Military Personnel Connection

Peer Support Contact
Your Peer Support Contact can assist dependent family members and maintain continuous interaction until you return. The Peer Support personnel are:

Police:

Mary Mullon
Military Coordinaor
817-392-4207

Sammy Webb
Military Liaison Officer
817-392-3689

Fire:

Doni Evans
817-269-1363

All other personnel:

Unassigned
817-392-7750

Be sure to notify your Peer Support contact when your military status changes.

Steps To Take At Work When You Are Called Up

Notify your supervisor.
Notify your Peer Support Contact
Notify your T&A clerk how you want your time carried after your military leave is expended—vacation, comp time, accrued holiday, without
Turn in laptops, cell phones, pagers, gas cards.
Go by the Health and Benefits Division, Lower Level City Hall or call 817-392-7782 and:
- Take a copy of your military orders.
- Check to make sure your beneficiary and assignment of benefits information is up to date.
- Give instructions about stopping, continuing deductions for medical benefits, life insurance, deferred compensation and miscellaneous benefits.
Go by the Payroll Department of the Finance Office, 3^rd Floor City Hall, and:
- Set up your paycheck for automatic deposit or make arrangements for your paychecks to be picked up.
- Drop any unnecessary or unwanted deductions from your paycheck (e.g., money going to the Credit Union into a savings account.)

Emotional Concerns - You & your spouse

Deployment can put a strain on any relationship. You may have concerns about the job ahead, the dangers involved and what will happen at home in your absence. But your spouse has important concerns as well: worry over your safety, the prospect of taking on new or additional responsibilities and the uncertainty about when your deployment will end.

Here are some recommendations:

Be honest.
Don’t minimize your fears of the problems you think you may face. But don’t maximize them either. Deal with them realistically.
Address practical problems, like what to do if the electricity goes off, can be easily solved if you plan for them.
Talk about your anxieties. Deal with what you don’t know about. The more open you can be, the better.
If you or your spouse are angry at one another, or you both find yourselves going through mood swings, don’t worry. It’s normal.
No amount of planning or talking prepares you for the moment of departure. You may be depressed afterwards, and your spouse may feel abandoned. But these are temporary feelings. Keeping in contact through letters, cards and phone calls can help alleviate some of those feelings.

Emotional Concerns – Your Children

How your children react to your deployment depends on their age, their personality and how often you’ve been deployed in the past. Younger children may feel that they are responsible for your leaving. Teenagers may welcome your departure as a vacation from restriction.

Some children obsess. Some may worry about you all the time. Some may not be concerned at all, especially if you’ve spent a lot of time away from home. Some recommendations:

Don’t minimize your child’s fears and concerns. Listen Carefully and deal with them as directly as possible.
Make absolutely sure your children know why you are leaving. Make sure they know the reason has nothing to do with them or your spouse.
Tell them you love them. Even teenagers need to know that their parents care for them, despite the hostility or standoffishness they may project. For smaller children, being loved is a central factor in their lives.
Don’t be closed-mouthed about your own feelings. Be as open with your children as possible and let them know it’s okay for them to be open with you. Children know when you’re putting up a front, or not telling them the whole truth. Waving away their fears with a brave front may be much more worrisome to a child than the truth.
Stay connected. Do little things to remain a part of your children’ lives. Take greeting cards with you and periodically send them to your kids. Before you leave, you might record audio or video tapes of you reading your children’s favorite stories.
While you’re away, it’s important to stay connected to family and friends. Try to write often, call or e-mail when you can.

For Family at Home

For those at home, having to take care of a household and family by yourself can be full of challenges. Chores you automatically left to your spouse before are now your concern. Here are a few suggestions on how to cope:\

Routines – Try to keep to the routines you and your spouse established before deployment. This will bring some comfort to you and your children.
Discipline – Don’t let discipline slip. Separation shouldn’t mean children can do what they want. Use the same rules you had before deployment.
Involvement – Let your children help you. Ask them what chores they’d like to be responsible for and expect them to do them. But let them know how much you appreciate their help and how important it is to the family.

Deployment: Coming Home

You may automatically expect everything to have stayed the same while you were gone, but that is highly unlikely.

Your spouse has taken on a new role and learned new skills. Your friends may have made other friends. New routines were established while you were away. Your kids have grown, even if you’ve only been gone a short time.

The best advice for the returning service person is: be prepared for change.

If You’re Married – Your spouse is used to doing things on her or his own now, and you may feel pushed into a new less important role. Communicate and be patient, it may take sometime for both of you to adjust.

If you try to take charge immediately, you’re liable to be resented by both your spouse and children. The best advice family counselors can give you is to be patient. Give your household time to get back into the rhythm of being a family again.

If You’re Single – It’s possible that things may be exactly as when you left. But, just as likely, your Social situation may be different. Your friends may have found other friends. Your family situation may be changed by illness, birth, death and marriage.

See your family, renew your old friendships and take things as they come.

Returning to Your Children

Your children’s reaction to you may surprise you.

One of the most shocking things that you might find when you return is that your small children won’t speak to you at first. They may turn away, or seem afraid of you. Older children may fear that you won’t like how they’ve changed. Teenagers may feel you’ll put new restrictions on them or expect them to behave exactly the same as when you left.

Remember that it takes time for everyone to get used to one another again.

Spend time with your children.
Play with them.
Take them to events.
But mostly importantly, talk to them.

It helps to respect the routines that were established in your absence. Respecting these can make children feel less anxious and lets them know that you approve of the way your spouse has handled things in your absence.

Talking Business

Familiarize yourself with what has happened while you were away.

At an appropriate time after you return, sit down with anyone affected by your deployment. Make it at a time when you won’t be disturbed by other friends or family.

It’s time to talk business, not just finances but possibly new roles. Remember, your spouse may have gotten used to handling the family finances and want to continue.

If you had set up a folder to hold receipts and other financial documents before you were deployed, you should review these now. Obviously, there will be changes in your checking, savings and credit card accounts, your investment accounts and in your IRA.

There also will be receipts for household repairs, car repairs, school fees and activities you know nothing about. Use this time to familiarize your yourself with what your family experienced at home while you were away.

Also, take another look at some of the things you put in place before you left, including automatic payments and deposits. If you found them useful, you may want to consider leaving them in place, saving you time and energy if you ever have to deploy again.

Helpful Websites

http://mfrc.calib.com/Enduring_Freedom/trauma.htm Leaving City of Fort Worth Web Site
http://www.militarynow.com/life/links/family_life.asp
http://deploymentlink.osd.mil/current_issues/guard_reserves/rng_fsp.shtml
http://www.tricare.osd.mil/
http://www.defenselink.mil/ra
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