Navy wife, Delila Kleinhenz, got five days notice — five days to absorb the news that her Sailor was being ordered to Iraq to serve as a Soldier with the Army. She remembers nearly going ballistic, thinking, "He has no background for this!" Her husband Mark, a Navy reservist, had never worn camouflage in his life. He knew how to dive a submarine but had never been trained in Soldiering 101.

Delila herself was the weekend charge nurse in a busy intensive care unit. With only five days notice, there just wasn't enough time to solve all the child care problems that resulted from sudden single parenthood. Her civilian bosses didn't believe that she hadn't seen this coming. Delila lost her job.

To prepare for deployment, the Navy sent Mark to Fort Jackson, S.C., to bone up on combat skills for 30 days before heading to Iraq. Back home, Delila's preparation consisted of a deployment packet that arrived in her mailbox.

The packet came from the ombudsman — the spouse volunteer who supported the families of the Navy command to which Mark had originally been assigned. The packet contained information about DEERS and TRICARE, as well as a flyer and a coloring book on helping children cope with deployment.

That little packet was the first and last time Delila heard from the ombudsman. She received no pre-deployment briefing. She had no contact with the unit Mark joined in Iraq. Her only source of information was her husband; her only go-to resource was a phone number in Baghdad. If something happened to Mark, she wouldn't know where to turn. She was utterly alone.

Welcome to the world of the families of individual augmentees.

Across the Navy, Marine Corps, Army, and Air Force, a growing number of servicemembers are deploying alone. They're called Individual Augmentees (IA), Individual Mobilized Augmentees (IMA), and members of the Individual Ready Reserve (IRR). They may be plucked from active duty, or called up from the National Guard or Reserves. They're sent out to temporarily fill a gap in another command, deploying to places like Iraq or the Horn of Africa.

Sometimes Sailors, Marines, Soldiers, and Airmen volunteer for this duty. Sometimes they're volunteered for it. Sending in replacements has always been a wartime necessity. Casualties, shifting battlefields, evolving missions -- all can leave holes on the frontlines and along the support lines. The current augmentee system is a mix of old and new programs that aim to ensure commanders continue to have enough people to get the job done.

The services are trying to make it a little easier on the servicemembers. They provide more advance notice, mandatory checklists, briefings, and training. So far, however, they haven't done as much for the families.

The Navy has perhaps done the most through its Expeditionary Combat Readiness Center, which is designed to support individual augmentees and their families. With a website and toll-free hotline, the ECRC serves as a one-stop information referral resource. The staff also reaches out to geographically isolated Navy and Marine Corps families without waiting for the family to call.

Individually deployed Army Reserve families can find help at arfp.org, and Air Force Reserve families at afrc.af.mil/library.

But across the services, support for families is hit or miss. Isolation, lack of information, and an inadequate support network are potential problems for any homefront family. But the problems are especially acute among IA/IMA/IRR families. A recent report by the American Psychological Association found that "servicemembers without a unit affiliation or those serving in the National Guard or Reserves are more likely to experience higher stress levels."

Plus, the challenges of a deployment continue long after the homecoming. Sailors and Airmen in particular usually return to commands and squadrons with no idea of how to deal with the aftereffects of urban combat.

Before Delila's husband came home, he spent an hour with the chaplain. As for Delila, she says, "I got nothing." Like many IA/IMA/IRR spouses, she was in the dark about what to expect when her husband returned. As a result, they both expected everything to be the same as it was before he left. Instead, his first two months home were rocky. They didn't know where to turn for help.

Beth Wilson is a Navy IA family advocate who facilitates an online support group, HomefrontInFocus.com, with a free informational newsletter. She believes homecoming problems begin with the arrival itself.

One wife, who was out of town when her husband came back with little warning, couldn't get a flight home in time to greet him. He arrived in the U.S. by himself and took a taxi to an empty house.

"This is the same thing we did during the Vietnam years," Wilson asserts. "No acknowledgement. It's really detrimental to their emotional recovery."

Family readiness affects military readiness, which makes it the responsibility of each unit's commander. Ultimately, that's where real, meaningful family support happens.

Michelle Headly was living on base in Okinawa, Japan, when her husband Ted was tapped for an IA assignment. Five days later he was in Iraq. Four weeks after that, Michelle found out she was pregnant with their fourth child. The family was already bursting at the seams of their 900-square-foot quarters, but housing officials wouldn't approve a move until the baby was born.

That's when Ted's unit stepped in. The commanding officer went to housing meetings with Michelle and wrote letters on her behalf. Then the sergeant major told her not to go to any more meetings — from then on, he went in her place. When the approval to move finally came down, nearly two dozen Marines from the unit showed up to pack boxes, including the lieutenant colonel. Neighbors brought meals. Friends took the kids.

Looking back on her IA experience, Michelle says, "We lucked out."

Our IA families shouldn't have to rely on luck.
(Read an extended version of this article at kristinhenderson.com/IA.htm.)

For more advice or article about dealing with deployments or homecoming, visit Military.com's Spouse Network.