Yellow Ribbon helps Reservists, families handle change positively during deployments

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Anna-Marie Wyant
  • 920th Rescue Wing Public Affairs
ORLANDO, Fla --  When Reservists deploy, there are many uncertainties. While there is no one-size-fits-all experience, each family does go through something similar: change. Change can be scary, but deploying Reservists and their families must find ways to cope with and manage deployment-related changes. Air Force Reserve Command's Yellow Ribbon Reintegration Program helped Reserve families learn to effectively deal with change and many other stresses at its most recent event in Orlando, April 27-29.

Approximately 300 pre- and post-deployment Air Force Reservists, Individual Mobilization Augmentees, Marine Corps Reservists and their families from across the country gathered at this Yellow Ribbon event to learn about benefits, network with other Reserve families, and get useful resources for deployments and beyond. Representatives from community partners and organizations including Veterans Affairs, Military OneSource, Tricare and Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve were present to assist Reserve families with any questions. The event also offered sessions on various topics such as resiliency, communication, financial management, and much more.

Brig. Gen. Norman Ham, commander, 440th Airlift Wing, an Air Force Reserve wing at Pope Field, N.C., told Yellow Ribbon attendees to take advantage of the resources, contacts and information Yellow Ribbon has to offer, and reminded Reservists to care for their wingmen.

"I can't emphasize enough the importance of family and support groups," he said. "It's important to look after one another because Reservists are spread out all over the place."

The event's guest speaker, Kaarin Salisbury, a military spouse and regular Yellow Ribbon volunteer, told attendees that although they are coming from different parts of the country and have varying situations, the thing they all have in common is change.

"With change often comes fear," Salisbury said. "Change is difficult. Change is painful. Change is unsettling, but it is also refreshing; it's necessary, and it is good."

Salisbury, who started a family network for fellow Reserve families in her husband's squadron, said while people cannot necessarily control change, they can control the way they deal with it.

"Having the anticipation and proactively dealing with change is the difference between change that steals your mission and change that allows you to propel forward," she told attendees. "If we just stop for a moment and feel the change... you can look at what your approach to the change is going to be, and you can look at the positives."

Master. Sgt. Leah Chavez, an Individual Mobilization Augmentee casualty specialist with the Air Force Personnel Center at Randolph Air Force Base, Texas, said she and her husband, Staff Sgt. Christian Chavez, an active-duty Air Force recruiter in Houston, will try to use what they learned at Yellow Ribbon to positively approach the changes associated with her upcoming deployment.

"I thought [the deployment process] was going to be easier, because it was when I deployed before," said Leah, who previously deployed twice to Iraq with the Air National Guard. "But when I deployed before I was single... I've just been having to deal with change."

Leah and Christian, who are both originally from Houston, said they met when they were deployed to the same base in Iraq in 2007; it was the second deployment for each of them.

"We would go Salsa dancing every Friday and Saturday, and we would work out together every day," Leah said of their time together in Iraq.

They said they became close friends while deployed. After their deployments ended and they returned to the states, they began dating, and then tied the knot in December 2007. Just a few weeks thereafter, Christian deployed while Leah stayed home. Now the tables have turned--Leah will be deploying for the first time since they have been married, and Christian will be left to run the household.

While he admits he's a bit worried about his wife's deployment, Christian said he knows it's something she wants to do, and he fully supports her.

"I'm kind of excited for her," Christian said. "I joined the Air Force to travel and see the world, and now I'm the one who will be stuck at home."

Leah also said although she knows Christian is capable of managing the household on his own, she has some guilt about adding more work to his already busy schedule.

"I know his job is very demanding of him, and now I'm not going to be there, and all these extra responsibilities are going to fall on him," she said. "He's been very supportive and very helpful."

This is a big change for both of them, but they said they appreciated the plethora of information and resources available at Yellow Ribbon that will help them cope with this and other associated changes.

"[The deployment process] has been a learning process and definitely a growing process," Leah said. "The resources at Yellow Ribbon helped immensely. There were things I needed, like my will, my power of attorney... I didn't even know where to get that on my base."

Christian said Yellow Ribbon was eye-opening to him since he has always been active duty.

"Yellow Ribbon taught me a lot," he said. "Reservists have to do a lot on their own... they have to juggle their family, their civilian job, maybe even school, all while staying current on their Reserve jobs and qualifications."

Leah and Christian said they highly recommend Yellow Ribbon to anyone who is going to or returning from a deployment.

"There's so many resources at Yellow Ribbon," Leah said. "You're only going to grow from [attending]. There's so many people there with knowledge and experience. You learn so much."

The Yellow Ribbon Program was initiated by the Secretary of Defense and mandated by Congress in 2008 to provide information, services, referral and proactive outreach programs to Reservists and Guardsmen and their dependents through all phases of deployment cycles. The program's goals are to prepare service members and their families for mobilization, sustain families during mobilization, and reintegrate service members with their families and communities upon return from deployment.

To learn more about Yellow Ribbon, visit their website or Facebook page.