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thedrifter
02-16-09, 07:09 AM
Wars take moms away from home
By Karina Bland - The Arizona Republic
Posted : Sunday Feb 15, 2009 17:08:01 EST

PHOENIX — Ray Taylor pulls 6-year-old Gracie’s hair into two stiff braids, something he learned how to do on the Internet.

He’s had to figure out how to do a few things on his own since his wife, Jessica, a sergeant in the Air Force, left in October for Iraq.

He’s eliminated the hassle of trying to figure out which little socks belong to which of his two little daughters by buying the girls all new ones: purple stripes for Gracie and pink for Isabelle, who’s 2. Taylor has learned to get everything ready for day care and school the night before: tracking down Isabelle’s shoes and putting Gracie’s Littlest Pet Shop backpack by the door of their Surprise home.

Taylor, 31, who’s also a sergeant in the Air Force, is ribbed by his co-workers at Luke Air Force Base, who call him “Mr. Mom.”

As more women enlist in the military and take on jobs traditionally held by male soldiers, from transportation to security, they’re also being deployed overseas in greater numbers.

The war in Iraq has resulted in the largest deployment of American women to a combat area to date. At the height of the conflict in 2003, one of every seven U.S. troops in Iraq was female. About 11 percent of the 1.8 million active-duty military personnel deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq since 2002 have been women. Of those, almost 37 percent are mothers, according to the U.S. Department of Defense. And when Mom goes away to war, Dad is left to soldier on alone.

This is Jessica Taylor’s third tour away from home.

“She’s going to come back when I’m 7½,” says Gracie, whose birthday is this month. Jessica, 26, is expected back by early May.

Gracie misses her mom, she says wistfully, but then shouts, “Jump on Daddy!” and lands on Taylor with a thud. Both girls climb on to his back, and he does push-ups while they cling to him, squealing with laughter.

Gracie is used to saying goodbye to her parents.

Both shipped out at the same time in 2003 — Jessica to Qatar, Ray to Baghdad — when she was just 1½. She spent five months with her maternal grandparents in Minnesota. Two years later, her mom left again, this time for Baghdad, while her dad went to Mississippi for five months of training. She stayed with her paternal grandparents in Kentucky.

Now Ray works in education and training, a job that should keep him home even during times of war.

“Is it bad that Jessica’s gone? Sure, but it’s part of being in the military,” he says. “It’s kind of nice that I get to stay behind this time.”

Isabelle holds a toy dinosaur up to Daddy’s face. He asks, “What’s a dinosaur say?” Isabelle roars.

Taylor and the girls don’t count down the days until Jessica is home because it would seem too long. He keeps the girls busy instead, hoping that they won’t have time to miss her. They still do, of course.

“Dads are supposed to be tough — you know, the guy thing — so I don’t cry,” Taylor says. But he holds the girls tightly when they miss their mom. With every conflict, the military has learned more about how to best support families of deployed service personnel, says Shelley MacDermid, director of the Military Family Research Institute at Purdue University, in West Lafayette, Ind.

Every branch of the service offers support, including counseling, child-care subsidies, 24-hour help lines and family activities, before, during and after deployment. The programs have gotten better in the past eight years or so with the increased tempo of deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq, says Lt. Bryan Bouchard, a spokesman for Luke Air Force Base.

The military recognizes that deployments are difficult for families, whether it’s Mom or Dad who is shipping out, Bouchard says. Good support programs at home can help soldiers focus on their jobs by knowing that their families are being cared for.

When Sgt. Michael Skinner was deployed to Iraq in 2004, he made sure his wife’s car was in good shape before he left — new tires, oil change and tune-up. Sure enough, the battery went dead while he was gone.

At Luke’s airmen and family readiness center, where Skinner is an event coordinator, spouses of deployed troops can get free oil changes for their cars and referrals to reliable mechanics. Families also gather at the center for potlucks, to bowl or just talk.

The center is used mostly by wives of deployed troops, though the occasional husband comes in. Partners and other family members, including parents, also are welcomed.

“I think it’s fair to say they were designed in an era when it was almost exclusively women who were participating,” Purdue’s MacDermid says of the programs, adding that men also would benefit from them.

“It’s hit-and-miss,” Skinner says. “We, as guys, think, ‘We can handle it on our own. We’re men.’ ”

Ray Taylor hasn’t visited the center, but he uses some of the ideas that Skinner sends about activities and programs and says he likes knowing that help is there if he needs it.

Taylor seems to be doing fine on his own.

He’s always done the cooking (and Jessica the laundry). So when he and the girls get home, they cook dinner together, with Gracie handing him the pots. On weekends, the three go to the park or zoo, watch movies and cook S’mores in the backyard. They also make cards to send to Jessica.

If Taylor doesn’t know how to do something, like braid hair, he figures it out.

“I’m a typical guy. I’d just as soon do it myself,” he says. “If I rely on someone else for help, I’m never going to figure it out.”

Jessica says in an e-mail from Iraq that Ray has always been a good father. Her deployment has made him an even better one. “He’s their everything for six months,” she writes.

Jessica, who has been in the Air Force for eight years, and Ray, for almost 10, plan long military careers, so they likely will face more deployments.

Gracie talks excitedly about all the things they’ll do when Mom comes home: play with Barbies, go to the park, tell stories. Isabelle listens wide-eyed and nods: Yes, me, too.

Jessica will be home for at least 18 months before possibly having to leave again. Ray will be happy to have her safely back in his arms — and not have to do any more laundry.

Ellie