Deployment and parenting?

I understand and appreciate you wanting to serve your country as someone who's served in the Army myself but I'm sorry... that was a pretty thoughtless, fairly selfish decision of yours, especially with both you in the military and your husband already deployed. Your first obligation is as the mother to your children; after that, you can worry about your service.

I don't mean to sound harsh (though I am) but I'm just being honest.

For the first four years of my life, my dad (Navy) would go out to sea for 6 months to a year at a time, and when he came back, I wouldn't remember who he was. Due in part to this, we had issues all through my growing up and I've had separation anxiety with people I love for most of my life; I've seen a counselor over it but I still have to consciously stop myself and remind myself to chill out.

When kids are little they don't understand that mommy is in a war zone and is in constant danger but they DO understand that mommy is not there. Your husband was gone on his deployment and you were their only parent - now he's there, and he's going to be there while you're overseas. That's a pretty big switchup for them and it's going to confuse them a lot. They're going to miss you - bad. On the upside it'll give them time to get to know and become deeply attached to daddy.

My wife and I waited till I was back from Iraq and inactive before we had our kid because I wanted to be there no matter what. Hypothetically speaking if both of us were in the military and there were issues with delpoyment and whatnot, I would NOT have volunteered. If I got called back up, I'd go of course but I would be in a constant state of emotional fatigue over it. I was MOS 11B and spent much of my time out on patrol with an M4 getting shot at, I really do NOT want to go back to that now that I've got a daughter to raise.