Effects of military deployment on young children just beginning to be understood

[unhappycamper]

U.S. Marine Tyrone Baugh and his wife, Bonnie, enjoy Tyrone's short home visits with their three children; Christopher, 11, left; Dahntay, 5, and his twin sister Tatum, middle.


Effects of military deployment on young children just beginning to be understood
By Faye Fiore, Los Angeles Times
Stars and Stripes online edition, Monday, May 3, 2010

CROFTON, Md. — Looking back, the first sign of trouble was the day Tatum Baugh, 4, refused to come to the phone. Four feet high and 45 pounds, she always held her own against her two brothers in the battle over who got to talk first when Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Tyrone Baugh called home from Iraq.

That day, though, she wanted no part of her dad. In the months to follow, she would throw a punch at one of her teachers and scissors at another, distinguish herself as a regular violator on Miss Kerry’s red light/green light disciplinary chart, and get kicked out of two preschools.

It’s been a rough go for a once-well-adjusted child whose wish list for a happy life seemed fairly simple: her new bike, macaroni and cheese, shaking hands with Daisy Duck, and her father at home.

With the nation at war for eight years, one of the longest stretches in American history, a generation of military children is growing up with a parent in combat. The effects of wartime separations on children are only beginning to be understood, particularly on the littlest, who cannot comprehend the meaning of “Daddy will be back in six months.”

“It didn’t feel fair to her why she couldn’t call her daddy,” said Bonnie Baugh, 34, Tatum’s mother. “Mentally, this last year and a half has really affected her. Everything circles back to not being with her dad.”



unhappycamper comment: I wish our congresscritters would just stop this shit. 218 votes will cure the sandbox problem and stop the MIC from building bigger, better, and more expensive toys to kill people. It's time to fix our roads and hire teachers, firemen, and policemen.

[TwilightGardener]

1. It's always a sad situation--but, it IS an all-volunteer force. Families seriously have to weigh

the benefits with the downsides, and consider whether mom or dad maybe just shouldn't re-enlist. There is no escaping deployments anymore, after 9 years of two wars--they will find you and send you somewhere, you can bet your ass on it.