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I am a very good war bride. That’s not just bluster on my part; that statement has been tested and proven, time and again. But take away the war and, as I’ve learned in this past year of no deployments, I am not a very good bride.

Hey Military Families - I think we can help…

I'm launching a website that offers webcam bedtime stories for families that are far apart. I was inspired to build the site because of my frustration being so far from my nieces - unable to be a part of their development and unable to be recognized when I would visit once a year. Well naturally, grandparents and military parents certainly share the same, if not greater, frustration!

The holidays can be difficult for military families.  We may be missing a loved one who is deployed and chances are we're living far from family and friends.  Luckily, Google is teaming up with Blue Star Families and Sesame Street to make communicating with your loved ones a little bit easier this year by providing a calling credit for international calls, exclusively for military families.

Our family is in the process of reintegration after a year-long deployment. Though my husband normally wears flights suits for the Navy, this time he was wearing Army ACUs and working in the desert. We’ve already been on a Disney Cruise to celebrate his homecoming and created the family raised-bed garden we had been talking about for so long.

My husband is home. The deployment is over, and our family is settling in quite nicely through the post-deployment stage of getting to know each other again. However, there’s another person who is greatly affected by the end of the deployment as well: my surrogate spouse.

The clapping, the hooting, the whistling: It was all very familiar. As I hurried toward the terminal at Baltimore-Washington Airport, where U.S. troops land after serving overseas, I spotted the cheerful retirees from Operation Welcome Home who applaud each service member returning from deployment.

Dear Milies,

It's our first deployment and I'm SO looking forward to his homecoming. The thing is, people keep saying that usually the return dates set by the Army aren't positive. Is that true?

by Wife on the Roller Coaster

I looked around my house. Bags packed. Kids anxious. Boarding passes printed. The scene looked entirely too familiar. But this time, it wasn’t preparation for my husband’s departure. It was preparation for mine. I was going on vacation.

Vacations are never easy to organize when you’re married to the military. Last year I altered our travel plans three times to accommodate my husband’s work schedule, until finally I had to book the plane reservations without him so I could squeeze the trip in before my son started school. But this year was different.

Deployments get a bum rap. Military spouses, including myself, share endless stories of loneliness, exhaustion, sadness, and that evil Murphy’s Law that shoulders the blame for leaky faucets and flat tires. I’m not saying that deployments aren’t tough on the loved ones left behind.

For months now, I’ve been bopping quite merrily through life. My White Knight has (miraculously) been home for over a year. We (theoretically) won’t have to PCS for at least another year. My job is (fairly) secure. Since we live off base, it’s (almost) a normal, civilian life.

I should have known better.