Understanding How Army National Guard Families with Children Cope with Deployments

The U.S. military continues to fight the war on terrorism around the world which leads to a great burden on all of our military families. Research about military families reveals that long-term deployments of soldiers to a war zone is a leading cause of an increasing level of stress within the military family (Angrist & Johnson, 2000; Hoshmand & Hoshmand, 2007; Kudler, 2007). Now, more than ever before, the United States Army National Guard has been asked to take part in longer and more distant deployments, resulting in more families being affected. This study presents a quantitative and qualitative phenomenological approach to understanding how specifically the U.S. Army National Guard families with children cope with the deployment of a parent to a war zone. Ten military spouses with children related lived experiences about coping with family, economic, emotional, and social issues during a spouse's year long deployment to a war zone. Data collection examined stressors experienced at four key times during the deployment and one month post deployment. Quantitative data were collected through automatic survey sent by SurveyMonkey while qualitative data were collected by personal interview through mixed methods including telephone, Skype, and electronic submission. Data analysis was completed looking at statistical data of surveys completed and identifying themes from the interview question responses. The study results provides military spouses perceptions about stressors faced by a military family during a deployment and the unique needs of those families from the military, school systems, family and community.