The other side of deployment

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) - We first met Terri Russell at the Indianapolis International Airport. Her husband, Jim, a chaplain in the United States Army, had been stationed at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan and was returning home, and she couldn’t wait.

Terri Russell is a military wife and mom, a double Blue Star family member. Her husband and son were both stationed in Afghanistan at the same time, although her son was able to return about two weeks earlier than his father to Ft. Campbell, Kentucky.

That time, with both of “her guys” away, meant sleepless nights, anxiety and shear frustration. She once sawed down a formidable backyard tree by hand, to relieve the pent up emotion, but her faith helped the most.

“There were some days that I just walked through the house crying and screaming because I couldn’t handle it any more, but getting so much encouragement from Him during that time, you know, He gave me such a feeling of peace after I was able to share with Him my heart—He already knew my heart—but he wants me to share that,” she said.

First Lady Michelle Obama, and Dr. Jill Biden have heard from the Terri’s of the military. It’s an important enough issue that they’ve recorded a public service announcement for JoiningForces.gov. In it, they call attention to the family members, also considered a key force in the military, and that they are teachers, neighbors and friends, that need to be remembered while their loved ones are deployed.

So how did Terri survive? She tacked a map to a corkboard, so that she could keep track of her guys while they were gone. She reached out where she could, when she could, whenever she spotted a soldier in uniform. It helped fill a void in her life: The missing structure and support systems of Army life.

“Every time I would see a soldier, I would gravitate to that soldier. I would want to hold his hand or her hand and walk side by side,” Terri said, “Because it just—that was--I just couldn’t get enough, I was starving for the military life and all that it meant to me.”

Jim and Terri will soon be stationed in Texas; their son will soon be back in Afghanistan. Her nerves have been tested and she’s come through a tough lonely time. When asked what she would tell other people who have family members who are facing the same thing, she replied, “You can do it. You have a choice: You can collapse, or you can flourish, it’s all up to you.”

She also jokes that a military wife needs three key items to get through a deployment: Duck tape, WD40, and super glue. “With those three things, you can pretty much fix anything in the house,” Terri says. The support of neighbors and friends helps just as much.

She recommends that concerned civilians just show military family members that they’re appreciated. Terri told a story from her husband’s first deployment, when she was “hyper-sensitive” about her stress and her world. A truck was blocking her as she was trying to back out of a parking spot. “And of course I’m thinking grrrrrr,” she said. “The man in the truck leaned forward and saluted me. And that meant more to me than anything else.”