Staff Perspective: Beyond the Checklist - The Hidden Work of Preparing for Deployment
I thought I had more time.
I’m so tired, but I can’t go to sleep. I’m fully packed. I’ve double and triple-checked that I have all of my essential items. I’m in the eleventh hour now, and whatever I don’t have in my house isn’t going into my duffel bags. Even after staying up all night, I’m not sure I will be able to get everything done that I need to. But I have to get these gifts ready for the kids. I can’t leave without them having something from me to hold close while I’m gone.
I really hadn’t thought this part through. I had planned and prepared for transitioning all of my work obligations and spent the last five weeks doing as much as I could around the house. I didn’t want my husband to be left with a mountain of housework after I left. But here I am, still awake in the middle of the night, just hours before heading to the airport, and I still don’t feel ready.
I ordered dolls for the kids- you know the ones that you can record your voice inside, and when you squeeze them, they hear your personalized message. For some reason, even with all of my planning, I hadn’t considered what I would say to them.
As I record and re-record each message, trying to make them all different while also conveying the same theme—I love them, I will miss them, and I want them to make lots of new memories while I’m gone— I can’t help but get tearful. For some of the recordings—truthfully, most of the recordings—I have to stop in the middle and start again because my emotions are just too raw.
I knew this moment would happen. I train providers about these moments and teach service members ways to help prepare for them. And yet, it doesn’t make living it any easier. Knowing that this is normal only reassures me that I will get through it—that our family will get through it—but it doesn’t take the hurt and sadness away of leaving them for the next several months.
In true Army fashion, my flight leaves at 6 AM, so we have to leave the house by 4 AM to make sure I make it on time. Our kids are still completely asleep, in their pajamas, as we load them into the car and head for the airport.
I hope I have everything.
The longing for my family has already begun—my husband and I quietly hold hands, aware these are our last moments together before I leave. It’s surreal.
Everything moves fairly normally when we arrive at the airport. I travel a lot, so this process isn’t new for us- we’ve had a lot of practice. After my husband unloads my bags onto the curb, I have a moment of panic. I frantically search my wallet and bag for an item I have to bring with me. I can’t find it. The pressure is mounting, and the pace of our farewell changes suddenly. Eventually, I find what I’m looking for, but we can’t turn back the clock on how this moment feels.
I have to go.
My attention quickly shifts to getting my bags checked so I don’t miss my flight. My husband and I embrace quickly, and tears start to come for both of us.
This isn’t the moment I’d thought we would have. I thought we’d have more time.
The kids are half asleep, but we manage to say our goodbyes. No amount of hugs or I love you could ever feel like enough at this moment. I volunteered to support this deployment. To fill a critical vacancy and ensure my fellow service members are cared for. We talked about it endlessly and, as a family, agreed it was the right thing to do. And yet, it feels like an impossible task to leave the people I love the most, knowing it will be months before I see them again.
My story is not all that different from the millions of service members who came before me as they navigated the final moments before deployment. While we each have our own unique rituals, expectations, and responsibilities to navigate, we share the emotional complexities of excitement, anxiety, sadness, and anticipation. The pre-deployment period is a crucial time in a service member's career that brings together all of the training and preparation they have spent years cultivating.
For mental health providers supporting the military community, this period presents a unique opportunity to support service members and their loved ones in successfully navigating what can be a complex time.
For me, peace of mind came from those already supporting the mission and through loved ones at home who helped with intentional preparation. I worked to understand the practical realities of my new environment: What will my housing look like? Where will I eat? Who will I work with? Meanwhile, my family and I prepared for my absence by organizing bill payments, childcare schedules, arranging additional family support, and even setting communication expectations for times when I might be unreachable.
Gathering this information (and more) was critical in helping my family and me feel solidly grounded for my departure and can serve as a starting point for clinicians when working with service members preparing for deployment.
To learn more about ways to better support service members, veterans, and their families across the military life cycle, consider joining Star Behavioral Health Providers for their military-cultural competency training: Tier One: Introduction to Military Culture and the Military-Connected Experience.
The opinions in CDP Staff Perspective blogs are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Science or the Department of Defense.
Jennifer Nevers, MSW, LCSW, is the Subject Matter Expert Office Lead for the Center for Deployment Psychology (CDP) at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland.
I thought I had more time.
I’m so tired, but I can’t go to sleep. I’m fully packed. I’ve double and triple-checked that I have all of my essential items. I’m in the eleventh hour now, and whatever I don’t have in my house isn’t going into my duffel bags. Even after staying up all night, I’m not sure I will be able to get everything done that I need to. But I have to get these gifts ready for the kids. I can’t leave without them having something from me to hold close while I’m gone.
I really hadn’t thought this part through. I had planned and prepared for transitioning all of my work obligations and spent the last five weeks doing as much as I could around the house. I didn’t want my husband to be left with a mountain of housework after I left. But here I am, still awake in the middle of the night, just hours before heading to the airport, and I still don’t feel ready.
I ordered dolls for the kids- you know the ones that you can record your voice inside, and when you squeeze them, they hear your personalized message. For some reason, even with all of my planning, I hadn’t considered what I would say to them.
As I record and re-record each message, trying to make them all different while also conveying the same theme—I love them, I will miss them, and I want them to make lots of new memories while I’m gone— I can’t help but get tearful. For some of the recordings—truthfully, most of the recordings—I have to stop in the middle and start again because my emotions are just too raw.
I knew this moment would happen. I train providers about these moments and teach service members ways to help prepare for them. And yet, it doesn’t make living it any easier. Knowing that this is normal only reassures me that I will get through it—that our family will get through it—but it doesn’t take the hurt and sadness away of leaving them for the next several months.
In true Army fashion, my flight leaves at 6 AM, so we have to leave the house by 4 AM to make sure I make it on time. Our kids are still completely asleep, in their pajamas, as we load them into the car and head for the airport.
I hope I have everything.
The longing for my family has already begun—my husband and I quietly hold hands, aware these are our last moments together before I leave. It’s surreal.
Everything moves fairly normally when we arrive at the airport. I travel a lot, so this process isn’t new for us- we’ve had a lot of practice. After my husband unloads my bags onto the curb, I have a moment of panic. I frantically search my wallet and bag for an item I have to bring with me. I can’t find it. The pressure is mounting, and the pace of our farewell changes suddenly. Eventually, I find what I’m looking for, but we can’t turn back the clock on how this moment feels.
I have to go.
My attention quickly shifts to getting my bags checked so I don’t miss my flight. My husband and I embrace quickly, and tears start to come for both of us.
This isn’t the moment I’d thought we would have. I thought we’d have more time.
The kids are half asleep, but we manage to say our goodbyes. No amount of hugs or I love you could ever feel like enough at this moment. I volunteered to support this deployment. To fill a critical vacancy and ensure my fellow service members are cared for. We talked about it endlessly and, as a family, agreed it was the right thing to do. And yet, it feels like an impossible task to leave the people I love the most, knowing it will be months before I see them again.
My story is not all that different from the millions of service members who came before me as they navigated the final moments before deployment. While we each have our own unique rituals, expectations, and responsibilities to navigate, we share the emotional complexities of excitement, anxiety, sadness, and anticipation. The pre-deployment period is a crucial time in a service member's career that brings together all of the training and preparation they have spent years cultivating.
For mental health providers supporting the military community, this period presents a unique opportunity to support service members and their loved ones in successfully navigating what can be a complex time.
For me, peace of mind came from those already supporting the mission and through loved ones at home who helped with intentional preparation. I worked to understand the practical realities of my new environment: What will my housing look like? Where will I eat? Who will I work with? Meanwhile, my family and I prepared for my absence by organizing bill payments, childcare schedules, arranging additional family support, and even setting communication expectations for times when I might be unreachable.
Gathering this information (and more) was critical in helping my family and me feel solidly grounded for my departure and can serve as a starting point for clinicians when working with service members preparing for deployment.
To learn more about ways to better support service members, veterans, and their families across the military life cycle, consider joining Star Behavioral Health Providers for their military-cultural competency training: Tier One: Introduction to Military Culture and the Military-Connected Experience.
The opinions in CDP Staff Perspective blogs are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Science or the Department of Defense.
Jennifer Nevers, MSW, LCSW, is the Subject Matter Expert Office Lead for the Center for Deployment Psychology (CDP) at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland.