Dealing with deployment

[Rose Siding]

FORT CARSON - Just over a month before this military post's second major deployment to Iraq, Doug Lehman sat in an office where all the soldiers are plastic - an office stocked with dollhouses, animals and board games, where tiny hands prepare for another round of war.
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"During the first deployment, the children had no idea what Iraq was like. They wondered about the weather, and wondered if there was enough drinking water," Lehman said. "They wondered if they had hospitals in Iraq in case their parent got hurt."

This time, instead of questions, Lehman hears forgone conclusions. "With the kids I'm seeing right now, it's worse than the first time around,"

Lehman said. "They've been coming into my office these past couple of weeks dead set that their fathers are going to die. And I can do very little to convince them otherwise."

In one corner of his office Lehman keeps drawings made by children. Some of them are elaborate scenes in the park with their parents. Some of them are nightmares in crayon....

http://www.insidedenver.com/drmn/america_at_war/article/0,1299,DRMN_2116_3524744,00.html

[AwakeAtLast]

1. Thank you so much for posting this

As the wife of a deployed National Guard member, I see myself in some of what is written. My 3-year-old daughter has definitely experienced some of the things described. While I understand that life on a military base is probably very hard, families of National Guard troops seem to be all but forgotten. Support on a military base is built in, but support for me is nonexistent. I am glad to see someone doing something for those families, especially the children. I hope it trickles down to us soon.

[Rose Siding]

3. It's unbelievable that this hasn't been done before.

You're daughter is fortunate that you are sensitive to what she's feeling. If you know of any Guard office that would be receptive to calls on the subject, please let me know.

Thousands of years of war and many decades of psycological study yet this seems to be an entirely new idea. (I googled this guy to see if I could find a contact number or something to ask him about similar Guard programs)

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Lehman is developing a standardized Army-wide format for dealing with children’s issues relating to deployments. His work provides the curriculum for the Cool Kids program here.

“A crucial part of this is to educate the spouses about typical behavioral and emotional responses of children concerning deployment,” Lehman said. “It is a cycle that starts with pre-deployment. If the family has not had a very good experience with saying good-bye, then the hello upon redeployment is going to be difficult. Anger and emotional responses from the beginning part of this cycle can be a real factor upon redeployment. It has been helpful for spouses to know that their children's responses – whether a young child or adolescent child – are not necessarily correlated to ‘being a bad parent.’”

http://www.drum.army.mil/sites/news/blizzard/blizzard_archives/hnews.asp?id=2&issuedate=12-18-2003

[Athame]

2. The forgotten children

It is good to see an article that deals with some of the realities of this war. If the MSM would pick up these stories and the stories of the children in Iraq those yellow ribbon magnets would be seen as the sick joke they are.

I was struck by the sad truth these little ones know too soon.

"Think about Batman, Spiderman," he said. "Superheroes always win. They never die."

Conversely, when soldiers leave, "You have all these people saying, 'Your dad's a hero,' " Lehman said. "The children say, 'If my dad is a hero, then he shouldn't die.' "