Military Mom

Thursday, March 15 2007 | Send to a friend

MILITARY MOM

Rebecca Hagler and Breanna

An estimated 700,000 children have had a parent deployed overseas since 9/11. Breanna Bodden is 9. Both her mother and step-father were deployed to Iraq. Then her father was sent there, too. Dick talks to Breanna's mother, Rebecca Hagler, who is still serving in Iraq.

Rebecca talks to Dick about the difficulties she has trying to maintain her role as a mom, how she stays in touch, and her pride in her daughter.

I wonder if I am doing the right thing by her [Breanna]. Is she going to hate me forever, thinking I abandoned her? Is she going to be emotionally scarred for life?
-Rebecca Hagler

• Read the letter Rebecca's wrote to the Army Times
  
• Watch North Carolina Governor Easley's "State of the State" Address (Choose the 2/19/07 address. Skip ahead to 9:45 to see Breanna)
• Find a variety of family support links for deployed military
  

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SUPPORT FOR CHILDREN

Teri Reid

The prolonged absence of any parent can be hurtful for a child. Their behaviors can become intensely anti-social and even self-destructive, especially when that absence goes on for a year or more.

Teri Reid is a pediatric nurse practitioner based at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. She's treated children who've suffered greatly from a parent's deployment. And she's also developed a solution to the problem: videotaping the deploying parents before their departure and playing the tape regularly for the children left behind. It's the only use for television she'd ever recommend for a 2 year-old.

Under 2 years of age, the child would have forgotten [his/her father] and would have been very frightened when this strange man came home in a year. And that's what these soldiers carry around in them, this fear. But when I tell them we can prevent it, they're so relieved. Their whole face changes. They're so relieved that they can prevent their child from forgetting them just by something this simple.
-Teri Reid

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