Military Deployment and the effects on their family members Martin C. Weiss Eng/147 2/02/15 Patricia Nereim This is My Daughter, Julie Katilyn Weiss and her boyfriend LCPL Dillon G. Lackus is a U.S Marine Military Police Officer and LCPL Lackus is stationed at Camp Hanson, Okinawa, Japan.
Military Deployment and the effects on their Family Members
In America, the weight of the wars of Iraq and Afghanistan falls heavily upon military families. In fact, military families are living the new normal.”What that really means is that this,” intense life of repeated deployments, of prosthetics, of memorial services, this is what life is going to look like for us from now on, so we had better learn to deal with it. ( (Lyden, 2009) It’s a shame, that every military family has to deal with the decision of what their child has decided to do just coming out of high school. The good-bye until the next time is the hardest because they waited so long to see them. And it goes by so fast that the next thing you know they have to go back.
Family members are faced with emptiness when that day comes; when their families and friends watch them walk away with their recruiter they will not have any commutations with their loved ones for three months. Waiting on that first letter, just to see how they are doing. To hear them explain it is a living hell to go through boot camp, just knowing they hate it, but it’s what they wanted to do. Their family misses’ and love them; every family wants that day to come so they all can hold them and just look at their face and say “I love you.” Then the big day comes; families and friend have been waiting for three long months to see them Graduate from boot camp. But first the family has to deal with just getting there just to get to see them. When they get there and get the first sight of their loved ones, the tears and joy come out in buckets non-stop. Everyone hugs them, kisses them and just hold on tight and doesn’t want to let go. In fact, this is true for over 3.1 million families (Clark, Jordan, & Clark, 2013) who get a short time to spend with their service man/woman before they are shipped out again.
Addition to the family has to learn to cope when they know their loved ones are in harm’s way. Just the fact of knowing we can’t protect them, it hurts them very deeply, but this is what they signed up for to protect all of us. Families have all kinds of questions, like is he or she going to be ok? Where are they going to, what kind of state that the country is in, they are in a country they have no clue how it's controlled. How are the people going to act towards them, or how are they going to treat them with hate or open arms. They are warned not to go from camp or base without at least five to six other soldiers. Families don’t know if they are okay or have been hurt or even killed, they just don’t know because their loved ones might be in an area that could or might be very dangers.”Military families are in uncharted territory here. The sad part is the new norm the day that everyone prayed would not happen, when the high-rank officers walk up to the door to deliver the bad news.
All military families understand and feel the pain of the families who have had the knock on the door, and they are so afraid of having that knock on their door. Not knowing when they will come home causes anxiety, knowing that all of our service men and women have signed a contract for four years. Yes, some make it a life career and some just do the four years and get out. But it takes a toll on the families who support them and love them stand behind
