Studies on active duty military families indicate that deployment disrupts normal functioning of the family. Scholars still, however, lack the necessary knowledge to fully grasp the impact that the current Iraq and Afghanistan wars have had on Army National Guard (ARNG) families who have experienced deployment. A grounded theoretical approach to interviews with ARNG spouses yields insight into how these families are coping with the often-unexpected event of wartime deployment. The authors identify stressors and coping strategies used by these spouses and offer suggestions for future research that will allow scholars to more fully understand the present situation ARNG families are facing.
Lolita M. Burrell , Gary A. Adams, Doris Briley Durand, and Carl Andrew Castro, "The Impact of Military Lifestyle Demands on Well-being, Army, and Family Outcomes,"Armed Forces & Society33 ( 2006): 43-58; Harvey Frankel, Lonnie R. Snowden, and L. Scott Nelson , "Wives’ Adjustment to Military Deployment: An Empirical Evaluation of a Family Stress Model,"International Journal of Sociology of the Family22, 1 (1992): 93-117; Harry K. Wexler and Ellen McGrath, "Family Member Stress Reactions to Military Involvement Separation,"Psychotherapy28, 3 ( 1991): 515-19; and Eliza K. Pavalko and Glen H. Elder, "World War II and Divorce: A Life-course Perspective,"American Journal of Sociology95, 5 (1990): 1213-34.
2.
Charles S. Miliken, Jennifer L. Auchterlonie, and Charles W. Hoge, "Longitudinal Assessment of Mental Health Problems among Active and Reserve Component Soldiers Returning from the Iraq War," Journal of the American Medical Association 298, 18 (2007): 2141-48; and E. G. Benotsch, K. Brailey, J. J. Vasterling, M. Uddo, J. I. Constans, and P. B. Sutker, "War Zone Stress, Personal and Environmental Resources, and PTSD Symptoms in Gulf War Veterans: A Longitudinal Perspective," Journal of Abnormal Psychology 109, 2 (2000): 205-13.
3.
A 2004 Defense Manpower survey found that more than half of married or separated Army National Guard families reported a loss in monthly income. Information can be found in Brad-ford Booth, Mady Wechsler Segal, D. Bruce Bell, James A. Martin, Morten G. Ender, David E. Rohall, and John Nelson, What We Know about Army Families: 2007 Update (Fairfax, VA: ICF International, Family and Morale, Welfare and Recreation Command, 2007), http://www. army.mil/fmwrc/documents/research/whatweknow2007.pdf (accessed January 29, 2009).
4.
Lolita M. Burrell , Doris Durand, and Jennifer Fortado, "Military Community Integration and Its Effect on Well-being and Retention," Armed Forces & Society30 ( 2003): 7-24.
5.
Angela J. Huebner , Jay A. Mancini, Ryan M. Wilcox, Saralyn R. Grass, and Gabriel A. Grass, "Parental Deployment and Youth in Military Families: Exploring Uncertainty and Ambiguous Loss," Family Relations56 ( 2007): 112-22.
6.
Phyllis Bennis and Erik Leaver, The Iraq Quagmire: The Mounting Costs of War and the Case for Bringing the Troops Home (Washington, DC: Institute for Policy Studies, 2005), http://www.ips-dc.org/reports/the_iraq_quagmire (accessed January 22, 2007).
7.
This information is from Kevin Neumann (Colonel and Supervisor, Family Assistance and Personnel, Nebraska National Guard), interview with the author, February 1, 2007.
8.
Ibid.
9.
Lisa Tsoi Hoshmand and Andrea L. Hoshmand , "Support for Military Families and Communities,"Journal of Community Psychology35, 2 (2007): 171-80.
10.
Barney Glaser , Basics of Grounded Theory Analysis ( Mill Valley, CA: Sociology Press, 1992); Ralph LaRossa, "Grounded Theory Methods and Qualitative Family Research,"Journal of Marriage and Family67 (2005): 837-57; and Kathy Charmaz, Constructing Grounded Theory: A Practical Guide through Qualitative Analysis ( London: Sage, 2006).
11.
The life stress theory is discussed in L. I. Pearlin, M. A. Lieberman, E. G. Menaghan, and J. T. Mullan, "The Stress Process," Journal of Health and Social Behavior 22 (1981): 337-56; and Walter Ensel and Nan Lin, "The Life Stress Paradigm and Psychological Distress," Journal of Health and Social Behavior 32, 4 (1991): 321-41.
12.
Burrell et al., "Impact of Military Lifestyle Demands"; Kathleen M. Wright, Lolita M. Burrell, Erica D. Schroeder, and Jeffrey L. Thomas, "Military Spouses: Coping with the Fear and the Reality of Service Member Injury and Death," in Military Life: The Psychology of Serving in Peace and Combat, vol. 3, The Military Family, ed. Carl Andrew Castro, Amy B. Adler, and Thomas W. Britt (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2006); Suzanne Wood and Jacquelyn Scarville, "Waiting Wives: Separation and Reunion Among Army Wives," Armed Forces & Society 21 (1995): 217-29; and Walter Busuttil and Angela Busuttil, "Psychological Effects on Families Subjected to Enforced and Prolonged Separations Generated under Life Threatening Situations," Sexual and Relationship Therapy 16, 3 (2001): 207-28.
13.
Douglas R. Bey and Jean Lange, "Waiting Wives: Women under Stress,"American Journal of Psychiatry131 ( 1974): 283-86.
14.
Booth et al., What We Know, report that a majority of reserve component Army spouses did not expect their soldiers to be mobilized. James Griffith, "Will Citizens Be Soldiers? Examining Retention of Reserve Component Soldiers," Armed Forces & Society 31 (2005): 353-83, also points out that call-ups of reservists have often been unexpected.
15.
Hoshmand and Hoshmand, "Support for Military Families."
16.
Booth et al., What We Know.
17.
Burrell, Durand, and Fortado, "Military Community Integration."
18.
Huebner et al., "Parental Deployment."
19.
Wright et al., "Military Spouses"; and Busuttil and Busuttil, "Psychological Effects."
20.
Tina Watson and Pauline Boss, "Maintaining Family Resiliency before, during, and after Military Separation," in Military Life: The Psychology of Serving in Peace and Combat, vol. 3, The Military Family, ed. Carl Andrew Castro, Amy B. Adler, and Thomas W. Britt (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2006), discuss what we know about what helps and hinders families during deployments. Awareness of social issues and other important parts of their lives expressed by the spouses in our current study has not been discussed in previous research and should be further explored.
21.
R. Jay Turner and William R. Avison, "Status Variations in Stress Exposure: Implications for the Interpretation of Research on Race, Socioeconomic Status, and Gender," Journal of Health and Social Behavior 44, 4 (2003): 488-505; and Joe F. Pittman, Jennifer L. Kerpelman, and Jennifer M. McFadyen, "Internal and External Adaptation in Army Families: Lessons from Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm," Family Relations 53, 3 (2004): 249-60.
22.
David Westhuis , Richard J. Fafara, and Philip Ouellette, "Does Ethnicity Affect the Coping of Military Spouses?" Armed Forces & Society32 (2006): 584-603.
23.
Gary L. Bowen, Jay A. Mancini, James A. Martin, William B. Ware, and John P. Nelson, "Promoting the Adaptation of Military Families: An Empirical Test of a Community Practice Model,"Family Relations52, 1 (2003): 33-44.
24.
Pittman, Kerpelman, and McFadyen, "Internal and External Adaptation"; and Watson and Boss, "Maintaining Family Resiliency."
25.
Citizen Soldier Support Program, http://www.ribbonstoreality.org (accessed February 10, 2007).
