It’s easy to say that any and all contact with your spouse during a deployment is a good thing.
Experts, such as Shannon Fox, a psychotherapist and family counselor agree. They say every contact with your deployed spouse makes reintegration that much easier. According to this story, Facebook is where it's at. They say milspouses are simply raving about the deployment blessing that is Facebook and all that help and contact it can bring.
But as someone who has sat in front of that familiar homepage watching and waiting for any signs of life from my husband, I know that it can be easy to fall into obsession. Has he been online lately? Did he post a comment on someone else’s wall but not mine? (And why would he do that?!) Or was he online while I was asleep -- and why didn’t he just call and wake me up? Maybe if I wait just 10 more minutes he’ll appear.
And then there are the OPSEC issues. Over his mid-tour leave during our last deployment, our battalion commander gave a briefing at an family readiness group meeting. He proclaimed the evils of Facebook and warned that soldiers who post too much information will be punished, and harshly. He exhorted us to police our soldiers and help them avoid posting information that could put others in danger.
Yes, there are many upsides to Facebook contact, but like anything, there are also downsides. So I ask: do you consider Facebook and blessing or a curse?
