CHEYENNE, Wyo. - The deployments overseas are winding down. But the memories of fathers and mothers being miles apart from their children remain.
After more than a decade of conflict and on-going missions to support Operation Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom, families in Wyoming can enjoy a new normal: days, months, and maybe years with their military loved ones home.
But, what about those young lives who were affected by the abrupt departure of a father or mother? Many spouses carried on the on-going job of maintaining a household while one of the parents deployed. But even as the dutiful mom or dad picked up the slack, there was still a child, sitting in his or her room, wondering and dreaming of the day mom or dad returned.
Kaycee Will was in the fourth grade when her dad, Maj. Eric Will, deployed early in Operation Iraqi Freedom, in 2004. Even more difficult for her and her brother Christopher, who was 11 at the time, was that their dad was a single parent, one that they had only lived with for a couple years.
“I didn’t really know him that well,” Kaycee said, when she moved in with her dad after he received full custody of her and her brother.
Abbey Spaulding was 11 when her dad, Jason, deployed.
“It was really hard to say goodbye, we were all crying and went to the airport and watched the plane leave,” she said. Even though it was more than seven years ago, she has memories of Christmas and holidays at her grandparents’ home, but with no dad. The absence of a male figure was not something Abbey was used to, or enjoyed.
“At first it was weird not having a male figure at all times,” she said. “We lived very close to grandparents. We had a daddy-daughter event at school and I didn’t have my dad to go with me. I felt left out.” Luckily her grandfather went with her, but the event wasn’t the same, she said.
Kaycee Will felt similar.
“It was different,” she said with emotion in her voice. “I couldn’t do anything for Father’s Day.” It felt worse, Kaycee said, because she didn’t know when her dad was coming home.
For Kaycee’s dad’s Guard deployment, it wasn’t just a year away from home, but two, since Eric had to go through online courses, training, and a drastic ramp up that took up almost all of his time.
“It was a five-month ramp up time, I had to send them to live with my mother,” Eric said. He had so little time prior to shipping out, he quit his job.
In the meantime, Kaycee Will and her brother adjusted to living with another person.
“There was a difference between Grandma and Dad,” she said. “Dad would make us do PT if (my brother and I) got in a fight.” With Grandma, there was no father figure. But, she did her part to make sure her grandchildren heard from their father.
“She would put Dad’s emails in a scrap book,” Kaycee said. As the deployment raged on, she would go home from school and pull that scrap book and look through it. “I’d read them all the time.”
As Kaycee enjoyed the moments flipping through numerous emails, Abbey struggled with the unknown.
“Just the fact we didn’t know what was going to be happening and not knowing where (dad) would be at all times and the idea that he was going to war,” she said, remembering the days when she thought of her dad. “It was scary to think about.”
“I remember when we would talk over the phone and remember when we would talk on Christmas and it would be a big deal,” Abbey said.
Kaycee didn’t get many opportunities to talk to her dad, but that was somewhat by design. Eric refrained from calling home too much, because he wanted to prevent a routine from happening, and in case of days without a call, alleviate home front fears.
“I did not talk to them every day in case of a commo blackout,” Eric said. “I didn’t want them to get more stressed if they didn’t hear from me a lot.”
On mid-tour leave, Eric gave a wonderful surprise to Kaycee, showing up at a school recital without telling her. The surprise worked. Kaycee said she remembered excitedly running up to him. The feeling would return when Eric came home for good.
“It was good to have him back and see him,” Kaycee said, with tears of joy remembering his return. “He is my best friend,” she added.
Abbey shared that excitement when her father Jason returned. But, like most deployments, there is an immense adjustment to the new environment for the family and the returning service member.
“He had to adjust to living in the real world again,” Abbey said. “On the family it was real hard, we had to be careful around him.”
Kaycee had to wait until school was over to live with her dad again. By that time it had been almost two years since the family was under the same roof. But that didn’t matter to her.
“Distance tests a person. You know who is going to stay with you, no matter what,” she said.
| Date Taken: | 04.10.2015 |
| Date Posted: | 04.10.2015 12:13 |
| Story ID: | 159636 |
| Location: | CHEYENNE, WY, US |
| Web Views: | 14 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Children still remember parent's deployments, by MAJ Thomas Blackburn, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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