The jelly beans help.

Master Sgt. James Adkins' earlier deployments were tough on his daughters, twins Audrey and Autumn, both now 15, and especially Chloe, now 10, his wife, Paula, said.

Not that this deployment is easy, she said. Adkins, who works in munitions tracking with the 28th Bomb Wing at Ellsworth, deployed to Southwest Asia in July.

"I miss him a lot," Chloe said as she painted ceramics with her mother and sisters at Diva Night at Pottery 2 Paint in Rapid City. Diva Night is one of the activities for families of deployed Ellsworth Air Force Base personnel, sponsored by the Airman and Family Readiness Center on base.

Those activities help the spouses and the kids, Paula Adkins said.

For her husband's current deployment, she and her daughters are doing some things to make the separation easier.

For instance, each girl has a jar with the number of jelly beans, Skittles or gummy bears for each day they think their dad will be gone.

Every day, they take one out of their jar.

"When they're gone, he should be home," Adkins said.

Most of the wives are much less seasoned than Adkins.

"This is our first deployment," said Natasha Hoke, whose husband, Sean Hoke, is a senior airman who deployed to Southwest Asia in July as a B-1B Lancer bomber crew chief.

They have been married for 2-1/2 years.

"At least we got a solid two years before he had to go," Natasha Hoke said. "It's nice to have that foundation as our relationship grows."

But Hoke said she feels lonely, partly because she lives in town. "I'm not on base with the community there," she said.

And she isn't from South Dakota. "I've never been here. It's a whole new experience for me."

So Hoke appreciates events like Diva Night.

"I'm very thankful for the readiness center because it helps me get out and do things that aren't the norm."

Emotional loss is just one of the things that families left behind have to deal with. There are also practical considerations, said other Ellsworth spouses at Diva Night.

Kristen Loudenburg, whose husband, Airman 1st Class Aaron Loudenburg, deployed in May to United Arab Emirates, has always handled the bills. No problem there.

But she had always relied on Aaron to do the yard work.

"Mowing the lawn was really intimidating for me, at first," she said.

Cindi Starr's husband, Staff Sgt. Richard Starr, deployed in July to a base in southwest Asia where he works with B-1 bomber targeting pods.

Two days before he left, they found out Cindi was pregnant with twins. Richard is due back at Ellsworth on Jan. 16, at the earliest. Cindi is due to deliver her twins Jan. 26 or 27. She is determined to hold off the birth until he gets home.

"They're totally grounded," she said, laughing, pointing to her belly.

Paula Adkins handles the practical stuff with aplomb. During a recent cold snap, she went outside in her pajamas and overcoat and jumpstarted two of their cars.

"I came home one day and found the kitchen flooded because snow melt came through the stove hood," she said. "You just do what you gotta do and figure it out."

Adkins is an old hand at her husband's deployments. By the time the twins were 6 years old, he had been gone for a total of three years, she said.

"It doesn't make it any easier, though," Adkins said.

She, like the others, still worries about the safety of her husband.

"You just always worry. But you've got to kind of shelve it because you've got three kids looking to you for their reactions," Adkins said.

Deployments hit kids

Deployments affect everyone on base, from the families to the personnel doing extra duty to make up for the people overseas, said Mark Kjellerson, director of the Airman and Family Readiness Center at Ellsworth.

The worry about their spouses' safety is a constant stress, Kjellerson said. "Even if they're not going into a forward operating location, there's danger any place."

Deployments sometimes hit the kids hard, he said. School counselors have contacted the center and reported that kids who had good behavior and good grades suddenly were having discipline problems and failing grades.

"What we find is that either or both of their parents are gone, deployed overseas," Kjellerson said.

Paula Adkins, who is a substitute teacher at Douglas, agreed.

"I've sat in classes and watched kids break down in tears. They say: `Daddy is gone. We haven't heard from him.'"

Kjellerson doesn't think the civilian population really understands the stress on active-duty military families.

"It's not transparent to the general public. They can't comprehend that," he said.

Kjellerson said the Airman and Family Readiness Center assists families on several fronts, from practical things to emotional support.

Cindi Starr needed to find an electrician to put in a security system. Tech. Sgt. Ann Mitchell at the center found one for her.

The center staffers also provide counseling on such details as finances and transition employment assistance. Finances are a major stress point for families of deployed members, Kjellerson said. And the staff calls the families to see how they're doing.

Help for spouses

Key Spouses also provides support. Every squadron has at least one Key Spouse, designated by the commander to work with younger spouses experiencing their first or second deployments.

"They give them a hug when they need it, talk to them, give them a shoulder sometimes to cry on," Kjellerson said.

The Airman and Family Readiness Center also can refer people struggling with emotional issues to a new program in the Air Force, the Military and Family Life Consultant. The consultants come to the base on 45-day rotations as part of a contract with the U.S. Department of Defense.

And the center sponsors more than a dozen events each year, such as Diva Night, to bring spouses and families together. They include picnics, spa days, Pilates and yoga classes, an Easter egg hunt, a dad's golf day, a summer carnival, a pool party, a hiking trip, a Halloween costume party and a Christmas holiday party.

"The best support group is when they can get together and share those common problems, the feelings of frustration, disappointments and feelings of depression," Kjellerson said. "It gets them out of the house and gives them a chance to get together."

The two casualties Ellsworth has suffered in the war put additional strain on the base community, Kjellerson said.

Senior Airman Jonathan Yelner was killed April 29, 2008, when the truck he was driving was hit by a bomb in Afghanistan. Staff Sgt. Bryan Berky, an Ellsworth bomb disposal specialist, was killed in Afghanistan on Sept. 12.

After Berky's death, Kjellerson's office, along with base chaplains and the base mental health office, got calls from people who were concerned about their loved ones overseas, Kjellerson said.

So the center hosted a town hall meeting, in which spouses of deployed personnel could come, express their concerns and learn what resources were available to help.

"We actually talked to some spouses whose spouses were working with Sgt. Berky," Kjellerson said. "One person was very, very distraught to think that somebody on that team that went out that day got killed."

Children were anxious, too, he said.

They were able to stay after the town hall meeting and talk to a Military Family Life consultant and a Youth and Child Behavioral Military and Family Life consultant.

Kjellerson said the military is doing a far better job taking care of families as well as helping deployed personnel after they come home.

He said he has seen a bigger commitment from the Air Force in money and manpower for services to families since the Persian Gulf War in 1991.

The readiness center, for example, has a staff of 12.

Retaining families

Pat McElgunn, a retired Air Force officer who serves as director of the Ellsworth Task Force and vice president of government affairs for the Rapid City Area Chamber of Commerce, said the military is motivated to support the families. "The real challenge in today's armed forces is that you enlist the person or commission the person, but you have to retain their families."

But he said the pace of deployments "does wear on them," McElgunn said.

Paula and James Adkins have been married for 17 years, all of it in the Air Force. He has been deployed multiple times.

"It doesn't make it any easier, though," Paula Adkins said. "When I was younger, it was exciting. Now, we're quite tired."

Adkins, who also served in the Air Force, said 15 years ago, when she or her husband was being deployed, there weren't all of the programs to support families.

"That has changed," she said. "The military has come around to thinking if they don't support us, we can't support them."

Another big change that helps the deployed personnel and their families is their ability to communicate by phone, e-mail, Internet chat sites, Web cams and the like.

Paula Adkins and her girls teleconference with James every night and every morning, she said.

"We have cameras so he can see our faces."

And James left behind a stack of handwritten notes for occasions he knew were coming up with his girls. Paula puts them out periodically for them to find.

They say things like:

"Happy birthday."

"Excited about your braces."

"Have a good night tonight."

Kjellerson said military families are resilient.

But, despite the technological advances and the additional support, the wars are putting a burden on the military and the military families.

"It's definitely no vacation over there, and it's no vacation for the people left behind," he said.

Contact Steve Miller at 394-8415 or steve.miller@rapidcityjournal.com.