My son has deployed to Iraq twice, once for 12 months and once for 15 months. If I hadn't had work and friends there to keep me busy, I might have lost my mind! But I kept busy so I didn't have time to dwell on it and prayed a lot. He was able to keep in touch with us by computer almost every day, which helped. He had no children then. Now he has a 4 month old daughter and will most likely deploy to Afganistan or Iraq later this year. I think this time it will be much harder on him, leaving Katherine behind. He had to deploy to Haiti in Feb. for 3 weeks--wasn't in danger then, but away from a new baby. That was hard. He's 9 1/2 years from retirement now, and an officer, so he's pretty much stuck until he gets his twenty in. Thankfully they are at Ft. Knox now and less than 3 hours from us, so we are able to visit his wife and baby often when he's away and be there to help her, whatever she needs. Someone from our family was with her every other weekend while he was in Haiti. Like someone else said, make sure you are there to help his family and DON't read the news--the like to show only the bad parts, and they aren't all bad.