Augusta GA Military Divorce Lawyer – Guard families struggle with deployments
Repeated military missions causing strife in civilian life
By Chris Kenning
When Thomas Leonard joined the Kentucky National Guard in the 1980s, he considered it a part-time job to help pay the bills through college — a commitment of one weekend a month, two weeks a year. Being sent to war barely crossed his mind.
But since 2003, the 46-year-old Louisville medical worker has been deployed overseas twice — once to Iraq, once to Afghanistan — weathering mortar and small-arms attack, nearly two years of absences and jarring returns to civilian life.
“My daughter and sons grew so fast that I remembered them as young children, yet when I came home they were teenagers,” he said.
Similar stories are being told across Kentucky, Indiana and the nation, as the fight against terrorism and two wars overseas have radically redefined what it means to be a citizen solider. The Guard is being called up in numbers not seen since World War II, at one point in 2005 making up half the Army’s combat force in Iraq.
In Kentucky, 4,170 of the state’s 7,208 Army National Guard members were deployed to Afghanistan, Iraq or Guantanamo Bay for up to a year between Sept. 11, 2001, and October 2008. Another 1,005 have been on two deployments — 168 have found themselves on three and even four deployments.
The state’s National Air Guard has made 3,558 total deployments since 2001.
The Indiana Guard, meanwhile, has deployed 9,800 Army soldiers and 3,000 Air National Guard members in the War on Terror, according to a June report sent to Gov. Mitch Daniels.
“This is a totally different Guard than it used to be,” said David Altom, a spokesman for the Kentucky Guard. “But it’s a product of its time.”
Col. Phil Miller, the Kentucky Guard’s chief of staff, said the deployments and their stresses haven’t hampered recruiting, which has exceeded goals for five straight years. Nor has it restricted its ability to respond to state crises, such as the ice storm that hit Kentucky in January, which mobilized 4,100 soldiers for door-to-door checks, he said.
But officials, chaplains, soldiers and families say the extended deployments are straining marriages, families and careers.
There is a “trickle-down effect on families,” said Chaplain Bill Draper, himself deployed twice since 2006 to Afghanistan.
And some vets, struggling with combat and post-traumatic stress, face difficult returns to a civilian world largely detached from the wars.
“The most difficult time is the transition. It’s when we get back and have to retrain ourselves to function in the civilian environment, especially for reservists,” said Staff Sgt. Les Newport, an Indiana National Guard spokesman.
“The hardest part was adjusting to the tempo. I was used to ‘go go go,’ and suddenly, we’re in first gear again,” agreed Leonard, who returned to his job as a nurse at the Louisville Veterans’ Affairs Medical Center after his last tour. “You hear a bang, and you’re more alert.”
The double impact
Julie Rice, 36, of Louisville, whose physician’s assistant husband left last October with the 1163rd medical group to care for detainees near Baghdad, knows first-hand the impact that multiple deployments can have on families.
This is Michael Rice’s second — his first was in Afghanistan in 2004, shortly after they got married.
During this second absence, Julie has given birth to twins, and without family in town, she had to drive herself to the hospital. Now, she’s juggling a full-time job and two infants while her husband misses a formative year of their children’s life, she said. After two, nearly year-long absences, she’s wondering what his homecoming will bring later this year.
“It’s not what I expected,” she said. “My idea was the Guard stays home and the normal military goes overseas.”
Army Guard members typically have at least three years between deployments, unless they volunteer to fill a needed slot, officials said. Most deployments last about a year, although that can be shorter depending on the mission. Air Guard members often do much shorter missions — as short as a week, for example, but as long as months at a time.
Nationally, out of a total Guard force of more than 350,000, about a fourth are deployed overseas in every conceivable job: As military police, medics, prison guards, chaplains, public-information officers, pilots, mine-clearing engineers and combat soldiers.
In some recent years, 1,500 Kentucky Guard members on average were deployed overseas at any given time. That figure has declined to about 500 this year, but as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan continue, the number of Guardsmen seeing their second or third tours are increasing, especially among those trained in military policing and other “force protection” tasks, such as guarding convoys, officials said.
The debate over the Guard’s role has spawned a “Bring the Guard Home” movement, backed by a collection of veterans and peace groups, which have unsuccessfully pushed for legislation in 13 other states aimed at limiting overseas deployments. A Maryland legislator earlier this year introduced a bill to prohibit deployments unless Congress declared war, saying overuse had weakened the Guard’s readiness.
“When the war first started, the Guard was never expected to pull the missions they have, and I don’t think a lot of families were prepared,” said Michelle Joyner, of the Washington, D.C.-based National Military Families Association.
But Guard officials cite a history of serving both state and federal needs. A descendant of the Colonial Militia, the Guard played key roles in World War I and World War II. After Vietnam, when leaders avoided mobilizing them for what historians say were political reasons, many came to view it strictly as a domestic force.
Trying to bridge the gaps
Since 2003, the Kentucky Guard has boosted programs to help soldiers and families, including offering marriage counseling and retreats, and summer camps for kids; expanding a family assistance center from two employees to 30; and creating a Yellow Ribbon program for returning soldiers that addresses suicide prevention, post-traumatic stress, VA benefits, job rights and other help.
Multiple deployments present “a challenge, no question about it,” said Indiana’s Newport. “Not only is it a challenge for the soldier and his family, but his employer.”
There are laws to protect Guard member’s jobs while they’re serving. The federal Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act requires employers to hold jobs for Guard members called up for duty. However, it does not protect them if a factory closes, for example, or if a division is eliminated within a company.
Officials said that’s happened in Kentucky only in rare cases, and usually only with smaller companies, such as a three-employee plumbing contractor forced by the poor economy to make cuts.
But there are other stresses. Last year, a U.S. Army study found the incidence of mental health problems climbed significantly for troops returning for third or fourth tours.
It found that among noncommissioned officers, 27 percent on their third and fourth tours suffered mental health problems last year, compared with 18.5 percent on their second tours and 12 percent on their first tours.
Guard officials say it’s not clear whether that translates to Guard soldiers, given that many aren’t in direct combat roles, but they are working in general to meet mental health needs of returning soldiers.
James Barber, coordinator of the family assistance center, said post-traumatic stress, divorce, and difficulty reintegrating are among the more frequent concerns among returning Guardsmen. Spouses said they struggle to learn new roles such as paying bills or fixing the car, and then struggle to readjust again when the Guardsman returns.
Yvonne Draper, Bill Draper’s wife, agreed it can be difficult.
“We’ve lived alone, got our own schedules, and they pop back in to our lives,” she said “He’s been in a war zone, and everything’s changed for both of us. It takes a very strong marriage.”
Digging a ‘way back in’
Lt. Col. David Mounkes, a member of the Kentucky Air Guard, was recently at the Louisville International Airport to help welcome a fellow unit member back. Kevin Thornberry, a logistics manager for Toyota, returned after six months coordinating logistics and emergency resupplies for Special Forces troops in Afghanistan.
His wife, Deidre, said his absence meant she had to take a night shift at a Cincinnati Hospital to ensure she could get their kids to activities, while her mother took a voluntary furlough from her job to help. Neighbors cooked her food, and one of her husband’s Toyota co-workers helped her with the yard.
“If going once gives an active-duty soldier a break, then I wanted to help,” Kevin Thornberry said of his deployment.
But he recognizes that his own home life suffered.
“My place at home is gone,” Thornberry admitted. “I’m going to have to dig my way back in.”
What the next few years will bring for Guard members is not clear.
The National Military Families Association says the planned drawdown in Iraq, at least so far, is being offset by a ramping up in Afghanistan, and that Guard members shouldn’t expect the demand for their service to go away anytime soon.
Meanwhile, Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear said recently that despite the sacrifices asked of them in recent years, “we take great pride in how our citizen-soldiers and airmen have answered the call of duty.”
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