Serving the Home Front

“It’s not easy hearing the challenges that other military families are facing.  I’ve talked to families struggling with the loss of their loved one, children having a hard time sleeping while daddy or mommy is deployed, kids staring out of the window each night waiting for daddy and not understanding why he doesn’t come home from work, and so many other heart-wrenching stories.”

Operation Hug-A-Hero’s Executive Director, Lisa Berg was recently asked to write an article for publication in the Christian Military Fellowship November Newsletter. Lisa does a great job discussing the difficulties that parents of deployed service members often encounter and how her own power of prayer gets her through the difficult moments and which led her to a rewarding association with Operation Hug-A-Hero.  Here is Lisa’s introduction and a few snippets from the article. To read the entire Newsletter please click on the link above to the Christian Military Fellowship website (CMF).

Greetings Operation Hug-A-Hero supporters!  I was asked by Christian Military Fellowship to write an article for their newsletter about my personal journey as a Christian and why I chose Operation Hug-A-Hero as a non-profit organization to be involved with. I thought you might be interested in reading it. After doing so, I also encourage you to add your comments and thoughts on this Blog post.   Thanks!

“Many military parents worry that their kids won’t remember them when they get back from a deployment (which is often 6 to 12 months or longer).  Seeing photos of their kids interacting with their Hug-A-Hero doll and including them in family events such as Thanksgiving dinner, Christmas, and so on, shows these parents that they are not forgotten.”

Wives & Military Deployments – SPECIAL REPORT by NEJM

An interesting story published on Thursday January 14th, 2010 in the New England Journal of Medicine entitled “Deployment and the Use of Mental Health Services among U.S. Army Wives” discovered that the wives of soldiers deployed suffered higher mental health issues.

This was the largest study ever undertaken. The results are very conclusive and indicate “that the mental health effects of current military operations are extending beyond soldiers and into their immediate families.”

The study shows again “that when a service member deploys, the entire family deploys,” said Air Force Maj. April Cunningham, a Pentagon spokeswoman.

The results of this study mirror the findings from the RAND Corp. study of military children that we reported on last month in our Operation Hug-A-Hero SPECIAL REPORT,Children and Military Deployments that discusses Deployment Effects on Children of Military Families. The NEJM story details the fact that Children of deployed parents suffer more emotional issues, particularly if separations are long or the parent at home is troubled.

It’s a fact … kids do worse when Mom does worse. “So if spouses are more likely to need mental health services as deployment times increase, than their kids are more at risk.”

The NEJM story is pretty technical, so if you want an easier read, I would suggest the USA Today summary that you can read by clicking here: Army wives with deployed husbands suffer higher mental health issues.

The NEJM report along with the RAND report signify that  children of military parents are adversely impacted emotionally with a parent who is deployed away from home for significant amount of time. This is the main reason that Operation Hug-A-Hero was created. We can and have made huge positive psychological impacts to the children that are recipients of our FREE Hug-A-Hero® dolls.

Download a copy of this Report