They Called, I Answered. It Got to Me.

I'd heard the horror stories of FRG leaders who were stressed to the point of breaking. Rumors abounded about the wife of one former commander who cried before and after every monthly FRG meeting, overwhelmed by all that the families expected of her.

That would not be me. After years in the corporate world as an information-technology consultant, I knew how to delegate and how to distance myself to get the job done. Dealing with a few dozen Army wives and their families may not have been strictly analogous, but it seemed to me that the same rules applied. And if I stuck to the rules, there was no way, no how, I'd get sucked into the drama.

But I got sucked into the drama.

"My ex-husband won't let my daughter come live with us. Not that he wants to take care of her, he just wants to punish me. I don't know how I'm supposed to get by for 15 months without my husband or my child."

During my husband's tenure as commander from 2006 to 2007, we weathered rumors of a new deployment, a chlamydia outbreak among our unit's soldiers and some of their wives, spousal abuse, drugs, and more family financial issues than I could ever have imagined. Sometimes I was able to help, directing families to Army agencies that could fix their pay problems, help them find child care or provide career counselors to soup up resumes. But before I could take some satisfaction in actually having lent a hand, the phone would ring again.

There were calls about why my husband was making soldiers work late, about self-esteem issues, about shameless catfights and adultery. Once a spouse called to request that my husband instruct hers to impregnate her -- if he fell in the line of duty, a child would be her only consolation. There were too many situations for which the FRG leaders handbook offered no solution except the forbidding "This is not an FRG issue," a statement that only left spouses feeling as though the Army, the same Army that was taking their husbands away for years at a time, didn't care about their problems -- or them.

Over time, I started doing the only thing I could: I took the time to listen. After a few months, all those promises I'd made to myself fell by the wayside. I was stressed out. I took things personally. I took on too much. And the question always remained: Was it doing any good?

I really didn't know. But soon I dreaded walking around post during hours when I was likely to run into people who would criticize the way the Army (and my husband) did business or who would unload personal problems. Too often I "forgot" to charge my cellphone. I postponed e-mail replies as long as I dared. I started to dream of being unreachable.

"He won't mind me no matter what I say. He only listens to his daddy. I'm at the end of my rope. Could you maybe watch him for a while?"

When my husband took a second command at a new U.S. post here, this time a larger headquarters company that was definitely going to deploy to Iraq, I knew that I hadn't fared any better than my predecessors. The job took its pound of flesh. I didn't think I had it in me to do it again. But Nick asked me to anyway. "With you, I'll know things are taken care of back here," he said. "It would make things easier on me." I couldn't refuse.

Now, a few months into a 15-month deployment already raw with the loss of some soldiers to battle, the phone seems to be constantly ringing. So many different voices, with so many problems. They tell me they heard, they lost, they hope, they want, they fear, they don't understand, they wish and they need. Always, they need. They know that I probably won't be able to help -- that I can only refer them to Army services stretched thin by this war, tell them to ignore any rumor that hasn't been officially confirmed by the unit, or maybe offer a little encouragement. But still they call. Sometimes dozens a day.

"I haven't heard from him in over two weeks. And I wouldn't ask, but is there some way to get a message to him? Our last call didn't go so well."