Over the past 15 years, America's armed forces have taken huge strides to retain married service members -- improving schools, health programs, and child care. But now, as never before in this family-embracing era, the military is struggling with the toughest home front problem of all: doing right by the ever-growing ranks of the bereaved.
Of the 3,350 Americans who died in Iraq and Afghanistan through early January, 1,586 of them -- 47.3 percent -- were married. Those fallen warriors left behind 1,954 children, according to the Pentagon's Manpower Data Center. More recent deaths have pushed that figure past 2,000.
Compared with the heavily draftee combat troops of the Vietnam War , today's volunteer fighting force is older, more reliant on National Guard and Reserve citizen-soldiers, and more likely to be married.
And more so than their Vietnam counterparts, the new generation of bereaved spouses has been vocal -- on bases, at congressional hearings -- in pressing for more compassionate, effective support.
It's a constituency that politicians and generals do not want to alienate. The result has been numerous policy changes, ranging from improved benefits to better training for the officers who deliver the news of war zone deaths. Even the Fort Hood support center materialized because of pressure from widows and their allies.
But the learning process is ongoing, and the results are mixed.
"The war on terror has presented us with new challenges we haven't seen before in terms of number of casualties," said an Army spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Kevin Arata. "We know we're not perfect -- there are things families have said we can do better, and we've listened to that."
Interviews with a dozen widows at Fort Hood and across the country found varied experiences as well as disagreement about the wisdom of the war. But there are also some common bonds.
Each woman is still grieving, and those with children have extra worries, financial and psychological, that extend far into the future.
Some are deeply grateful for the support provided by the military after their husbands' deaths; others are critical.
"We have to have someone who knows what they're talking about," Pirtle said. "The blind-leading-the-blind system isn't working out."
Pirtle's daughter, who was born 26 days after her father's death in October 2003, seems to be thriving. But many of the now-fatherless older children struggle emotionally.
A Palmer, Mass., widow, Melissa Storey, was still getting calls from soldiers in Iraq eight months after her husband, Staff Sergeant Clint Storey, was killed there. "We're just as much a part of the Army as before he died," she said.
Storey, 29, has a 4-year-old daughter, Adela, who's had therapy sessions since her father's death. During the couple's final days together, she also became pregnant with a son, to be named Clint.
She considers her benefits package generous and praised the Army's outreach to families.
"But part of being a good military spouse is accepting that you don't come first -- the mission comes first," she added.
