thedrifter
06-24-07, 03:16 PM
Homecomings often stressful for families
By Rebecca Santana - The Associated Press
Posted : Sunday Jun 24, 2007 13:34:28 EDT
UNION, N.J. — Rosa Cabezas was nervous. Her husband Carlos, a soldier with the New Jersey National Guard was coming home from Iraq after being away for almost two years, and she was worried about how the man who’s been her partner for almost six years will fit into the family and life he left behind to serve his country.
“I am excited, but I’m more nervous than anything else,” said Cabezas, 33, sitting in her north Jersey apartment the day before her husband returned. “It’s like we’re two complete strangers now, and we have to reconnect, like we’re starting all over as a couple.”
For many spouses of returning soldiers, their loved ones’ homecoming is a source of both joy and apprehension. They worry about how both the soldiers and their families have changed after many months apart.
For the Cabezas family and other troops and their families in two New Jersey National Guard units that were in Iraq, this deployment has been especially long. The units left for training in Mississippi in early fall of 2005. After arriving in Iraq in the spring of 2006, they were expecting to come home in late March or early April of this year. Then in January they learned that they would be staying in Iraq longer as part of President Bush’s troop surge.
During that time, Rosa Cabezas gave birth to a son, Kael, who her husband has only seen once during his home leave a year ago, while also raising the couple’s 5-year-old daughter, Kaira.
While she was able to talk with her husband every few days on the telephone and also communicated via e-mail, the day-to-day decisions still fell on her shoulders.
It was a difficult process that made her a stronger, more independent person, but now she is worried about how her husband will view many of the decisions she made for the family.
Experts say that is not uncommon in marriages where one spouse is coming home from a long deployment.
“Everybody comes home and everybody’s glad to see each other, but there’s a change in roles and relationships and responsibilities,” said Col. Anthony Baker, who heads a division in the National Guard Bureau designed to help troops’ families. “What you’ll have is a little tug of war because now the family has moved forward, so they’ve learned to do things on their own.”
As the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan have continued and National Guard troops have dealt with repeated, long deployments, Baker said the guard has ratcheted up the services available to returning troops and their families, including increased counseling and weekend getaways designed to help their marriages.
In some states, including New Jersey, officials from the National Guard meet with the families before the troops return home, advising them to give their partners time to adjust.
A big concern for many families is how they should deal with a spouse or loved one who has been exposed to something horrific while in Iraq.
Cabezas said part of her wants to help her husband deal with any bad memories he might have but part of her doesn’t want to hear about such horrible things.
“During the middle of the deployment he said he saw a little girl with a blown-up leg and she was about my daughter’s age, and that really scared me. And I think that made him change a lot,” Cabezas said.
Spouses who have endured a long period without their partners say the most important thing is to give the relationship time to get back on course.
Tina Spenzos, whose husband came home in the spring of 2004 after being in Iraq for 15 months, said in the weeks after her husband returned, the family took a trip to Disney World. One night after their three kids were in bed, the couple sat on the hotel balcony as she wept over the disconnect she felt between her and her husband. She said it wasn’t until the following summer that she finally thought to herself that things were back to normal.
“You don’t know what is going to happen until it happens. It is all normal,” she emphasized.
Despite the stresses on troops and their families, a study published in April by Rand Corp. showed that divorce rate among military families between 2001 and 2005 was no higher than it was during peacetime a decade earlier.
The days leading up to the return of Rosa Cabezas’ husband were filled with telephone calls detailing his trip from Iraq to Kuwait to Germany and finally New Jersey’s Fort Dix, where the soldiers were reunited with their families last week.
After all the months of waiting and worrying, in a crowded, hot parking lot surrounded by people waving flags and cheering, Cabezas spotted her husband: “There’s Daddy right there! Carlos!”
In the chaotic crush of people rushing toward the soldiers, Cabezas hurried to her husband, showing him the baby that was barely out of the womb when he was last home and the 5-year-old who missed going to breakfast in her pajamas with her father. Her husband seemed dazed as he took in the changes in his family, hugged his children and kissed his wife.
“Being away from them, it’s the worst part,” said Carlos Cabezas, looking at his daughter and son. “I left on Father’s Day of last year, so it’s been a whole year of change since I’ve seen him.”
Later, after their reunion, the Rosa Cabezas said she and her husband intend to take things slowly as they work toward becoming partners again. She doesn’t want him to go back to Iraq.
“We’re just going by hope and prayer every day,” she said. “We have a long time to raise these kids. We have a lot of time to make up.”
Ellie
By Rebecca Santana - The Associated Press
Posted : Sunday Jun 24, 2007 13:34:28 EDT
UNION, N.J. — Rosa Cabezas was nervous. Her husband Carlos, a soldier with the New Jersey National Guard was coming home from Iraq after being away for almost two years, and she was worried about how the man who’s been her partner for almost six years will fit into the family and life he left behind to serve his country.
“I am excited, but I’m more nervous than anything else,” said Cabezas, 33, sitting in her north Jersey apartment the day before her husband returned. “It’s like we’re two complete strangers now, and we have to reconnect, like we’re starting all over as a couple.”
For many spouses of returning soldiers, their loved ones’ homecoming is a source of both joy and apprehension. They worry about how both the soldiers and their families have changed after many months apart.
For the Cabezas family and other troops and their families in two New Jersey National Guard units that were in Iraq, this deployment has been especially long. The units left for training in Mississippi in early fall of 2005. After arriving in Iraq in the spring of 2006, they were expecting to come home in late March or early April of this year. Then in January they learned that they would be staying in Iraq longer as part of President Bush’s troop surge.
During that time, Rosa Cabezas gave birth to a son, Kael, who her husband has only seen once during his home leave a year ago, while also raising the couple’s 5-year-old daughter, Kaira.
While she was able to talk with her husband every few days on the telephone and also communicated via e-mail, the day-to-day decisions still fell on her shoulders.
It was a difficult process that made her a stronger, more independent person, but now she is worried about how her husband will view many of the decisions she made for the family.
Experts say that is not uncommon in marriages where one spouse is coming home from a long deployment.
“Everybody comes home and everybody’s glad to see each other, but there’s a change in roles and relationships and responsibilities,” said Col. Anthony Baker, who heads a division in the National Guard Bureau designed to help troops’ families. “What you’ll have is a little tug of war because now the family has moved forward, so they’ve learned to do things on their own.”
As the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan have continued and National Guard troops have dealt with repeated, long deployments, Baker said the guard has ratcheted up the services available to returning troops and their families, including increased counseling and weekend getaways designed to help their marriages.
In some states, including New Jersey, officials from the National Guard meet with the families before the troops return home, advising them to give their partners time to adjust.
A big concern for many families is how they should deal with a spouse or loved one who has been exposed to something horrific while in Iraq.
Cabezas said part of her wants to help her husband deal with any bad memories he might have but part of her doesn’t want to hear about such horrible things.
“During the middle of the deployment he said he saw a little girl with a blown-up leg and she was about my daughter’s age, and that really scared me. And I think that made him change a lot,” Cabezas said.
Spouses who have endured a long period without their partners say the most important thing is to give the relationship time to get back on course.
Tina Spenzos, whose husband came home in the spring of 2004 after being in Iraq for 15 months, said in the weeks after her husband returned, the family took a trip to Disney World. One night after their three kids were in bed, the couple sat on the hotel balcony as she wept over the disconnect she felt between her and her husband. She said it wasn’t until the following summer that she finally thought to herself that things were back to normal.
“You don’t know what is going to happen until it happens. It is all normal,” she emphasized.
Despite the stresses on troops and their families, a study published in April by Rand Corp. showed that divorce rate among military families between 2001 and 2005 was no higher than it was during peacetime a decade earlier.
The days leading up to the return of Rosa Cabezas’ husband were filled with telephone calls detailing his trip from Iraq to Kuwait to Germany and finally New Jersey’s Fort Dix, where the soldiers were reunited with their families last week.
After all the months of waiting and worrying, in a crowded, hot parking lot surrounded by people waving flags and cheering, Cabezas spotted her husband: “There’s Daddy right there! Carlos!”
In the chaotic crush of people rushing toward the soldiers, Cabezas hurried to her husband, showing him the baby that was barely out of the womb when he was last home and the 5-year-old who missed going to breakfast in her pajamas with her father. Her husband seemed dazed as he took in the changes in his family, hugged his children and kissed his wife.
“Being away from them, it’s the worst part,” said Carlos Cabezas, looking at his daughter and son. “I left on Father’s Day of last year, so it’s been a whole year of change since I’ve seen him.”
Later, after their reunion, the Rosa Cabezas said she and her husband intend to take things slowly as they work toward becoming partners again. She doesn’t want him to go back to Iraq.
“We’re just going by hope and prayer every day,” she said. “We have a long time to raise these kids. We have a lot of time to make up.”
Ellie