HINESVILLE, Ga. -- Josh Reggler isn't sure who Mama is -- the young Army sergeant who went off to war for seven months or the grandmother who cared for him while his military mother was away.
"Who's Mama? Who's Mama?" Sgt. Denean Reggler asks her younger son, who will soon turn 2. The child looks up into his mother's expectant eyes -- his tawny, round face a blank. "Who's Mama? Who's Mama?" she asks again.
The boy's response: stony silence.
"He calls us both Mama now -- me and his grandmother," explains his 25-year-old mother, a single parent who has spent her first month home from the Persian Gulf looking for a baby sitter and a new house to rent and gently reminding Josh and his brother, Raheem, 5, that she is Mama.
Such was the homecoming for Sgt. Denean Reggler.
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In the nearly two months since the first American soldiers began arriving home from the Middle East, there have been joyous community celebrations, warm family reunions and, as one contented girlfriend here put it, "some great nights of good lovin'."
But the homecoming has brought heartache, as well: divorce, problems with sex and intimacy, difficult wartime memories and a painful sense of letdown.
Military psychologists and social workers have been preparing soldiers and their families for their reunion almost since the deployment began last August. Because the war was short and the casualties light, they say most troops and their families will easily readjust. But everyone will need tending.
"I'm telling my people that [their] marriage is in danger. This is a real danger point for anybody," said Maj. Matthew Horne, a chaplain in the Army reserves in Charlotte, N.C. "Everyone has been stretched, and it's helpful to know where the rocks in the channel are."
The South Georgia community of Hinesville, population 21,000, was virtually emptied of men when the 24th Infantry Mechanized Division's 18,000 troops at neighboring Fort Stewart joined Operation Desert Shield in August. It was the women in this military town who refereed Little League, coached expectant mothers through labor, worked the finances and cared for the children.
"He was gone for seven months, and I would have given my right arm to have had him home again," 32-year-old Jane Efinger-Hayden said about her husband, Sgt. Dan Hayden. "You throw yourself into it for so long. It was letters to your husband, getting boxes to your husband, taking care of family relationships, going to work, going to meetings. It was your husband, your husband, your husband, your husband.
"Now he's home, and it's like there's nothing to look forward to," she said. "Sometimes, it's like the war never happened."
On Friday, an appreciative Hinesville will honor its soldier-neighbors with its version of a New York-style ticker-tape parade: Armed with leaf blowers, workers will blow 300 pounds of white confetti off the city's dozen or so two-story buildings as 10,000 soldiers march by.
The deployment has had a profound impact on the local economy: Housing starts, usually 22 a month, dwindled to an average of four. One month, there were none. At least 19 businesses closed, and overall retail sales dipped 25 percent. The rental vacancy rate climbed to 45 percent, soaring to 70 percent in the mobile home parks that cater to military families.
In his worst month, real estate broker Allen Brown sold only nine houses, and he couldn't seem to give away rental housing. To reduce costs, he dropped advertising, let his membership in the Rotary Club lapse and cut back the hours of his staff, cleaning service and groundskeeper. Over the course of the deployment, sales dived 50 percent, and Mr. Brown lost as much as $15,000 a month in income.
Over a recent 15-day period, Mr. Brown rented to returning soldiers more than 200 houses and condominiums, and he expects to sell a record 55 houses this month.
"Someone called my property manager at 8:30 yesterday morning to give notice, and by quarter of 9, the place was rented," he said. "That's the way the demand is now. Life is good again."
A couple of grimmer statistics: The number of domestic disturbances reported to local police -- which dipped significantly during the deployment -- returned in March to 58, the same number reported in August. Too, local attorneys report an "avalanche" of divorce filings.
A study two years ago of Navy families in Norfolk, Va., indicates that it usually takes six to eight weeks for a family to get back into synch after a deployment and that the most difficult time for the family isn't during a deployment, but just after it.
"Re-establishing intimacy in a relationship and reuniting with your children in a real way isn't something that should be hurried," said Daryl Obrien, a social worker with Navy Family Services in Norfolk who conducted readjustment workshops for 5,000 sailors on the USS Saratoga during its recent voyage home.
"People just have to realize that it's going to take time," she added. "It may take time to feel yourself again. You may be more tired or more irritable than you expect. One of the most important things is to let each other know you appreciated what the other did during the deployment."
During her husband's assignment in the Persian Gulf, Maj. Ann Kenny, an Army nurse at Fort Stewart, moved into a new house and had the couple's first baby. Grant Kenny was one of more than 600 babies born on post during the deployment.
When Maj. Timothy Kenny returned to Georgia a month ago, it was to hold 4-month-old Grant for the first time.
"It's an adjustment. I can't lie and say it's just like it was," his 35-year-old wife said. "Tim had forgotten what it's like to live in a house. For the first week, I followed him around flushing the toilet. He hasn't had a lot of time to adjust to us, a wife and now a son, because he's been so busy at work. We've had to really work on communication. After writing letters for seven months, to sit down and communicate is really difficult.
"In many ways the experience strengthened us," she added. "It's refocused for him the importance of family, and I think it's made him respect me more. And it's made me a better communicator && and redefined for me just what being a couple is."
Many Fort Stewart soldiers -- the first to report to Saudi Arabia and the first to return home -- report lingering jitters, difficulties sleeping and eating, and a sense of letdown as they return to work.
After he heard a balloon pop the other day, Spc. Steve Smith grabbed his girlfriend's arm and yelled: "Get down! Get down!" The 23-year-old soldier said, "It's not that I pictured someone shooting at me, but I got so used to being in a hostile environment that I guess it became second nature. Even when my girlfriend hollers my name, I jump. I don't know -- the noise puts a scare in you."
Many couples are finding they need to renegotiate their relationships. During her husband's seven-month absence, for instance, 22-year-old Valerie Murray took sole responsibility for 10-month-old Joshua and made several close friends.
"Things are different now," she said. "I grew up, I guess. When the phone rings now, I want to answer it. When my husband went through a kitchen drawer the other day, I felt he was going through my things. When I have a problem with the baby, I call one of my friends, not my husband. And the first few times we were together romantically, well I felt a little shy, like strangers. But I know it's hard for him because he's missed so much."
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Psychologists say that if returning soldiers share any one symptom, it will be letdown.
"Right now, everywhere these soldiers go, they're getting a free haircut, a free car wash and invitations to march in a parade," said Dr. Ronald Hart, a clinical psychologist and director of the Vet Center, a clinic that serves combat veterans in Anaheim, Calif.
"Some are going to find it hard to adjust when the show's over. The light switch is going to go off, the theater is going to close and everyone is going to be left standing in the dark."
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Sitting in his living room, Sergeant Hayden, 40, listens to the wind chimes outside his front door. His dog, Sarge, is barking at a passing bicyclist. His wife, Jane, is putting the finishing touches on dinner -- roast beef, mashed potatoes and gravy, rolls and homemade honey butter. There will be strawberry shortcake for dessert.
"God, there's so much you miss," said Sergeant Hayden, who was a food service supervisor with a field artillery unit in Saudi Arabia and, later, in Iraq. "I know I appreciate things more: the trees, walking through wet grass, the sounds of those wind chimes and the night noise, especially the sounds the crickets make this time of year.
"But there's this feeling that the party's over," said Sergeant Hayden. "The limelight is fading. Even here in Hinesville, the yellow ribbons are coming down, the flags are coming down.
"I know the support is still out there, but it's shifting from view. While we were there we really felt special. We were heroes. But it's time for things to move on. Heck, I'd just as soon have the day off and go fishing as march in that parade.
"You know if I was to get on a plane and fly back there today and say this is where I lived and this is what I did, it would seem like a dream. It was hard, and I hated it at times," he said. "But it doesn't seem real to me anymore. This is real. Home is real."