DAVID SWANSON / Staff Photographer
Terri Tarricone - the wife of Michael Tarricone, an Army National Guard captain who recently returned from Iraq - with sons John (left) and Miles at their home in Manahawkin, N.J.
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The Hidden Home Front
The loved ones of U.S. service members have always learned to adapt, but deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq are testing their resiliency.
Few studies on military families have been done during the operations in Afghanistan, which President Obama is gearing up, and Iraq, which he is drawing down. Such studies aren't just academic: More information on military families' situations can lead to developing and targeting services for them.
"It's not an easy thing to do research on military kids," who often move from base to base with their families, says Shelley M. MacDermid Wadsworth, director of the Military Family Research Institute at Purdue University.
"We don't know as much as we should, certainly not as much as we'd like to," she says.
Research from previous wars shows that military kids and their families are generally resilient people; their lifestyle demands that they manage separation and change. Relatives nearby are a huge source of support for military families. So is religiously planning the week's events, so the needs of the children and the parent at home are met.
Rick Prete, who was an emergency-room technician at Montgomery Hospital before going to Iraq, used a stuffed animal to help little Arianna deal with his deployment. She takes comfort in the custom-made monkey dressed in Army fatigues. When she squeezes it, the stuffed animal says "I love you" in her father's voice.
"Plenty of families fall apart for a lot less stress," says Rachel Lyons of New Jersey's Operation: Military Kids.
But the current missions have no clear precedent.
Tours in Iraq have been extended to as long as 15 months, three months more than the one-year battlefield stint for troops in the Vietnam War. Less time passes between coming home and serving again.
The fighting is unconventional - the enemies' signature weapon is the roadside bomb. Advances in battlefield medicine have meant soldiers who are victims of such weapons are more likely to be saved from serious brain trauma and other injuries. Families celebrate their loved ones' survival, yet many have to adjust to disabilities.
The nature of the military has changed in another way that impacts families. Females in the military - 220,138 women have so far been deployed to the Iraq and Afghanistan missions - serve on much more equal footing with men, including in dangerous assignments.
Women, including mothers, now perform almost every kind of battlefield job. They drive trucks, guard prisoners, and fly aircraft, though they still are barred from serving in direct combat units.
"We have kids growing up who know their parents in no other situation," says Michelle Joyner of the National Military Family Association.
Some details about the stresses on military families are emerging. A newly released Pentagon survey found that 60 percent of the spouses of active-duty service members and 67 percent of reserve and National Guard spouses said their children showed increased levels of fear or anxiety during the other parent's deployments.
"It was very clear that spouses were very concerned about the cumulative effects of deployments on their children," Barbara Thompson, director of the Pentagon's Office of Family Policy/Children and Youth, told a Senate subcommittee.
Earlier research bolsters that survey: It suggests that children ages 3 to 12 with a deployed parent in uniform tend to show increased anxiousness, withdrawal, or aggression compared with youngsters of at-home parents. Different ages show their emotions in different ways.
Adults can act out, too. A study in 2007 found that reports of child neglect and abuse in Army families increased when a parent was away at war.
A range of organizations, from military family-advocacy groups to Sesame Workshop (affiliated with TV's Sesame Street), are rising to highlight issues for these children. The military is increasing its support for families, including creating informational Web sites and child-focused programs, and assigning behavioral-health specialists at bases.
At some moments, though, groups and programs don't help. Just ask the Tarricone family - mom, dad and three sons.
Nine-year-old John's emotions churned at unexpected times for his dad, Michael, a captain in the New Jersey Army National Guard who just returned from Iraq.
John - who likes to keep his light-brown hair "high-and-tight" in a buzz cut, like his father - was playing soccer in a local league when he got kicked in the side and fell to the ground. The coach ran over and picked him up.
