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I have a tremendous amount of respect for military families. To have to worry about your loved ones and still try and live a normal life is extremely hard.

Life does not stand still for families and local communities when our brave men and women are deployed, but we can make their time apart more bearable by recognizing their sacrifice and fulfilling our commitments to them.

As a woman, especially when you have children, one gets so good at soldiering on - almost too good.

I take care of military families. Their sacrifices are very real.

Across the country military families are facing dire financial circumstances due to longer than expected tours of duties. They are being penalized for their patriotism - no one should have to choose between doing right by their country and doing right by their families.

It definitely gets challenging at times. I travel a lot more now, and its never easy having to leave the kids, even if its for a few days.

I have the greatest respect for single parents who struggle and sacrifice, trying against almost superhuman odds to hold the family together. They should be honored and helped in their heroic efforts. But any mother's or father's task is much easier where there are two functioning parents in the home.

These days, it's often women in uniform - moms, wives, even grandmothers - who deploy and leave their families behind.

Anybody who was in the military or a military family has a certain sensitivity to the separation. Everyone knows military wives have the hardest jobs. I was born into one. When I think back to those days, I didn't appreciate it then.

In moments when I question if I should be having kids, I think of all those phone calls from my sister-in-law, in which, 3,000 miles away, I hear my nephews screaming for her attention. I tell her I have to go because I am packing to leave for Europe, and her tone flatlines: 'That must be nice.'