Photo by Hala Aboudaher
Elijah Bradley plays with his toy fire truck while his parents
tell stories about the time they spent serving in Iraq.

Left Behind: The Life of an Army Wife

By Ashwini Salpekar
Tracy Kehrer’s husband, Mark, an Army colonel, used to send home his smelly T-shirts from Iraq so his wife and four teenagers could remember him. The children would fight over the T-shirts, just to be able to hold onto something and feel close to their father. The T-shirt tradition became a way for the Kehrer family to deal with the long absences imposed by a military career.

“You remember just the stupid things that are really annoying, but those are the things you miss the most when they’re gone,” Kehrer says. “And then the tears would turn into laughter when they would remember how stupid dad was.”

Kehrer is one among thousands of Army wives at Fort Hood in Kileen, Texas. According to Cory Grant, public relations coordinator for the base’s Morale, Welfare and Recreation program, Fort Hood is the largest military training installation in the world and home to 88,000 soldiers and their families, as of March this year. Texas contributed the greatest number of active duty soldiers to the Army in 2005 – 63,647 out of a total of 404,788, according to U.S. Department of Defense statistics. Over the course of the fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, Texas has trailed only California and Florida in sending troops overseas.

While their husbands battle a war in the Middle East, the wives of Texas’ soldiers fight their own battles at home. Army wives face the challenge of bringing up families alone while their husbands are engaged in a war halfway across the world.

Grant says that like families everywhere, military families also face a range of issues from financial problems to spousal separation. But one major issue that military wives have to cope with is the instability of Army life. Army wives have to deal with the rootlessness that stems from the fact that their husbands are fighting overseas for long periods of time.

Carissa Picard, whose husband, Caynan, is a Black Hawk pilot leaving for Iraq in June, has had to move her home and family five times in the last six years, finally arriving at Fort Hood. “I have been here five weeks and I just don't want to unpack,” Picard says. “It's really getting old.”

Kehrer’s family has been luckier. Due to her husband’s comparatively high rank in the Army, they have been at Fort Hood since 1995, allowing the family of six, including two sons and two daughters, to stabilize in one spot for 12 years. “Although my husband has come and gone,” says Kehrer, “we've been able to stay put.”

Bethany Bradley is an Army wife with a difference. Unlike most of her fellow wives, she had the experience of serving alongside her husband, Aiden, when they were stationed in Iraq shortly after the war started in 2003, although they didn’t marry till the following year. Both began their tours to Germany, Kuwait and finally, Iraq, as privates first class – Aiden assigned to a missile-launching unit and Bethany working in logistics.

In spite of being in battle side-by-side, Bethany and her husband faced separation issues themselves. Although the Bradleys were deployed in the same unit, they rarely were able to meet and speak to each other. “We communicated through letters for the first two or three weeks,” says Bradley. “We got to know each other through a different way.” Bethany and her husband – both now 25 – moved to Austin in early 2006 where they now live with their 2-year-old son, Elijah, and another child is on the way.

The biggest challenges faced by women tied to the military by enlistment or marriage often involve their relationships with their children. “My older son acted out,” Picard says. “He dealt pretty badly with the situation. He was lashing out at me. All I could say was your dad's working. He loves you, but he's working.”

Picard says that she sought help from a child development specialist on the military base who counseled her about the importance of talking to her 7-year-old son, Caleb, about his feelings. “I do think it made a difference. I went to the specialist because I didn’t know what else to do with him,” Picard says. She feels that following the specialist’s advice did allow her son to express his emotions which she says will benefit him even in the long run.

Kehrer regrets that her husband has missed everything from Halloween and Christmas to two of their daughters’ birthdays. But in spite of this, Kehrer jokes that her husband got the better deal. “I sent my husband a rubber chicken that squeaks,” she says. “I told him that you’re in Baghdad because you’re chicken. And he said, ‘You’ve got the teenage girls, I’m hiding out.’”

Kehrer says the Army has become better at taking steps to help families and soldiers deal with the trials of fighting in a war. She says that in the last two years, the Army has come out with programs that have professional counselors who provide anonymous and paperless counseling services to military families. “I recommend to every Army family that at some point they need to go and get some counseling,” she says, “because they experience trauma that isn’t their fault.”

“The Army recognized the fact that families are a really important part of the life of a soldier in the military,” says Grant, who works for the MWR at Fort Hood. “Keeping the family happy is important to keep the soldier happy. They need to know that their families are feeling secure.”

Fort Hood provides a variety of family support programs under the Army Community Service – programs such as Morale, Welfare and Recreation, Family Life Counselors and the Family Advocacy program, which provide child care, recreation, financial and housing resources and counseling. “We offer appointment services for people who need assistance with how to balance their budget or how to buy a house.” Grant says. “We have programs in place for families who can get the services they need.” These services could range from sports activities for middle and high school students, to enrichment classes to learn piano, ballet or Tai Kwon Do.

All Army posts, including Fort Hood, have family readiness groups that maintain contact with all soldiers’ families. “The regiment's great in making sure the families of these soldiers are doing alright because the soldiers shouldn't have to worry about how their families are doing,” says Jeanette Urban, whose husband, Jacob, is a sergeant in the Third Armored Cavalry Regiment at Fort Hood, and has been in Iraq since November last year. “I have a good family support system here and I make sure that they all have my information,” she says.

Cheri Cain, a rear detachment liaison in the Fort Hood readiness group, says that the group is there to help empower families to give them the resources and guidance that they need. “It's not there just in case something is wrong,” she says. “We provide them with resources whether it's financial, chaplains, relocation, employment readiness, realtors, family life consultants – anything that helps them deal with Army life.” Cain is responsible for training commanders to get ready for deployment.

Grant says the counseling programs are a popular outlet within the Fort Hood community because they’re anonymous and available to anyone who wants to talk. “They know that whoever you're talking to isn’t going to go back and report to their commander,” she says.

Picard dismisses the services offered to family members by the military. She feels that most people assume that if you live on a military base there is support from the military community. “I have heard nothing from my FRG,” she says of the readiness group. “I don't know anybody else from my husband's unit. I don't know any other spouses.” Picard found friendship and support on the Internet when she created the Military Spouses for Change message board. “Most military spouses get their support online,” she says. “That was the emotional support and friendships I developed.”

“The military usually takes care of military families and these programs have been around forever,” says Cain. “It's a work in progress because two situations are never exactly alike so these programs are always changing.”

In spite of the great sacrifices these women have had to make, their respect and admiration for their husbands and the institution they belong to has not diminished. “The Army is like a member of your family,” Picard says. “You can talk badly about that person but you don't want anybody else talking badly about that person.”

Kehrer also feels that the immense sacrifices Army families make go unacknowledged – sacrifices that wouldn’t be understood by others until they lived through it themselves. “The biggest war protesters are Army families because we understand the sacrifice and yet we are extremely loyal at the same time,” she says.