ABSTRACT

Although members of the military are the ones who serve in harm’s way, deployments affect all members of a military family, including children. Statistics indicate that “more than 2 million US children have been affected directly by a parent’s military wartime deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan” (Chartrand et al. 2008: 1). In addition, deployments disrupt family routines, and experiencing even one deployment cycle (i.e. pre-deployment preparation, deployment, and post-deployment reunion) can create tremendous emotional upheaval within military families (Kelley 2002). Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, as the longest military operations since the Vietnam War, have resulted in members of the military being deployed more than once, some as many as four or five times, since 2001. With the operational tempo of these wars, military families have faced a steady cycle of deployments and reunions, which may affect military child well-being in a manner that differs from previous wars. As Rohall et al. (1999) note, the increase in deployments and family separations in recent decades has created a situation where “families must always be prepared to manage family life without the presence of at least one spouse” (50). Although little is known about how children react to deployments, it is inevitable that the experience changes the lives of military children and may be inherently taxing upon their well-being.