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The Deployment Of Military Personnel Essay

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As of April 12, 2015, excluding the U.S. Coast Guard, there are nearly 1.2 million active duty U.S. military personnel (Demographics of Active Duty U.S. Military, 2015). Approximately half of these men and women have a spouse and/or children that they must say goodbye to once they are deployed and deployment can last four to fifteen months. The deployment of military personnel adversely affects their families by causing negative emotional and/or behavioral changes, continuously altering the framework of the family dynamic, and by increasing the risk factors for divorce upon their post-deployment reintegration. Deployment of a parent and/or spouse can cause a myriad of behavioral and/or emotional changes in the family members left behind. The stress of deployment on the spouse left at home can cause mental health issues that have a negative impact on their relationship with their child(ren) and their parenting practices (Swenson & Wolff, 2011). Subsequently, a spouse left to parent and carry on alone for months on end may begin to feel the weight of their compounded responsibilities, the fear for their spouse’s safety, and the heartache of loneliness in such a deep way that depression, insomnia, and anxiety lead them to needing medication and/or therapy. The children in these families have no control over the situation and in addition to their own pshychological reactions have a deep sense of helplessness in regards to their military parent’s safety, the parent

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