Coping with one parent's deployment is difficult enough for military children. But when both parents are gone at the same time, it can be an unthinkable hardship for kids. Children know what war is; they know the dangers their parents face.
Sgt. Sara Conklin and Sgt. Robert Conklin, a married couple with two small children, were deployed to Afghanistan with the U.S. Army Reserve's 592nd Ordnance Company in September and won't come home until October 2011.
Chelsea Krotzer of the Billings Gazette notes that one way Sara and Robert keep in contact with their kids is by reading children's books to them through the military-sponsored United Through Reading program. The soldiers are able to pick out a book for their kids and read it to them in a soundproof room that is decorated like a nursery. While they read, the soldiers are videotaped.
Both the tape and a copy of the book are sent back home to the kids. Both parents say the book-reading program has really helped keep the family connected.
Sara told Krotzer in a recent email:
