The other battle: coming home

Army reservist Staff Sgt. Christian Hofeller finally set eyes on his wife last month after more than a year in Afghanistan and Iraq. But the brief reunion in Boston ended painfully, in separation. Married in July 2000, Sergeant Hofeller has been deployed virtually nonstop since Sept. 11, 2001, when he was called into action in New York the day the twin towers fell. "This is the hardest and the worst part of everything, when it's time to come back," he says in a phone call from Brooklyn, N.Y., where he is now living with his mother and aunt. "I pictured it like the movies: They are at the airport with their arms wide and smiles - and she was. But in the movies they don't tell you what it's like after that, with the doors closed."

Hofeller had rushed through his redeployment screening at Fort Benning, Ga., declining to talk with a chaplain or counselor in order to return more quickly to his wife. But he remains focused in significant ways on the war zone he left behind. He says he's still on edge, looking up every time he hears an aircraft. And he is haunted by images of the dead and wounded from his days in a special task force. "You see the faces before you go to bed, but you learn to say goodnight," he says. Now, he prays for a second chance to revive his marriage.

Hofeller's case, though extreme, underscores the challenges faced by many. Family separation is now the third most important reason - after pay and benefits - that soldiers consider leaving the Army, says Bruce Bell of the US Army Research Institute.

Indeed, couples at Fort Stewart say that after a short "honeymoon," the struggle to readjust begins.

"There's that euphoria and 'I love you - you're safe.' But that stops pretty quick, and those dishes left on the table after three days start annoying you," says Laura Batson, who as the wife of Captain Batson, a battery commander, helps counsel other spouses.

Many men come home exhausted, thinner, hungry, and unable to sleep normal hours, Army officials say. Women are also tired, and sometimes bitter about being left alone for months. Add to this unrealistic expectations about sex, and arguments are almost inevitable, experts say. "I talk about flight to fight time," says Lt. Col. Jeffrey Kingsbury, a medical expert who briefs returning Army soldiers. "From the moment I get off the plane, how long will it be before we have our first fight."

When Laura Batson's phone rings these days, she says it's often because reunited couples are in conflict. "Most of the calls right now we're getting are: "I don't understand. We are fighting constantly. He doesn't like how I cut my hair.' It's not the hair. It's the fact that she's changed."

Sitting in her Hinesville living room, Laura explains that just as the war zone affected her husband, the battlefield at home changed her. "As a wife, you are doing your own little private war here. You are not facing Iraqi soldiers and grenades and artillery. But you are facing rumors, fears, self-esteem issues, finances, and children," she says.

Laura, a teacher, tried to shelter her children, telling 7-year-old William and 3-year-old Megan that Batson was in Kuwait. But when William came home one day asking "Is Daddy at war?" she had no good answer. She limited herself to 10 minutes of television coverage each morning or night, when the children were in bed. "You will lose your mind if you don't limit your intake of news," she says.

And while Batson had the companionship of his men, Laura, too, created her own "family" with close friends Valerie and Kelly. Several times a week, they had potluck dinners together. They bathed their six children and read them bedtime stories together. Once, they also kicked up their heels together. In an evening of escape, Laura and a group of female spouses watched the Lady Chablis drag show at downtown Savannah's Club One - an establishment off-limits to their active-duty husbands.

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