Deployed troops face so many challenges, seen and unseen.

Kim, my wife was one of the wives who was asked to check on "junior wives" while I was gone. Some of the stories she told me were pretty remarkable. Some of the young troops, usually teenagers, did things like leaving and taking the only checkbook, leaving his wife with no access to money. Some of the young wives had almost no idea how to manage things, and really weren't functioning. In some cases, the young wives didn't even know what options she had access to. My wife helped get support for these young women and their kids. So, while I agree completely with the comments here about some of the problems that Reservists and Guardsmen had, it affected many of these young families in just about every way. To be fair, this was only some of the kids. This was driven by age, education, rank, etc., but it was real.