A friend just forwarded an email from a friend of hers that is looking for military families to contribute to a Magazine article about long deployments and the effects on family. I emailed back saying I was one of the lucky ones and had only had one 14 month deployment, but could give her the names of several families that have been through multiple. I am certainly not an expert, but we all find ways to cope and make it through whatever comes our way. While Terry was deployed so many people would come up to me and say "oh I could never do what you are doing, I just couldn't make it." My fathers banker came up to me at the end and said "I admire you so much, because every time I saw you with your boys you were smiling and making it look so easy for them." That was my Philosophy while he was gone, Never Never let the boys see how sad, scared or hard it was for me. I had many moments when I felt sorry for myself and wished that Terry had been there for Jason's birth, or for Christmas. If you keep telling yourself you can do anything you can. Right now deployments are part of the package for military families and without the military I wouldn't know the very courageous women and brave men that it is comprised of.