Home Front: Vermonters Gear Up for the Mountains of Afghanistan

By Cindy Ellen Hill

The rumors were confirmed when the order came in July 2009: 1,500 Vermont Army National Guard members will be deployed to Afghanistan in early 2010. That means one in every 400 Vermonters is headed out for a mission of 12 to 14 months. It’s the largest Vermont National Guard deployment since World War II.

The 1,500 are members of the 86^th Infantry Brigade Combat Team (Mountain), a light-infantry brigade and the only mountain brigade in the entire National Guard. As participants in the tenth installment of Coalition Joint Task Force Phoenix, the Guard members will be part of a team of 10,000 soldiers, contractors, and translators training Afghan military and police officers. The Vermont contingent is under the command of 29-year-old Colonel Will Roy, who has done three tours in Afghanistan.

Members are going well-prepared and well-equipped, Roy says.

“Everything we’ve asked for from the military for this mission we’ve gotten,” he recently told Vermont Public Radio (VPR). “State of the art equipment, everything – which shows how we are the new order in the military. We are no longer the reserve forces. We are the active force.”

The impact on the home front will be sorely felt, but Vermont troops will have the comfort of knowing their fellow Vermont residents are behind them.

Holiday Homecoming

“Public support in Vermont is excellent,” says Major Greg Knight. “Vermonters may or may not support the politics of the mission, but they put that aside to support the troops, because that’s just Vermont. We saw that when Task Force Saber went to Iraq. I went on that mission, and the local support was overwhelming. The Huntington Community Church, for example: many of the good folks there do not support the war, but they sent me boxes of school supplies and other things we’d requested to take over there, because they were happy to support our efforts.”

Colonel Roy agrees that Vermont support is powerful. “There’s a sacred trust Vermonters have in the uniform,” he told VPR. “It’s the little things, like you’re in a store and someone buys your cup of coffee for you. It’s a huge morale boost.”

Although most Guard members will not head to Afghanistan until early 2010, their deployment has already begun. Preparation for the mission started with training exercises. About 40 percent of the Guard members on this deployment have not been to Afghanistan before, so a mock Afghan village was erected at the Jericho training base to stage fundamentals of Afghan culture – like the fact that village elders tend to hold hands with men in other leadership positions while conversing to demonstrate trust and friendliness.

The Guard members left for Louisiana and Indiana for more specific mission training in late autumn 2009. That’s when Vermont Senate President Pro Tem Peter Shumlin realized that, while most of them would get leave over the holidays before flying to Kabul, many would not be able to afford the visit home at elevated holiday-season airline prices. Shumlin promptly announced Operation Holiday Homecoming to raise $315,000 through the Vermont National Guard Charitable Foundation to charter planes to fly the troops home. An immediate response from a few generous donors launched the fund at $100,000, and more donations are flowing in.

Kids and Communities

Daneen Roy, a civilian contractor and Colonel Roy’s wife, works for the Guard, too – as Coordinator of its Family Readiness Program. The program provides Vermont Guard families with military health insurance applications and assistance, legal and financial information, and referral and outreach services. The program’s headquarters at Camp Johnson in Colchester offers its fullest services; more basic services can be obtained at five Family Assistance Centers located in armories around the state.

Daneen, who is trying to spend a few moments with her own husband before he leaves for a year, is finding that her work phone is ringing off the hook. Vermonters just want to help.

“I can’t tell you how many people are organizing, are calling – people who want to send care packages to the troops, adopt an orphan over there, babysit for kids here,” she says. Though all these offers are welcome, she notes that assigning volunteers to babysitting duties sometimes doesn’t work, as stressed young children may not be tolerant of strangers. But there are plenty of other things folks can do to help parents left at home.

“When Will was deployed and I was with my daughter, I really couldn’t leave her with strangers,” Daneen recalls. “But one of the things that really helped me was, I had a neighbor who saw that my lawn was getting long and came and mowed it for me, and some other wonderful friends who made meals for me, so that really helped. We’ve had folks call volunteering who have automotive skills to let us know that, if the spouse at home gets stuck with a car broken down, they can come help if it’s in their area.”

The new military order, which shifts combat theater duties to Reserve and National Guard troops, gave rise to the need for a whole new system of home-front support mechanisms. These changes started in the early 1990s to help cope with the economic and social impacts of Reserve and Guard mobilization. But kinks in the new programs were still being worked out during Task Force Saber, Vermont’s last large-scale deployment of National Guard troops from June 2005 to June 2006.

“Our prior deployment was a learning curve,” Major Knight says of Task Force Saber. “Our knowledge was not as robust and our support infrastructure personnel not as experienced as they are now. Now we are in a much better position to take care of our soldiers and their families at home.”

Daneen Roy agrees. “The last time Will deployed was 2003-2004, and most of these services were just coming into place,” she says. Now the five Family Assistance Centers “have been beefed up significantly, and there are plans to start five more. [And] our training has increased a hundred fold. These centers can now help with just about any problem you can imagine which a military family might run into.”

The Vermont National Guard Family Readiness Program also includes a Youth Program, coordinated by civilian contractor Anne Gorrigan. “At home, there’s the logistics, the financial issues. There’s not a second parent in the house and that can always create hurdles,” Gorrigan says. “We’re in a rural state, so getting kids from place to place is not easy. They have to give up activities or take on responsibilities, like the older siblings caring for the younger ones.”

The Youth Program offers free summer camps and day programs for kids, including cultural activities such as slideshows of Afghanistan and discussions of what life is like for kids there. The program also coordinates Hero Packs, a collection of helpful and comforting items and messages of acknowledgment from non-military kids to children of military families (see sidebar).

Gorrigan found from talking with one of her camp groups recently that kids know what’s up. “We wanted to talk about what parents were going to be doing. They’d say, ‘Oh, my mom is going to be working in an office and she’s not going to be getting shot at,’ or ‘My dad is going to be in a truck and he’s going to have people shooting at him.’ They have this awareness of whether their parents are going to be safe or unsafe.”

“One kid had five military family members going,” she adds. “That’s just the nature of Vermont.”

Young children are not the only ones in need of additional, sensitive support when local troops deploy.

“When you’re in your twenties, you are especially close to your friends; they are your family,” says Jane Sanders, President of Burlington College. “Our college students are away from home when their friends are at war. And whether they are injured or killed or just involved in combat activities, that has an intense impact on the friends who are sitting elsewhere, taking classes and going about their daily college activities. So from the college perspective we need to get better at recognizing that, and at being there to provide support for our students who have friends or family involved in military activities.” The average age of the current group being deployed is 27.

Sanders and Marcelle Leahy recently co-chaired a public discussion facilitated by the Military Child Education Coalition, a worldwide non-profit, about developing better ways to support military families coping with deployment, injury, and loss.

“My son’s best friend Mark Procopio went to Iraq and died, it has repercussions through the entire community, especially in Vermont, [where] there are small towns and tight-knit extended families,” Sanders says. “Everyone knows someone who knows or is related to the person.”

Sanders posits that this new, growing network of support services not only helps military families but strengthens our communities as a whole.

Families and Finances

Since 1994, the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act has ensured that Guard members and reserve troops have a job waiting for them on return from service. Vermont employers have responded positively.

“Employers have been awesome for Guard members, very supportive,” Daneen Roy says. “But another service I wish we were able to do is helping the spouse protect their employment. I know it’s hard – employers have a job to do, too, and it’s a tight economy – but to the extent they can, I hope they cut spouses some slack if they have sick kids out or maybe aren’t quite as productive because of the stress and worry. The Guard did prepare a letter spouses can take to their employers explaining the situation and just thanking them for any support they can give.”

In 1994 Congress also instituted Military One Source, a 24/7 online one-stop-shopping portal to an enormous array of resources and services. Through Military One Source, Guard members and families can receive help to stop smoking, lose weight, translate documents in over 150 different languages, or locate day care. The program also offers trip planning services and income tax assistance.

“One of its biggest benefits is short-term counseling for any family member,” Daneen says. “So if a child is having a tough time with a parent being away and is maybe acting out in school or at home, Military One Source will hook them up with a counselor near the child’s home and they can get twelve free counseling sessions. Then, later, if the soldier comes home and maybe they are having marital problems readjusting, that’s a separate problem and they can get twelve free counseling sessions for that, too.”

The Long Road Home

“The second half of the story is when they come home,” Daneen Roy says. Outreach efforts include helping returning soldiers with readjustment issues, according to Major Knight. “Last time we were deployed, there was no one dedicated exclusively to that,” Knight says. “But this time we have support in-house, not just at the VA hospital.”

In practice, in-house support means that Military Family Life Counselor Paul Gibeault meets with soldiers and family members at a Family Assistance Center or at their office, home, or school. Gibeault also makes presentations to school faculty about the stresses their students from military families may be under.

The outreach specialist at the VA hospital, explains Daneen, is there to “greet you, show you around, take you to your appointments and make sure you get what you need. It’s a big place, and going there the first time can be a little scary.”

Roy notes that, in addition to the Family Assistance Centers and Military One Source providing support for returning soldiers, “We also have the Vermont Veterans and Family Outreach programs, which Senator Sanders secured funding for. The responsibility of the outreach specialist is to talk to soldiers when they return, do an assessment to see if they might need services, particularly mental health services, and let them know about benefits they are eligible for. Sometimes there’s a honeymoon period when they come back and everything’s fine, then the problems set in later, and we are still there to help when that happens.”

The Family Readiness Program is presently holding pre-mobilization meetings for the soldiers and their families around the state to help inform them about services available now and throughout deployment, and prepare them for the conditions they will experience in the next year. On their return, soldiers will be invited back to two sessions, about 30 to 45 days apart, to discuss any new issues or needs that have come up. In the year between, soldiers and their families will stay in touch through a growing array of communications media – cell phones, email, Skype – which probably represents the biggest change in the warfare environment since cavalry went from horses to helicopters.

Daneen recalls that, “When my Dad was in Vietnam a year, we got one phone call on Christmas eve, and we are so lucky we got that. I think he talked to us kids for about five seconds and my mom for just a few seconds more. Then he was in Korea a year, and contact was a little better but still not much.

“That lack of contact was so tough on the kids, and really tough on the marriage. And it makes the adjustment harder coming home. When my Dad got home I was 12, and on the one hand I was happy to see him, but I know I also had this reservation, because after a year we had our routines and everything without him, so I was also kind of lukewarm. I always wondered if he picked up on that. I think the communication that soldiers can have now with their families might really change that.”

On the other hand, instant communication can be a double-edged sword. “If you want to sit down and write a letter, you are in one state of mind, but with email where you can get online and send a message, sometimes if you’ve had a bad day at work or are having problems, it’s too easy to hit that send key. Spouses need to be in good accord as to what’s okay to email and what isn’t,” Daneen advises.

Another problem with instant communication is soldiers can pick up a cell phone and deliver frightening news back home before military command can institute proper communications channels. “It could be something like a battle going on, and the phone chain will start and it will increase the worry. So one would hope that folks would exercise some discretion in not picking up the phone to deliver news without making sure the right services are there to help the family digest that news,” Daneen says.

Yet even the most modern communications links can’t smooth all the potholes in the road home. “My son’s daughter was born just before he deployed,” Daneen recalls, “and he Skyped with her even though he was in a remote area of Afghanistan. They had an Internet connection most of the time, other than when he was out on patrol. So he was able to see her as an infant, see her learn to crawl.

“But when he came back it was difficult. It took a couple weeks for her to warm up to him. Now everything is fine; she follows him everywhere and it’s as if he’d been with her right from when she was born. But it was tough for my son for a little while.”

Moms Will Worry, But Support is Here

“The main impact is the worry. The increased danger over there is on everyone’s mind,” Daneen Roy says. “Families with full time jobs and children to take care of, now one spouse gets deployed so you throw in being a single parent – if you don’t have very supportive extended family and friends nearby, it can be overwhelming.”

Experience has shown that coming together with other military families going through the same thing is one of the best avenues of support. On a full-time army base, that connection is as easy as talking to next-door neighbors, but Guard families have farther to go. The Family Assistance Centers have started support networks with meetings at a host of locations around the state, many at churches volunteering the space.

The most important thing is for families in need of assistance to reach out. “For people who have been through this before and didn’t have a good experience, I want to assure them that we have a lot of good people on staff now, so they should consider using the services that are here, give it a try,” Daneen says.

“For those on their first time deployment, well, Moms and Dads particularly can be very tough,” she adds. “There’s some kind of a barrier that deters them from asking for assistance or calling, so I want to encourage them to break through that barrier and pick up the phone or come down to one of the Family Assistance Centers for whatever might be on their minds.”