Deployment for citizen soldiers takes the whole family

Military families feel alone, live as if bad news is imminent
By Mary Beth Breckenridge
Beacon Journal staff writer
July 16, 2012

Becky keeps her house a little cleaner when her husband is serving in Afghanistan, just in case.

She knows the odds of her husband dying or suffering a serious injury are small, yet the specter of a knock on the door haunts the edges of her consciousness.

So she clears the clutter from the kitchen table. She learns how to fix the lawn tractor. She handles the finances and takes out the garbage and lets her daughters kill their own spiders.

She wants her family to be able to run the household alone.

Just in case.

That kind of cautiousness is just one of the realities of sharing family ties with a member of the 1 percent, the proportion of the American population serving in the military.

For six months, Becky and the couple’s two daughters had to survive on the family’s savings while his military paycheck was delayed by complications with the transfer of Guard members to the regular Army. Even when the first check finally arrived, it was half what he makes when he’s home and working his regular job.

Becky, who volunteers at her church’s missions pantry, suddenly found herself on the receiving end.
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