His environment is common, but he is rare. He doesn’t blend in with his surroundings, yet often remains unseen – caring for his offspring, avoiding exposure, scarcely encountering others of his kind.

When a unit is given short notice to deploy, many leading military wives desperately cobble together their unit's family readiness group and other networks.  Certainly there is no better way to maintain a continuous flow of information from the command to the families, not to mention the incredible benefits for supporting each other during deployments. Here are a few thoughts we've picked up along the way to help community/unit leaders get your spouse clubs established.

Family Readiness Group leaders, Key Volunteers and other command leaders are always asking the same question: What on earth do I give to my families during the pre-deployment meeting?  You know they won't listen to everything that is said, so they need something to reference afterward as crises come up.  And you know that most families won't even attend the meeting, so you need materials for service members to give their families.So we asked the CinCHouse.com community what they think is the best materials they can get, and what other good ideas they have seen during pre-deployment.

What your FRG/Ombudsman or significant unit rep can and can’t do for you

Jenny shows signs of compassion fatigue, which is close kin to post-traumatic stress disorder. It’s basically vicarious PTSD; although, Jenny herself has not lost a loved one, she’s taken on the grief of those around her who are hemorrhaging emotionally.

Just when Army wife Gina Redwine thought she had dealing with deployment down pat, her husband’s third one threw her for a loop. He was being deployed to Iraq with only 10 other soldiers, which in some ways could be a little easier. After all, it was a small group, right? Well, none of these soldiers or families had ever met. All of them lived in different parts of the country and were being brought together to form a unit.