Wives of deployed NC troops lend support.

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Wives of deployed N.C.-based troops lend support

By AMANDA GREENE
Star-News of Wilmington
Posted: Today at 12:02 a.m.
Updated: Today at 6:55 a.m.
WILMINGTON, N.C. — Each night, just before her 7:30 p.m. bedtime, 2-year-old Grace Fitzgerald pulls off a sheet of toilet paper at her Hampstead home. The little white square marks one more day without her daddy who is deployed with the Marines in Central America.
Her mother, Catherine Fitzgerald, holds the roll as her daughter sings a little ditty for her daddy. Usually, "Daddy's coming home. Daddy's coming home! Clap, clap, clap."
In the second short deployment of their marriage, Fitzgerald knows the frustrations of being a military wife. But she also knows that a 30,000-troop surge planned in Afghanistan likely means that longer deployments are in her husband's future.
"The biggest stress is that anticipation. You're kind of torn, because you want to enjoy that time with him, but you want to prepare for him being gone," she said. "Sometimes at night, it's harder to sleep, because you don't feel as safe. There's a lot of depression, anxiety and isolation with military wives, because there's always the worries of the things that can happen in deployments."
Fitzgerald has sought refuge in her faith, hosting Bible studies for military wives. She was recently tapped to head up ministry support for group leaders in the Christian Military Wives organization. The CMW is a social network supporting military wives and a ministry of The Christian Military Fellowship.
Fitzgerald started a bi-monthly Bible study and military wives ministry at Scotts Hill Baptist Church called Operation Hope Front that has attracted about 15 women so far. She knows there are more in the Hampstead and Wilmington areas who could use the support.
"When you move this far out (in the Hampstead area), you miss out on some of the base resources at Camp Lejeune," she added. "Just to have that support of other military women who know what you're going through is such an important part of our life."
At Operation Hope Front's December meeting, nine women sat in a circle discussing a passage on bitterness in Hebrews.
"Maybe it's just a female thing, but sometimes we're just in a mood, and it makes us feel better to be bitter," one woman said.
"How does bitterness affect a marriage and the children of a bitter parent?" Fitzgerald asked the women.
"I know in my case there's nothing more convicting that when you hear your child say something bitter that you know where it came from. And that you said it," another woman answered.
Laura Smith's husband is in the middle of a long deployment to Afghanistan – their fourth in 5½ years of marriage. One of her two boys thinks his father lives in the phone, because he was so young when his father was deployed.
The hardest part for her is "living like a single parent and having to switch back and forth from that perfect family life to half of that," she said.
Part of the group's mission is to provide physical needs like babysitting, lawn care, meals or home repairs for military wives "who come to this area, and they don't have those connections yet," Fitzgerald said. Scotts Hill Baptist plans to host a Military Wives Conference on May 15 to connect families with resources in the area.
Jessie Attig's husband is being deployed to an unknown location in January.
"I'm kind of numb to it, because I'm looking forward to the holidays," she said of her husband's pending departure. "But I know it will hit me like a ton of bricks soon."
Though Rachel Wentling's husband is between Marine deployments, she still comes to the Hope Front meetings, because "I feel like God calls us to help one another."


http://www.wral.com/news/state/story/6660583/

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GODBLESS the wives and the children of these brave young and old men