My husband Frank is on shore duty right now. He tells people he can't wait to go operational again -- Iraq, Afghanistan, or Horn of Africa. They look horrified, then turn to me and ask, "How do YOU feel about that?"

Me? I'm all for it.

Before 9/11, I would have been for it because of that guilty little secret many of us spouses share -- we like the freedom that comes with deployment. My days are my own. The dishes pile up. My legs go unshaved.

Nowadays, though, I'm for it because I understand what deployment means to Frank. His deployments have been his most satisfying assignments. He had more of the focus, manpower, and resources he needed to get the job done.

First, the focus. Life is simpler when you're deployed. I learned that for myself when I was an embedded reporter in Iraq and Afghanistan. When you're over there, you have fewer homelife distractions. You just focus on your job. If you like your job, putting your training to good use and making a difference is incredibly satisfying.

Second, there's the issue of manpower and resources. With the military stretched thin, the resources go to the war zones. That's how it should and must be. But that leaves everyone else to do more with less. In the rear, undermanned units with slashed budgets are struggling to meet ever-growing needs. As a result, Frank's current shore assignment -- supporting forward-deployed forces at the base where we live in Japan -- has been the toughest and most demoralizing of his career. He's not the only one.

Like many servicemembers today, Frank works seven long, stressful days a week. Unlike a deployment, he's also tasked with personal and professional obligations that come with being home. Last week, he took his first day off in six months.

Keeping him going is a fulltime job -- mine. After eighteen months of this, with probably another year to go before he rotates, it's starting to wear on me. At the base clinic recently for a physical, I checked off boxes on the questionnaire about my current health. Luckily, I'm pretty healthy, so I was checking NO, NO, NO, to all the things that can go wrong. Then I got to the question about feeling depressed, anxious, and unhappy. And I stopped. And then, for the first time ever, like many military spouses these days, I checked YES.

The Navy doctor asked me about it in the exam room. I have a great doctor -- when he's here. He got pulled last year because the Marines in Afghanistan needed him more.

"The problem is Frank's job," I said.

That was all I had to say. Frank's a chaplain, but my doctor understood completely. On our base, doctors used to take the overnight duty once a week. Now they're so short-staffed that doctors work overnight every second night, then work the next day, too. He sighed, "We have zero retention with doctors coming out of this base."

Neither he nor my husband are whining. Most of the servicemembers I know are going to heroic lengths to accomplish the mission no matter what. But the operational tempo and the shortage of personnel and resources is burning people out all across the military.

Given the current demands on the federal budget, I don't know what the solution is. I just know it's up to Congress and the president to find one -- they're the ones who decide on committing troops around the world and how much to pay for it. For years now, those troops have been over-committed and under-resourced.

So if you have a spare minute, write to your elected representatives. Urge them to face reality and do it fast -- either require less of the military or come up with more people and money before they break the people they have -- and the families, too. Here's how to contact them:
https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
http://www.whitehouse.gov/CONTACT/

This is my last column for now. I'm putting it on hold to better focus on other projects while I keep Frank going each day. In the meantime, I hope you'll stay in touch through my website, http://www.kristinhenderson.com.