*This article discusses what happens if your soldier is KIA. It is not an easy subject to write about or read. You have been warned.*

Before your soldier deployed, he completed paperwork that listed who he wanted to be notified in the event that he was injured or killed during deployment. Many times, this also includes directions of how to get to that home as well as who he wants to be there with the family member during notification. This may also be done at the pre-deployment briefing.

If Your Soldier is Injured

Many times, they will do everything possible to let the soldier notify you of his injury via a phone call. If for some reason he is unable to make this notification himself, someone from the unit will call you. If the injury is very serious, it is possible they will send someone to tell you in person. Check with your unit to find out what the protocol is for notification of injuries.

If your soldier has to leave his current location for medical treatment, he will most likely be transported to Germany. Whether or not you are able to go depends on the seriousness of the injury and how long he will be in Germany. Some will get the treatment they need and return to their unit. Others may receive treatment and return to the states. If they expect he will be transported to the states, the Army will generally not arrange travel for the family. If he will be in Germany for an extended period of time, his unit may work with you to secure travel arrangements to see him. Again, this is a case by case basis.

If Your Soldier is Killed in Action

Notification of your soldier’s death will ALWAYS be made in person. These types of notifications will not be made over the telephone. They typically also will cut off communication from overseas until the notification can be made to ensure the family does not find out through other means.

Typically, someone from the unit along with a CAO (Casualty Assistance Officer) will go to the home of the primary and secondary next of kin to make the notification. They do not notify in the middle of the night. When they arrive, they will be in uniform. If you or your soldier has indicated that you want specific people to be there for the notification, those people may be there as well though they will generally not be at the door for the notification.

CAOs are trained to deal with a wide variety of situations. As you can imagine, people will react in different ways to receiving this news. The CAO is assigned to your family and will be there for you for months after your soldier’s death. They will physically be there with you to assist in funeral arrangements, transportation to Dover if you want to be there when the casket arrives, etc. They will also explain all benefits and what you can expect from the process. The CAO is basically a personal information officer during this time with answers to all questions.

I pray that you will never need this information. The most important thing to take from this article is that notifications of death are ALWAYS made in person. No one will ever call you with that news. In 99.99% of the cases, you will be notified before anyone else in the area (including the media) is made aware of what happened. If you have additional questions about notifications, check with your family readiness group (FRG).

Rumor Mill: Will my husband be sent home from deployment for the birth of our child? I heard they will for the first child but not for others.

Fact: Some units do in fact try to send soldiers home from deployment in time to witness the birth of their child (whether it is the first of fifth). My husband’s unit was one of these units. I don’t know a single father who missed the birth of his child while my husband served.

However, I also know that his unit is the exception to the rule and not the rule. For most units, it is difficult to ensure that the soldier is able to return for the birth of a baby. While the unit will generally try to schedule R&R time to coincide with the birth of the baby, this is not always possible. Even with the best of intentions, soldiers may not make it home in time to witness the birth.

Because of this, many hospitals (particularly military hospitals) are beginning to make special accommodations for fathers to be able to witness the birth of their sons and daughters. Through webcams and Skype, soldiers are able to witness the birth from thousands of miles away. If your soldier cannot be present for the birth, check into this options so he can be as close as possible when your new little one makes his entrance into the world.

Just within the last few weeks, I have heard from several Army spouses that their soldier has become the “lucky” recipient of deployment orders for the third or fourth time since 9/11. Going through one deployment is hard enough. But dealing with your third or fourth twelve plus month separation in the last nine years? That’s pretty tough.

While my husband also did multiple deployments, they were of a much shorter timeframe. So while I have some understanding of it, I never had to endure such long periods of separation due to deployment. His were in the four month range. I do, however, know what it feels like to be on constant countdown.

Counting down until he leaves…counting down until the next phone call…counting down until he comes home…I felt like all I ever did was count!

For those of you who are about to endure this (or already are), know that our thoughts and prayers are with you. Don’t be afraid to reach out for help and support from those who are around you. There are many people who want to help but just don’t know what to offer. Tell them what you need. There is no need to play superwoman and pile it all on yourself. Lean on others and let them lean on you. It is our support networks that get us through tough times and will continue to in the future.

If you know someone who is going through a deployment, pick up the phone just to chat. Send a card. Offer to take her kids so she can have two hours to enjoy a coffee and browse at the bookstore alone. Invite her for dinner. Just be a friend. Listen to her vent, cry, laugh and share. Be her rock when she needs you to be. Let her know you are there.

We must stick together and support each other.

from the June 2010 MTTA Newsletter

Most units will require the soldier to attend if the family members are unable to be there. If at all possible, you should try to attend the pre-deployment briefing. My husband’s unit always scheduled multiple times to accommodate different schedules. I always found the briefings to be useful.

This is my own experience with a pre-deployment briefing. The unit would go over some basics of the deployment giving us a general idea of where they would be, how long they would be gone and how they expected communication to be. They would also give us the address where we could write and send care packages. Their deployment address was the same every deployment. I can still use the same address to send to guys in his unit when they are gone.

They also brought in various people from post to speak about the services they offered. ACS, Tricare, Chaplain, Finance and several others were usually in attendance. They typically gave a quick overview of their services and how they could be reached during the deployment. JAG was also present to draw up Power of Attorneys and Wills for those who needed those documents.

In addition, we were always given our own chain of command with a chart that showed who we should contact if there were problems during the deployment. The chain of command for spouses was:

Spouse – Key Caller – FRG Leader – Rear D – Command

Even though some spouses circumvented this chain, it is best to stay within it so that things run smoothly during deployment.

We were also given a schedule of FRG meetings as well as when we would receive phone calls. For my husband’s unit, we received a phone call each time there was an injury in his unit. This differs by unit and I recently found out that this is not the norm for most units. If they don’t go over this information, ask to find out when you can expect phone calls from the FRG. We also received phone calls about events that were being hosted by the FRG. If for some reason, we didn’t have a phone call go out for two weeks, they would implement a welfare check where everyone was called just to check in.

Finally, they should go over the procedure about who you should notify if you go out of town. For us, we had to notify our key caller of an address and phone number of where we would be. Do not make your husband’s unit hunt you down if they need to get important information to you. Keep them informed of your whereabouts during a deployment.

The pre-deployment briefing is always very informative and gives you information and resources that can make the deployment easier for you and your family. Do not miss this opportunity.

When my soldier deploys overseas to a war zone, support is definitely a necessity. In my experience, those with the strongest support network are also the ones who survive the deployment experience the best and come out on the other end better for the experience.

Regardless of if you live on post or hundreds of miles away, building a support network is something that must be done. And contrary to popular belief, you do not have to live on post to get the support that you need.

Think about these possible support groups:

• Family
• Friends
• Other Army Spouses
• Family Readiness Group (Virtual FRG for those who don’t live close to post)
• Spouse Club
• Groups at your local armory
• Online groups: Facebook, message boards (Army Wife Chat)

For me, other Army spouses have always been the best source of support. While the ones I knew in person were often great, my online friends were the ones who also helped to get me through tough times. Often, they didn’t even realize what they were doing since I wasn’t allowed to explicitly say online that my husband was deployed.

If you are used to in person support, online support at first may not seem like a great alternative. But I found it to be very refreshing and I was able to ask questions and share thoughts that I may not otherwise want to do when I was face to face with friends. Not to mention, sometimes you just need to talk to someone who isn’t affiliated with your soldier’s unit.

Where have you gone for support? What avenues of support do you find best?

These stories were submitted by website visitors.

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as submitted by Karina

My fiancee is in the Army and this is his first deployment. He left at the end of January 2007, and came back for his mid-tour leave on April 6th for two weeks, then he went back and I wont see him again until next year, around Jan or the first week of Feb that’s if they don’t extend. I’m in the military as well. I’m in the Coast Guard, but even though I have a lot to do I still feel down at times, and picking myself up is hard and causes me tons of tears, questions and sleepless nights. What has helped me a lot though is working out.

When I’m at the gym my  purposes are:

1. To get rid of all the anger, stress, sadness and all the emotions that come within.

2. To get a nice body that I know my fiancee would love and admire.

Hope that helps, it has helped me and trust me, when he came back for his mid-tour leave, he noticed it all right, and told me that I look sexy. I got toned, got my stamina higher, lost a few pounds, and I actually do much more at work.

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as submitted by Pat

To stay busy during your husband’s deployment you can get more involved with your kids since it helps the whole family. I have 3 kids; a 16 year boy, and 7 & 9 yr old girls. I stay up and wait for my son to come home each night. Often the best conversations about his life are had over a late night snack. I also make sure to have girl’s days out with each of my daughters individually. Usually I take one girl each Saturday to help me do errands. We have a “special” lunch at their favorite fast food place and talk about them. My girls are also involved in 4-H (which supports military kids) and I go to the monthly meetings and volunteer wherever they need me. Make sure you have family dinners most days, and go to church on Sundays too.

One of my problems is sleeping alone while my husband is deployed. I shouldn’t have trouble (as I am always sleep deprived), but I couldn’t seem to fall asleep at night. Now I use the “herbal contour neck wrap”, from AAFES online for $27.95. When I go to bed at night, I lie on my side, and drape the neck wrap over my shoulder. The weight of it is like having your husbands arm around you, and the herbs in it make you sleep better. Make sure you keep it in a Ziploc bag during the days, so the herbs stay fresh.

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as submitted by Becky M.

As much as we like to pretend it isn’t true we are Military wives, and our life is an interesting mix of wonderful and terrifying. The deployments we face are challenges that most people will never have to deal with. It is hard it sometimes takes every bit of emotional strength we have, and sometimes it is so hard to deal with that it that we want to give up but even in the hardest times we face, we pull ourselves together and keep moving forward. We stay strong for our husbands and families, we know that it doesn’t help our soldier to hear us totally broken down, and we know that our families don’t understand what is happening as well as we do. They need us to be their rock, and sometimes it feels so unfair to have to be “fine” when we really aren’t, but we still put on the happy face when they need us, but behind closed doors we all break down, and we all have our ways of coping with the person we love being thousands of miles away. Those things we do for ourselves help us combat the fear and loneliness. Mostly for me it has been a learn as I go adventure, which hasn’t really worked out the greatest for me, I should have listened more to other wives about how they got through, because learning the hard way is not the smartest decision when you have other wives around to help you out and give you advice.

I am a military wife too and i know its rough to wake up every day not knowing what your husband is doing, where he is, or when he will be home. My hubby has been gone for a while now and its been hard, and really hard at times, but I’ve gotten through it mostly unscathed by doing a few things for myself every day, whether it be taking a bath, or sitting down with a cup of coffee and just taking some quiet time to reflect and deal with everything. The moments we steal for ourselves may be the best thing we have. We do get so wrapped up in making sure our husbands have everything they need, and that we are strong when he calls, that we tend to forget to take care of ourselves sometimes. When you spend all your time and energy making sure everyone else is set and forget yourself, eventually you won’t be able to be there for everyone else. So take the time to take care of you, make sure you are okay emotionally and physically, you may be everyone’s rock but you also have to be your own.

If you feel like crying, just take a minute and cry, it isn’t a crime to cry. Sometimes when I feel sad I will put on a sad song or movie and give my tears a little help coming out, because I too suffer from “too proud to cry syndrome” sometimes. I have learned that not all tears are bad, and that crying because I miss my husband isn’t selfish. If you are having one of those days where you have had about a million things go wrong and you wish with everything you have that your husband was there because he would make it all better, just let yourself cry, letting all those tears and emotions build up isn’t a good thing, when you let it build up and refuse to let it all out, it adds more stress that, trust me, you don’t need. Plus if you let it build up too much when it finally takes over, you will cry so hard and so long that you think it will never stop! I learned this lesson the hard way, it wasn’t very fun, and I don’t recommend learning the hard way.

Before my husband deployed I was convinced that I wouldn’t write many letters, I figured it would just be one more thing on the giant pile of stress that I was already dealing with, again I was wrong, I write a letter every night, sometimes more, and not because I know my husband loves getting letters, but because its like therapy. Well, ok it helps to know that my husband likes the letters, but that wouldn’t stop me from writing them. When something happens that I just have to share with my husband sometimes I just write him a short note or email, I’ll put the short note in the next envelope I send him a letter in. Letters don’t have to be three pages long to mean something, a sentence can mean more than three pages depending on what is said. I heard a song once that said “I can’t wait to recount them, it seems like nothing really happens until I shared it with you,” and I never believed that until I went through a deployment, but a lot of things happen in the months that they are away, and sometimes you get scared that things are changing too much and too fast while they are gone, but sharing the things that happen really makes it feel like they are involved more, even from half a world away.

Another thing that I am so grateful for is that I have a group of amazing friends here on post, the ones that have been there before give great advice, whether it be to not watch the news, or if it is how to get those customs declarations forms filled out properly to send that care package over there with out many problems. Other military wives are more understanding of what you are going through, they will listen, they will let you have your moment to cry or to be scared. Lots of time, if you are in need of assistance because something went wrong with your washer, that shelf you tried to hang yourself fell down for the tenth time today, or if your yard looks like a jungle, those that have husbands at home will lend them to you to help you.

One thing I really learned the hard way though, is that some people don’t understand or won’t understand how hard a deployment is on those at home, they think because we aren’t in danger that we have no reason to be stressed out and sad. I have had people tell me things like “You knew this was coming” or “You signed on for this.” Thanks for pointing that out people, yes we did know a deployment would come our way and yes its part of the military life, but that doesn’t make it easy. I find my self wanting to say “so you are saying because you see a baseball flying towards your face, when it hits you it shouldn’t hurt, because you saw it?” but I don’t because it isn’t worth the time, and if they are saying things like that, then they don’t need to be my friend anyway. I know that sounds mean, and I am to the point now where I don’t really care, again, we need to take care of ourselves, and listening to something like that is a step in the wrong direction.

On the same lines, there is a little game that I refuse to play, and it is played a lot in the military, I call it the “my life sucks more than yours” game. Its stupid. I don’t care what branch or MOS your husband is in, a separation is hard, no matter what. It could be a week, a month or a year, it is still hard. Sometimes it seems like a competition that basically revolves around who has the highest level of self pity. How is that helpful? It has become another way to find out who my friends really are. If someone is going to jump me because my husband’s deployments are shorter, they don’t need to be involved in my life. I really try to avoid that kind of negativity, because in the end it comes down to the old saying “misery loves company.” I don’t want to be that company.

In the end it will all be worth it when we see our husbands get off the plane or bus or whatever, but sometimes it is hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel, but its there. Just do your best to take care of yourself while taking care of everyone else too, and be proud of yourself and how you are coping, deployment is a challenge and when you face it head on and get through it all you will find that you are a much stronger person than you ever imagined.

These tips were sent in by site visitors.

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as submitted by Rachel

The best way to show support, stay connected and maintain your relationship with your solider while they are being deployed is to buy as many phone cards as you can and send them to your loved one. Write them everyday and when you are sending them a package put all your letters in and write about your day and how much you love and sometime put a story that you really love that you guys did. Also add little things to you package things that will remind them of you or something that will make him laugh.

Take pictures of things he really likes doing. Like my husband loves to surf and ride his dirt bike so I took pictures of his friends surfing and I went to our local dirt track and took pictures of that.   To maintain a relationship you must stay truthful and find a good group of friends who will not make you go out at night or do what ever you are comfy doing. Write him your thoughts and make sure when he calls you pick up your phone.

Try to keep yourself busy so you don’t get down and start thinking about him and break down in tears. And where ever you go talk about him and how proud you are of him. Make him the king of the world. And when he calls tell him how much you love him and cant wait to see him.   I have stickers on my truck that say “Proud Army Wife” and “I love my Solider” and my sister in law also has a husband in the army and we like to make shirts and go shopping at the PX and such so just the little things show support towards your loved one. Show all the support you can give.

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as submitted by Kayla

Thanks to modern technology, the internet has been a godsend. I was searching for some Army things a few months before he deployed, and came across your web site and the board. I joined, not knowing what to expect or if I would even fit in. But I did join, and I have fit in nicely! Since I have a great that support base myself, I now know how to support him and am able to ask questions and get great ideas for care packages.

At first, when he wasn’t able to get online, I spent many hours writing long letters to him and sending those. Once he was able to get online, we began to chat on MSN Messenger and email just about every week, sometimes every day. He has sent me two web cam videos and hand written letters, and whenever I get those, I shout for joy like a kid in the candy aisle! Every day when I read the paper and find an interesting article, picture, or comic, I clip it out and save it for the next mailing or care package.

When I shop, I look for the little things that might be fun (like the cheap-o Wal Mart toys and gag gifts, something to pass the time over there for him) or that mean something to us. Baking is a favorite of mine, and he really enjoys whatever I send over, be it cookies, brownies, banana bread, whatever. It always gets eaten! Just staying positive, and through lots of prayer and encouraging Scriptures I write in random places, he and I stay in touch and stay connected.

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as submitted by Pat

This is my first deployment. My husband was in the Army years ago, then enlisted in the National Guard just before his 45^th birthday. He volunteered to deploy, and did so just 6 weeks after enlisting (due to his prior service).  Being in the National Guard there aren’t any other wives close by, the Armory is 1 ½ hours away for me.

Our family is very active in our church. To stay connected as a family, and with the church, I write weekly “letters” on the church bulletins during the service. They aren’t very long since there isn’t a lot of “white space” on the bulletin anyway. I just include things about the kids and the church service. The kids in our church all get clipboards with activities, so our kids draw pictures and add their own “letters”  to Dad on the coloring sheets provided.

Each Monday I mail all of this to my husband. He loves getting a handwritten letter each week (which I know he cherishes and saves). I get a way to occupy my time so I don’t notice how lonely I am without him sitting beside me in that pew.

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as submitted by Kristi

I wanted to share one thing my husband and I do to help make things easier while hes away for long periods of time.  He buys a new white pillow case and writes me a love letter on it with a fabric marker.  Before he leaves he puts it on a pillow and leaves it on his side of the bed.  While he’s gone I have something from him to hold onto, sleep next to and cry on.  Sometimes I go as far as spraying his cologne all over it =).

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as submitted by Jessica

I’m lucky because my boyfriend can get on MSN messenger to chat quite regularly. I have to alter my sleeping patterns sometimes or rearrange times but I count myself among the blessed because I can talk to him. Anyway sometimes we play this game and that’s I would like to share. We use music trivia but you can do it with several other things. Here’s how we play. one of us starts and gives the lyrics to a song. if the other can guess then its their turn and no one scores. But if the other cannot get it then the they owe the one asking a kiss. Then they go again until the person who got it wrong gets on right. If the score is something like 3 to 5 then the 3 cancel out and its 0 to 2. Then when they get home either for their midtour leave or for good then you settle the score. I think its a fun little game and it gets us laughing at the random off the wall songs we chose so that the other one wont get it.

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as submitted by Brooke

I feel we have been successful at staying connected, as well as growing closer together during this time. We made a pact to keep communication open and honest–even if I feel like I’m losing my mind, i am always honest about what i am going through (good or bad) as is he. I did have one particular tip to add to the list of ways to stay connected during deployment—and this may seem a little strange, but it helped me immensely. Every few months he sends me a t-shirt he has worn for a day or two, per my request. He packages it up in a gallon size zip lock to “lock” in his smell…it is soo wonderful to open the package and smell him all over the shirt. it always brings tears, but in a good way. I love the smell of him…the “Jeff smell”..mixed with hints of his deodorant and cologne. I then use the shirt as a pillowcase until the smell fades. I realize this may seem a bit strange to some, but for me having the smell of him makes me feel soo much closer to him. It stirs up all the comfort and excitement I feel when he is actually home.

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as submitted by Meghan

I just want to say I love you website! I am always getting ideas off of it, because of that I wanted to send you one idea that I came up with. My husband and I are always on the go so I have been collecting post cards from everywhere we have gone for about the past 6 months even if it is just a museum or something around town when ever I see a post card I grab it. I have been writing the date that I bought the post card and what we did that day on all of them. My plan is to send them out through out his deployment so that he can look at the post cards and remember all the fun we have together. Then when he gets home I plan on making a scrapbook out of them so we can remember our year in post cards forever. Hope this idea helps someone else. Thank you so much for all the time you have put into your website it has def. helped me over the years!

Sesame Street has partnered with Wal-Mart to make a deployment kit available to all military families with children. This kit contains a Sesame Street DVD, a Parent/Caregiver magazine, and a child’s activity poster. The DVD is available in English and Spanish and is targeted to children between the ages of 3 & 5. It discusses the ways to cope with the unique feelings and concerns that children have through each phase of deployment: pre-deployment, deployment and homecoming.

To request your kit or to download the materials online, please visit the Sesame Street website.

By: Michelle S. McIntyre-Brewer
Leadership and Individual Giving Manager
United Way of the Capital Region

Many military families are facing deployment on a regular basis as we face the War on Terror. Some of the most affected are the children that have a difficult time grasping what is happening in the world around them. The confusion and chaos that often surround the issue of deployment extends beyond the immediate family and can affect life on the playground, in school, and in other social situations.

Knowing what to say to children when faced with a deployment is often a struggle with any adult. Understanding how children are feeling and how to interpret their reactions can help to create a better relationship with everyone involved in the situation. Depending on the child’s age, adults can do certain things to ease the anxiety associated with a parent or loved one being deployed.

The most important thing an adult can do to help children deal with deployment is to educate them about what is happening. Following these easy steps can help:

Define Deployment

Making sure children understand what the word deployment means is incredibly important. The word is used in the media, at the dinner table, and in everyday conversation. Explaining where the Service Member is going (with a general overview of the region or country) and what he/she will be doing (without going into incredible detail) will help children gain an understanding of what is happening.

Assure Children

Informing a child that their loved one has been well-trained is incredibly important, but it is even more important to show them what is meant by that statement. Taking children to a training exercise that can be viewed from afar and explaining what is happening, getting a book from a library that shows pictures of Service Members being trained, or pulling out old photographs of a loved one graduating from schools is an excellent concrete way of helping children understand that their loved one is prepared to be deployed.

Answer Questions

Children, at any age, will ask questions. The important thing to remember is that brushing off a question will not make it go away. Even the hardest questions need to be answered, but they should be answered in an age appropriate manner. The following link, provided by Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, provides an excellent view of developmental stages and what to expect: http://www.usuhs.mil/psy/CTChildrenCopeDuringDeployment.pdf. Be honest. Be fair. Children going through deployment deserve to have questions answered just as much as adults do. Not knowing how to answer every question is fine, but there are many sources available (also included in the article) that can help to answer even the most challenging of questions.

Assign Roles

When children have responsibilities, they cope better. Informing the children that they have a job to do while their loved one is deployed is an excellent way to make sure they feel included and important. Assigning a role can range according to a particular child’s needs from caring for a pet to writing a letter to their loved one on a weekly basis to volunteering in some capacity. Every child is different and will respond differently to deployment so something that can be enjoyed can help ease fear associated with being separated from a loved one for a long period of time.

Show Support

Make sure children know that they have a resource. Being open and understanding will help facilitate conversation and ease deployment for, not only the child, but the adult as well.

These tips will help in family situations, at schools, FRGs, and any other setting, assuming children are dealt with in an age appropriate manner.

as submitted by Kendra
I have a 2 year old and a 4 year old, we are going through our first deployment now. It has been very hard on the kids of course they are really to young to understand fully what is going on. My husband left in December, and had a short leave to come home for Christmas, since they were still in the states. My children did not want me to take the Christmas tree down until Daddy came home, but who wants to leave a 8 foot tree up all year long? So I came up with an idea to get a little tree for the boys to remember their Daddy. So I got a little tree and we put lights on it and then we put yellow ribbons on it. I have told the children that the lights on the tree will guide daddy home to us and that the yellow ribbons are showing that we love him. I put the tree on a table along with some pictures of them with their daddy and a family picture, so they can go over to the table anytime and see daddy. I thought it was a neat project for the kids and it has helped them some.

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by Anonymous
 
This is my husband’s first deployment. We were supposed to go together, but ended up having an unplanned pregnancy instead. We were lucky enough to have him here for the pregnancy, but he left 2 months after our little boy was born. My husband was upset because he is going to miss all of our son’s “firsts” like first Christmas, first birthday, first word, and so on. To help with this I had the idea to buy a huge scrapbook and take a picture every day of our son and do a scrapbook page with a little passage of what we did that day. As well as video recording the major events.

Although my husband’s fears were of missing things, my fear was of our son not knowing who his daddy was when my husband returned home. To avoid this I took many pictures of him and our son together. I then bought a collage frame and put them all in it and hung it beside his bed. Even though he is only 3 months old, I feel he understands and misses him just as much as the dog and I do. So every night when our son goes to bed, I show him the pictures hanging right beside his bed and tell him to “Say goodnight to daddy” just like if he was actually here. I also read that a baby’s sense of smell is very strong, and that he can tell his own mother’s breast milk from that of another woman just by smell.  This gave me the idea to buy my husband a body spray and deodorant set that had a distinctive smell that he liked. I had my husband wear it every day he was home with the baby in hopes that when he returns wearing that body spray, our son will recognize his smell and remember him. We also have nice technology such as webcam now too that allows my husband to interact with our son.