Carlene Johnston can’t count the number of times she and her husband, Richard, have watched their 4-year-old grandson, Luc Rougeau, since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack. Not that Johnston is complaining, mind you. She’s glad to help her daughter, Maj. Tami Rougeau, USAFR, and her son-in-law, Maj. Thom Rougeau, USAFR, who have faced frequent—and sometimes simultaneous— deployments in recent years.

“I applaud her choice to serve in the reserve,” says Johnston. “I wouldn’t have her do anything else. She’s found her niche, and we’re extremely proud of the accomplishments she’s made.”

During her 14 years as a reservist, Rougeau has served in Somalia, Afghanistan, Qatar, and Iraq. While in the Middle East, she filled a critical role on the Aeromedical Evacuation Control Team, managing patient-movement requests and arranging airlifts of wounded soldiers and civilians.

Rougeau thinks having a strong support system is key to being a successful reservist, and she credits her civilian employer and coworkers at Northern Nevada Medical Center in Sparks, Nev., where she works as an emergency room nurse, for their understanding and support.

“My bosses historically have been absolutely wonderful—100 percent supportive,” she says. “I’ve been very fortunate because my reserve commitment is high. I’ve never been a one-weekend-a-month, two-weeks-a-year reservist.”

Unlike a traditional reservist, who is mobilized as part of a unit, Rougeau is an individual mobilization augmentee. This means she can be activated at any time to fill in for her active duty counterpart, who she trains alongside throughout the year.

Training with her active duty counterpart requires travel, however. Like a number of other specialized reservists, Rougeau serves with a unit that isn’t located close to where she lives. So when Rougeau has a duty weekend or fills in for her counterpart, who is the chief of aeromedical evacuations allocations at Scott Air Force Base (AFB), Ill., she must fly there.

Fortunately, Rougeau gets travel benefits through Southwest Airlines, where her husband works as a pilot when he’s not pulling reserve duty flying C-5 cargo planes. Still, shuttling between Scott AFB, her home in Reno, Nev., and her parents’ home in John Day, Ore., where her son stays sometimes, can be tedious.

Friends also are a source of support. When the Rougeaus both were deployed to the Middle East this past fall, their friends took turns checking on their house and caring for their animals.

“It takes a team,” says Rougeau of the support network that allows her to continue to serve. “In order to be in the Guard or Reserve these days, it takes a team effort.”

Meeting the challenge to serve

Today Guard and Reserve forces average 13 million duty days a year, a 13-fold increase from the 1980s level of roughly 1 million duty days a year. As a result, Guard and Reserve members are getting called up more frequently and for longer periods of time. Despite the obvious hardships, service members like Rougeau are meeting the challenges, thanks to careful planning and strong support networks.

“I will most definitely stay in,” she says. “I love what I’m doing, and I’m committed to it.”

Lt. Col. Dan Ammerman, USAR, says he plans to stay in because he thinks his life and the lives of those around him have changed for the better because of his military service. As a member of the U.S. Army Reserve’s 432nd Civil Affairs Battalion in Green Bay, Wis., he’s helped rebuild critical infrastructure in war-torn Bosnia, Kosovo, and Iraq. During these deployments, he’s left behind his wife, Kathy, and their two young children, Keith and Lucy.

“For some families, a deployment can be a negative experience, but for the majority of families, it ends up being a growth experience,” says Ammerman, who has been in the reserve 16 years. “It helps me prioritize in terms of what’s important and what’s not important, and I hold [my family] a little more dear now than I did in the past.”

Ammerman says his wife’s positive attitude has made things easier on their children “because kids take cues from their parents in terms of how to react.” Strong support from the community also has helped. Following his deployment to Iraq, his children participated in a local Support the Troops parade and received a U.S. flag that had flown over the nation’s capitol, which was presented by a representative from the office of U.S. Rep. Mark Green (R-Wis.).

His son also was chosen to help with the coin toss during a January 2004 playoff football game between the Green Bay Packers and the Seattle Seahawks. Ammerman, his son, and 13 other reservists and family members from the 432nd were able to attend the game thanks to CWO5 Randy Hansen, USA-Ret., who belongs to a local MOAA chapter in Green Bay and sits on the national association’s board of directors. Hansen contacted the Packers and asked if they would be willing to do something to show support for members of the 432nd, who were home on two weeks leave from Iraq. The Packers responded by donating 50 tickets to the battalion.

The MOAA chapter continues to support the 432nd and even has adopted the battalion. Chapter President Cmdr. John M. Friedel, USN-Ret., says members decided to adopt the battalion because reservists in the area don’t have ready access to many of the support services found on military bases. In addition, reservists’ families often have trouble navigating the military system because they are less familiar with it.

“We want to be a resource for them,” says Friedel. “We want them to know we’re here when they need help.”

The MOAA chapter in Green Bay is just one of many sources of local support that Guard and Reserve members are tapping into nationwide, says Dorothy Ogilvy-Lee, chief of family programs for the National Guard in Arlington, Va. The civilian sector indeed has become an important source of support for many Guard and Reserve families who don’t live near a military installation.

“We’ve had such an outpouring of offers of assistance from agencies, organizations, businesses, and individuals in the civilian community, that I have to tell you the truth, I think we have everything they have at an active duty installation, we just get it from a different source,” says Ogilvy-Lee.

Ammerman’s network of support also includes his employer, Schneider National in Green Bay, where he works as a senior financial analyst. In 1996, the company won the Employer Support Freedom award and in 2003, it received the “My Boss is a Patriot” and “My Employer is a Patriot” awards, which all were presented by the National Committee for the Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve in Arlington, Va.

Not every guardmember or reservist has a supportive employer, however. Still, Lt. Col. Bill DuPont of the ESGR thinks unsympathetic employers are the exception.

“What we find is most employers are more than willing to support their men and women,” he says. “They’re not unsympathetic but just the opposite. They’re very understanding. I think many employers recognize they can assist in shouldering some of the load of responsibility when the Guard and Reserve are called to active duty.”

Although Ammerman is still on active duty and is serving stateside now, he could be deployed again. However, he thinks his strong network of support will allow him and his family to meet any challenges they might face, and he plans on staying in the reserve.

“When you see that support, it’s validation that what you’re doing is important, and it makes it a little bit easier to endure the sacrifices,” he says.

Dealing with sacrifices

Lt. Col. Donald Reynolds, ANG, also thinks his military service has changed the lives of others for the better. A chaplain with Army National Guard’s 115th Military Police Battalion, Reynolds’ unit was mobilized to guard the Pentagon just hours after the terrorist attack on Sept. 11. Tasked to provide a “ministry of presence and a ministry of comfort,” he spent weeks talking and listening to those whose lives were affected by the attack, as well as the thoughts and feelings of members of his own unit.

“Our shifts were 12-hour shifts, so I don’t think our soldiers got a chance to mourn the way that the nation did,” says Reynolds of his battalion. “I was impressed by their steadfastness and the way they performed their duties so professionally when they left their workplaces and their families so quickly. The soldiers became my heroes, and they performed their duties admirably.”

The minister of a small Baptist church in Denton, Md., Reynolds already had a deployment plan in place when he was called to duty. Like many other longtime reservists, he developed the plan during the Desert Storm-era, and now updates it regularly to ensure, “I can fully give myself to the guard when I need to.”

Following their service at the Pentagon, members of the 115th went to Fort Stewart, Ga., where they provided law enforcement and force protection. The battalion then moved on and set up a POW camp at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba. Several months after returning home from Cuba, the battalion was deployed again—this time to Iraq, where they spent six months guarding POWs in the Baghdad area.

Like others in his unit, Reynolds missed many family events during his deployments, including seeing his son graduate from college. Living conditions also were harsh, particularly in Iraq.

Reynolds credits the folks at home for helping boast the morale of his battalion during the tough times. While in Iraq, the 115th received encouragement from more than 20 groups, including baskets of letters and morale boxes from parishioners at Reynold’s church, letters and banners from schoolchildren and Girl Scout and Boy Scout troops, and phone cards from members of the American Legion. Reynolds also received e-mails and letters from friends and strangers in Denton, who read about his deployment in the local newspaper. This, combined with a warm welcome from the Iraqi people, left Reynolds with a feeling that his sacrifices were worthwhile, and he plans to continue serving in the Army National Guard.

“I really do believe freedom is something that needs to be passed down to the next generation,” says Reynolds. “Now is not the time to leave the service. Now’s the time to stand strong with others and protect those freedoms, regardless of the sacrifice.”