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After I had my last daughter, I had to go to Korea when she
was six months old.
When I came back on my mid-tour at the six-month
mark, she was a year and she didn't know me, she wouldn't
come to me.
And I understood, but it was gut-wrenching.
Gut-wrenching.
I mean, I've never been afraid to get on a plane and go
anywhere knowing I was going to get shot at,
but that felt horrible.
My husband and I both were called to deploy to Bosnia, we
were going to be going at the same time.
I didn't realize at the time some of the impacts that were
happening with my children with having to be worried
because they were old enough to know what we were doing,
middle school age.
My daughter kind of became withdrawn a lot, my
son acted out a lot.
They are both very intelligent kids, but just at that time,
they didn't understand why we were never there.
I begin to see that some of those issues where like, wow,
we are a dual military family.
We are always gone, somebody's always in harm's way and
that's stressful for anybody, no matter the age.
My son was diagnosed with ADD around the seventh grade and a
lot of that came out in his treatment.
And then my daughter was diagnosed with bipolar
disorder in the 10th or 11th grade, and a lot of
that came out then.
So we did we do a lot of counseling, a lot of family
counseling.
And now they're 24 and 22, and they are doing well.
They're both in college and we have a wonderful relationship
that I thought we would never get to.