SAN DIEGO -- As Heather McKay watched her husband, Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Derek McKay, set sail for six months Monday aboard the transport ship Cleveland, she summed up the challenge of the modern military spouse.
"Last time when he got home from deployment, I'd gotten all independent and he said, 'Hey, you're not letting me make the decisions,' " said McKay, 24. "He's been home a while and I've gotten clingy again. But now he's leaving and it starts all over again."
If one word describes the life of military families since the war on terror was declared, it's adjustment.
It's an emotional and psychological adjustment for the family when a Marine or sailor deploys, and another emotional and psychological adjustment when he or she returns. Sometimes, in the up-tempo deployment schedule, it seems there's barely time to get adjusted to one phase when another one begins.
And while it may seem counterintuitive to civilians, many military spouses say the homecoming phase can be the most difficult of all. With that in mind, the military provides "return and reunion" briefings to both the stay-behind and deployed spouses.
"When they come back, it's like starting your marriage all over again," said Brittney Moore, 35, whose husband, Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Robert Moore, left on the transport ship Germantown for his fourth deployment.
McKay and Moore were among hundreds of family members at the pier at the 32nd Street Naval Station as the Tarawa Expeditionary Strike Group left for a six-month deployment in the Western Pacific, Indian Ocean and, if ordered, the Persian Gulf. Three San Diego ships will join two from Pearl Harbor and one from Everett, Wash. -- 5,000 sailors and Marines in all.
If the tears shed Monday morning were ones of anxiety and sadness, those shed by military family members Sunday night at Camp Pendleton were ones of happiness and relief as 300 Marines and sailors of the "Gunfighter" helicopter squadron returned after seven months in Iraq.
As they waited for the buses bringing Marines from their chartered flight to Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, spouses talked of the joys and pitfalls of homecomings.
Michelle Rindfleisch, 23, whose husband, Marine Sgt. Benjamin Rindfleisch, was finishing his second tour in Iraq, told spouses whose loved-ones are returning after a first tour to take things slowly.
"Don't ask, 'What happened over there?' Don't try to push. Let him absorb things slowly, and talk if he wants," she said.
