At the time my thoughts turned first to the children who were directly affected by these deaths. There was little mention, in what I read about children, who might be among the mourners. Ages were given but no more. So many of those who died were very young and I wondered about the younger siblings or young children at home. I asked myself, although I had no way of getting an answer, if these children were recognized as mourners, and if so were they included in the mourning rituals? There is a tendency to try to protect children, at such times, from the pain of the loss and from being recognized as mourners who are dealing with feelings they don't understand, and with the many changes in their lives. My research has taught me that we can't protect children from the fact that people die and that we need to respect them as mourners involving them in as many ways as possible, while respecting their age at the time.

The deaths at Fort Hood were unanticipated. Is the grief survivors experience different than what mourners experience after a death that occur in battle and that, in spite of hope to the contrary, in some way are anticipated. There is a new generation of children who have lost siblings or parents as a result of the wars of this past decade. There needs are great. There is an organization for families of war victims. It is called Tragedy Assistant Program for Survivors (TAPS) that provides professional and peer support to grieving military families. I also learned on Google about the National Child Traumatic Stress Network. They have issed, on their web site, a report titled "Traumatic Grief in Military Children: Information for Families". This report provides invaluable information about helping children when a family member is killed in the line of duty. As I read through it I found the report consistent with what Madelyn Kelly and I wrote in our book "A Parents Guide to Raising Grieving Children" . This is a book that would be helpful to this audience as well.

As I continued to think about what happened I came upon a new question. I am sure it is not a new question for people who are more closely connected, than I am, to the military. I wondered about what it is like for children who have parents who are going to war? How do families cope, living in the shadow of the possibility that their parent or their sibling will be killed in battle? A study by the Rand Corporation reported in the Boston Globe on December 7 (P.G3.) compared children of military families who were deployed for extended periods of time, with civilian families. The headline on the Globe article referred to a link the researcher found between long military deployment and family problems. The researchers found that children of military families were at higher risk of developing emotional problems in comparison to civilian families. Older teen agers reported more problems with fighting and academic performance than did their civilian counterparts. Girls seemed to be especially at risk. This study will be published in the journal Pediatrics in Jan 2010. The question these findings raised for me was related to what part could the anticipation of possible death play in the development of these problems? These are thoughts that must be real although I do not know how they are acknowledged or dealt with in military communities. Are these families dealing with what can be called a kind of anticipatory grief? Do they talk about it? Do they give it a name? Are they already grieving for their family member who is absent on deployment? What help and support do they need and do they receive in coping with this reality?

My thinking about what happened at Fort Hood has left me with many questions that until now, I hadn't really thought too much about. Is it appropriate to ask readers of this blog to also share their questions, the resources they have used and their experience in coping when considering issues that affect the families of our soldiers who are risking their lives on a daily basis?