Families ready for soldiers' return

These 30 newborns are among scores of Guardsmen’s children who have had to spend a year without their father or mother. Now the soldiers are coming home.

Nobody is sure exactly when, but the return of New Jersey’s largest deployment since World War II is expected to start shortly after Memorial Day. Unlike other wars in other times, these soldiers will get more legal, financial and psychological support than any returning troops in U.S. history.

What they may not immediately receive, however, is one of the things they dreamed about most: Their child’s hug.

Of all the uncertainties associated with returning to civilian life after a year in a combat zone, perhaps the least predictable is how the children will react.

"You give me an age and I’ll give you a problem the kids experienced when their father came home," said Randi Cairns, 39, of East Brunswick, who raised four children through her husband’s three deployments. "The thing I’ve learned is: Never underestimate the impact on the children."

For months, military counselors have traveled throughout the state, preparing families for what to expect from the children when their loved ones return from the desert.

Anger, joy, fear, neediness, resentment, relief, indifference, temper, passivity, laughter, tears.

Pick an emotion, experts say, and a Guard child somewhere in New Jersey will likely feel it over the next few months.

From the toddler who has no idea who that man in the uniform is to the 16-year-old who took on extra responsibility and may not want to give it up, Guard spouses are in for a bumpy ride that may take months to smooth out, experts say.

"We normally think of a joyous reunion, but that may not be the case, especially after the initial ‘thank goodness’ wears off," said Rutgers psychology professor Maurice J. Elias. "Kids will frankly be almost as destabilized when a parent returns home as when the parent leaves."

Unlike regular military, the "civilian soldiers" of the National Guard do not have the support of living on a military base, where every parent understands the sacrifice of active duty and every child’s friend is another soldier’s child, experts said.

The Guard families live in urban areas and suburbia, where — despite supportive neighbors — they are often the only family on the block or in school whose parent was called away by military service. Adding to the burden is the fact that, for two out of three New Jersey Guardsmen who served in Iraq this past year, it was their first tour of duty.

Danielle Morrison, 25, of Villas in Cape May County had no idea how her then-2-year-old son, Matthew, would react when her husband, Spc. Craig Morrison, left last year. She was pleasantly surprised with his placid adjustment, all the way through a fatherless Christmas.

But then came his third birthday in February. Still no dad, and Matthew got mad.

He refused to talk to his father on the phone or the webcam, Morrison said. The little boy became "uncontrollable and very moody." Four months later, Matthew is still angry.

"I’m trying to prepare him and get him ready to see his daddy again, trying to convince him to give his father his hug the day he comes home," Morrison said. "I also told my husband, be prepared because I don’t know what Matthew is going to do."

Elias, who is also director of the Safe and Civil Schools program, focused his research on childhood reactions to traumatic stress following 9/11. He said he has seen kids referred to special education evaluation who were, in fact, acting out from the stress of a parent’s return.

"For some kids, they are so afraid of redeployment that they don’t want to all of a sudden reconnect with the parent that came back because they are worried" that the parent will leave again, Elias added.

The government has no statistics on how many children were left behind when the New Jersey Guard units shipped out, but the best estimate is several hundred. In addition to the 30 born while their fathers were serving in Iraqi prisons, there are also some conceived during a brief furloughs, still to be born.

Cairns went through everything from giving birth while her husband was deployed to being alone with four kids, then ages 3-13, when she learned her husband, Capt. Ian Cairns, was wounded in Afghanistan. He returned from his third tour of duty in 2008, but the memory of the family’s emotional turmoil led Cairns to found Home Front Hearts, a Jewish-based private aide group for military families in Middlesex County.

"People think homecoming is going to be like in the movies, where soldiers run to their wives and swing their children up on their shoulders," Cairn said. "The first thing I tell other families is ‘don’t romanticize and turn off the movies.’

"Lots of things happen when a military parent comes home, including a shift in the balance of power in the family and just about any kind of reaction you can imagine from the kids," Cairns added.

There is no good age to adapt to a parent going off to war, Cairns said, and parents should realize that "just because your child seems indifferent, don’t minimize the impact."

Cairns, who holds degrees in psychology and human services, said her most frequent advice to military families is to realize "nobody stayed the same while mom or dad was deployed and everyone should try very hard to be patient with everyone."

Another veteran of the homefront, Erin DeLuca-Knighton of Vernon said her husband, Staff Sgt. Dane Knighton "is fully aware that our children’s lives went on without him while he was in Iraq."

After two earlier deployments and five kids ages 13-19, DeLuca-Knighton knows the coming-home drill: "I remind the kids they have to include their dad. I don’t want him to think we didn’t need him.

"He also knows that he’s coming home at the busiest time of the year and he’s going to have to ease back into a very busy schedule. He has guilt that our 15-year-old daughter hit seven home runs this year and he didn’t see any of them.

"Our oldest son got himself into some trouble, and I had to teach our 17-year-old son how to drive, something I never want to do again," DeLuca-Knighton said. "There have been injuries and crises, and we’re not sure my husband still has a job because his boss and his boss’s boss were let go while he was gone.

"I think it’s tougher on the kids as they get older because they begin to understand the news," she added. "But I do know we made it through as a family last time, and we’ll make it through again."

Chrissy Marone’s daughter Danica was just a month old when her father shipped out. Her oldest sister, Baylynn, 8, suddenly lost interest in school, karate classes and Brownies. Madison, 2, cried often for her dad.

There were household disasters and medical emergencies, and the entire family was "thrilled" when Sgt. Michael Marone managed a two-week leave for Christmas at home in Brown’s Mills, Marone said.

But when he left after the New Year, the "nightmare" returned, said Marone, 30.

"The kids had to readjust all over again, and I just hope they can handle it when he comes back," she said. "I do know that, unless they handed him a uterus in Iraq, we will never again have infants and deployment at the same time."

Judy Peet may be reached at jpeet@starledger.com. Tomas Dinges may be reached at tdinges@starledger.com.