U.S. Civil Affairs personnel visit a girls' school in the town of Khowst in southeast Afghanistan, bringing special items to reward top students, ages 12 to 15, and to recognize teachers for encouraging the hopes and dreams of these students. Chaplain Ron Cockroft sits in the midst of the class.S

Military service demands flexibility and ability to adapt in new and different places or capacities. Whether military personnel are leaving friends and family to enter into service, returning from service, or, in Chaplain Noel Johnson's case, leaving active duty and later rejoining as a reservist, army chaplains are there to serve and help other soldiers.

Johnson enjoys her job and believes that she is right where she should be, even though it means dealing with loss on a regular basis. "I have buried a lot of soldiers. People ask me how I can bear to deal with so much death. I don't think of it as dealing with the dead, but dealing with the living. The ministry to suffering friends and family members is deep and full," she says.

In a 12-month deployment — before, during and after — soldiers go through several emotional stages. Military chaplains use a general knowledge of these stages as a guide for offering help to those with whom they journey:

• Honeymoon: Excitement of something new
• Wilting: Excitement wears off, replaced with loneliness, thoughts about separation from familiar luxuries and family
• Leveling: Realization of ability to live through the tour, beginning to adjust
• 4th Month Slump: Grind of 12- to 18-hour days gets old, become tired to point of exhaustion
• Midpoint: Realize everything is downhill from here
• Post Mid-tour Blues: Difficulty returning to whirlwind work pace
• Topping Out: End is in sight, become a double-digit midget (fewer than 100 days remaining in tour of duty)
• 11th Month Slump: Look back and have to face past 11 months' actions, have become a different person than when started
• Home Aftershock! Re-entry, going back to real world, need to readjust vocabulary, understand alcohol tolerance is down, family expectations will be high, encountering a different culture versus military only

With these transitions in mind, military chaplains focus on challenges a tour of duty brings and what soldiers go through upon completion of service. "Army life can be difficult, but difficulty provides strength and endurance, patience and compassion. I am a lot better person for the army life I have led," says Johnson. "People often come to me with some difficult issues asking for advice. I always remind them of the miracle of prayer."

Those on the field of military duty experience an intensity of their mission that is foreign to others who do not travel in the same place. When the time comes to return home, ability to adapt includes facing particular needs on the home front, too. Home matters have their own unique intensity.

Lt. Col. Ronald D. Cockroft gives tips for reunion between soldiers and their families. One of these tips is for the soldier to live as a guest in his or her own home until everyone is adjusted to the homecoming. "We have all made a year's worth of memories without each other and we need time to get to know one another again. As we adjust, we must each give the other [family members] time to invite us back into their lives," he says.

And the biggest thing that families need when soldiers return home? "Patience," Cockroft says.

Cockroft gives an adequate summary of the reality of adjustments and changes that occur, often when soldiers themselves do not even notice. He uses his personal experience as a springboard for what other soldiers likely go through as well. "In what ways have each of you changed in this past year? I keep looking at myself and attempting to define the ways that I have changed. There may be some ways that I may not be willing to admit to myself. There are always changes that I cannot see in myself that others will be able to see first."

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