U.S. Military Families Under Stress: What We Know and What We Need to Know -- I. Marital Functioning -- Introduction -- Does Deployment Keep Marriages Together or Break Them Apart? Evidence from Afghanistan and Iraq -- Couple Functioning and PTSD in Returning OIF Soldiers: Preliminary Findings from the Readiness and Resilience in National Guard Soldiers Project -- Distress in Spouses of Combat Veterans with PTSD: The Importance of Interpersonally Based Cognitions and Behaviors -- Empirically Guided Community Intervention for Partner Abuse, Child Maltreatment, Suicidality, and Substance Misuse -- II. Parenting and Child Outcomes -- Introduction -- Child Maltreatment within Military Families -- Attachment Ties in Military Families: Mothers’ Perceptions of Interactions with their Children, Stress, and Social Competence -- Wartime Deployment and Military Children: Applying Prevention Science to Enhance Family Resilience -- Understanding the Deployment Experience for Children from Military Families -- III. Family Sequelae of Wounds and Injuries -- Introduction -- Trauma, PTSD, and Partner Violence in Military Families -- Couples’ Psychosocial Adaptation to Combat Wounds and Injuries -- Parent and Adolescent Positive and Negative Disability-Related Events and their Relation to Adjustment -- Working with Combat Injured Families Through the Recovery Trajectory -- IV. Single Service Members -- Introduction -- Deployment, Reenlistment Intentions, and Actual Reenlistment: Single and Married Active-Component Service Members -- Post-Deployment Indicators of Single Soldiers’ Wellbeing -- The Single Service Member: Substance Use, Stress, and Mental Health Issues -- Single Military Mothers in the New Millennium: Stresses, Supports, and Effects of Deployment -- Conclusion.

Among the costs of the ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are the human losses -- over 5,000 dead and over 35,000 wounded. Additionally, service personnel often return with traumatic brain injuries, missing limbs, and severe psychological disorders. All of this exacerbates the stress that family members have had to endure since initial deployment. Written by military and civilian scholars across the medical and mental health fields, Risk and Resilience in Military Families focuses on four key areas of research: marital functioning, parenting and child outcomes, family sequelae of wounds and injuries, and single service members (who comprise half of currently active troops). The results are up-to-date (and occasionally surprising) findings on psychological health issues affecting service members and their loved ones, and proven strategies for promoting family resilience, intervening to reduce dysfunctional behavior, and guiding families through the recovery process. Training issues and recommendations for further research round out this singular volume. Included among the topics: •Deployment: Risk or protective factor for couples? •A community program for “secretive problems” (e.g., drug abuse) in the military. •Interventions for the combat-injured family. •Trauma, PTSD, and partner violence. •The deployment experience for children of service members. •The single mother in the military. An important text for researchers and academics in family and military studies, as well as for social workers, providers, and policymakers, Risk and Resilience in Military Families offers innovative coverage of a distinctive population and its unique needs.