to serve alongside her daughters&amp;#039; unit, which was short of troops.  The sisters, meanwhile, groaned at the thought of serving side by side with their mom. &amp;quot;I thought it would be awkward,&amp;quot; LaShawn says. &amp;quot;When you&amp;#039;re hanging out with your friends and your mom shows up, the party&amp;#039;s over.&amp;quot; Chandra even sarcastically suggested that Marcia stay home and bake cookies for her grandkids. But Marcia didn&amp;#039;t take offense: She believed that her daughters&amp;#039; feelings ran deeper than irritation about having a chaperone. &amp;quot;Their real fear was that if they lost me, they wouldn&amp;#039;t have a mother,&amp;quot; Marcia says. &amp;quot;I told them, &amp;#039;Don&amp;#039;t worry--if I go, I&amp;#039;m coming back.&amp;#039;&amp;quot; Leaning on Mom for Support Once the women landed in Iraq, LaShawn admits, she was relieved to have Mom around. She and Marcia, both convoy escorts for base personnel, lived in the same housing unit at Balad Air Base, and when a thunderstorm was brewing, LaShawn would run to her mother&amp;#039;s bed for comfort. LaShawn also relied on Marcia on the tougher days, like when she was on duty at the Air Force hospital and watched as injured Iraqis were admitted for fire and gunshot wounds. &amp;quot;Seeing your first death, especially if it&amp;#039;s a kid, is hard for anyone,&amp;quot; Marcia says. &amp;quot;And LaShawn is really sensitive. I tried to console her, but I would also say, &amp;#039;You&amp;#039;re going to have to be strong, because it may not get easier.&amp;#039;&amp;quot;  Chandra, who tracked vehicles for a tactical operations system, lived in a separate housing unit two miles away. On the days she missed home, she&amp;#039;d take walks with Marcia. &amp;quot;Usually it&amp;#039;s hard to confide in higher-ranked soldiers because their position requires them to watch what they say,&amp;quot; says Chandra, who especially appreciated the moments when Marcia would rub her back and assure her they&amp;#039;d all be home soon. &amp;quot;But having Mom around meant the security of always having someone to talk to.&amp;quot; Watching Out for Her Girls Sometimes, however, it was Marcia who needed comforting. During the frequent mortar attacks, she says, her first thought was of her daughters. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;d want to get straight to my girls, but I had to report to my bunker,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;d think, Did they get to their bunkers? Did their area get hit? I was on edge until I knew they were safe.&amp;quot; Because they reported to the same unit, Marcia could see that LaShawn was secure immediately after the alarms sounded, but they wouldn&amp;#039;t always know that Chandra was okay until a few hours had passed.  In time, Marcia became a surrogate parent to other soldiers, making herself available for advice, hugs, and even shopping excursions to the base department store. LaShawn says she bristled a few times when friends said, &amp;quot;That&amp;#039;s my Mama Reid.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;&amp;#039;I&amp;#039;d tell them, &amp;#039;No, she&amp;#039;s my mama!&amp;#039;&amp;quot; Other times, LaShawn wasn&amp;#039;t so quick to claim Marcia as her mother. &amp;quot;LaShawn says guys won&amp;#039;t talk to her because they&amp;#039;re afraid of me,&amp;quot; Marcia laughs. &amp;quot;They know if they hurt her feelings, Mama Reid is gonna get them!&amp;quot;  No Chance for Farewell In March 2010, when Chandra and LaShawn&amp;#039;s tour of duty ended, Marcia was on leave back in Maryland. They&amp;#039;d hoped to fly home and see her there before she went back to Iraq, but their flight was delayed, and they missed their mom by mere hours. &amp;quot;It was tough not to have an official good-bye,&amp;quot; LaShawn says. Marcia is scheduled to return home in October.  Meanwhile, back in Maryland, the daughters log on to their instant-message and Skype accounts daily at 4:30 p.m., when Marcia gets off work. &amp;quot;I feel like a piece of me is missing with Mom still in Iraq,&amp;quot; LaShawn says. Adds Chandra, &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m always thinking about what she might be doing. I worry about her every day.&amp;quot;   Sibling Soldiers A year after graduating high school, Katie Divyak followed in her big brother&amp;#039;s boots and joined the Air National Guard. She even joined his unit. Like her brother, Chris, she wanted to widen her horizons and make money for college--and the prospect of having Chris at her side during training and deployment only sweetened the deal.  The siblings deployed to Afghanistan in 2006 to work in the air control squadron. No sooner had they arrived at Camp Palomino when Katie experienced her first mortar attack. &amp;quot;I hadn&amp;#039;t even unpacked my &amp;#039;battle rattle,&amp;#039; including the flak vest and Kevlar helmet troops are supposed to carry at all times,&amp;quot; she says. During a tour of the Chow Hall, she heard the fireworks of a blast. &amp;quot;The soldiers eating were calm because they&amp;#039;d been there for months,&amp;quot; Katie says. &amp;quot;But I was freaking out, thinking, Oh, my God, what am I doing here? I didn&amp;#039;t say anything because I didn&amp;#039;t want to seem like a scaredy-cat.&amp;quot; Luckily, with Chris taking cover under the tables alongside her, Katie felt reassured. &amp;quot;I never worry about sounding or acting like an idiot when my brother&amp;#039;s there,&amp;quot; she says. Because Chris had friends in the military who filled him in on the raids that occurred during their tours of duty, he was better prepared for the attack, and he assured his sister they were not in serious danger--and that the base&amp;#039;s 8,000 troops were always looking out for one another.  A Working Relationship As an enlisted officer and crew commander, Chris supervised his sister. Both worked on the ground: Chris was a weapons director radioing fighter planes when an area was under attack, while Katie, an air surveillance technician, identified aircraft on the screen and notified a supervisor if it was an enemy plane. &amp;quot;You&amp;#039;re on the edge of your seat the whole time, monitoring some 900 aircraft,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;And because we were so comfortable, Chris and I would sometimes take our frustrations out on each other.&amp;quot; But the two also kept each other in check: Says Katie, &amp;quot;Chris was in a leadership role, so if he was horsing around or had too much to drink at a party, I could say, &amp;#039;Hey, Captain, you&amp;#039;re acting like a jackass!&amp;#039;&amp;quot;  Bonding Over a Shared Past To boost their spirits, the siblings often reminisced about life in Wisconsin. &amp;quot;It was a stressful environment of working 15-hour days, seven days a week, with no breaks,&amp;quot; Katie says. &amp;quot;So it was easier to smile about something that happened at home than get mad about the present.&amp;quot; They agreed ahead of time what to tell their parents and what to keep from them--like middle-of-the-night mortar attacks just 50 feet from Katie&amp;#039;s bunk. Their parents never guessed. &amp;quot;When Chris and Katie returned, we learned that it was a lot more dangerous than they had portrayed,&amp;quot; says their mother, Natalie. &amp;quot;It gave us comfort to know that Chris was with Katie. I was relieved they had each other.&amp;quot; Soon after returning home from Afghanistan in 2007, Katie returned to college. &amp;quot;People welcomed me back and asked how the deployment was, but then they&amp;#039;d zone out during my answer,&amp;quot; she says, which made her feel disconnected. So Katie turned to Chris. &amp;quot;I told her it would take time to readjust,&amp;quot; Chris says. &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;d been going 100 miles per hour and then returned to quiet lives. I suggested that Katie get involved at school so she wouldn&amp;#039;t feel bored or get depressed.&amp;quot;  Katie has worked through the difficulties she and Chris faced during deployment, but she still remembers one with a laugh: On the siblings&amp;#039; base, people would take one glance at their name tags and assume they were married. &amp;quot;No, that&amp;#039;s my brother!&amp;quot; Katie would clarify. &amp;quot;Tell all your friends I&amp;#039;m single!&amp;quot;  HELP FOR THOSE AT HOME If a military deployment is keeping you an ocean apart from a loved one, turn to these resources for support for you and your family.   Yellow Ribbon America is a grassroots endeavor for communities to support military members and their families. Local businesses, residents, churches, and organizations offer resources like discounted medical care, home-repair services, and emergency vehicle repair. For more info: yellow ribbonamerica.org.   Family Readiness Groups, a command-sponsored service provided for each unit, facilitate social events and educational programs on everything from military benefits to stress management for deployed soldiers and their families. For more info: armyfrg.org.   Strategic Outreach to Families of All Reservists (SOFAR) is a pro-bono mental-health project that provides free psychological support and prevention services to extended family of reserve and National Guard members deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kuwait. For more info: sofarusa.org.   "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.redbookmag.com/life/mom-kids/advice/a6291/families-deployed-for-war/>