Alaska is home to more than 10,000 active-duty soldiers, about 7,000 of whom were deployed to Afghanistan over the past two years. The war in Iraq may be over, but it continues in Afghanistan, and for those families whose loved ones are still gone, life during deployment is challenging, especially in Alaska. "The Last Frontier" is an assignment the military considers as demanding as an "overseas" post because families are so far away from their hometowns and loved ones.
Married to the Army: Alaska follows the lives of seven women from Fort Richardson, Alaska, who are married to soldiers of the 4th Brigade Combat Team (Airborne), 25th Infantry. Their husbands deployed November of 2011, and are just now starting to return after almost a year in combat.
For the women whose husbands serve in the US Army, "deployment" is not just an abstract word heard on the evening news. It's real, it's tough, and it turns their world upside down. If they have children, they suddenly become "single parents." If they don't have kids, they are alone, spouseless...trying to make sense of who they are with their loved one gone. And since many of today's soldiers have been deployed as many as four or five times, each deployment brings a new level of anxiety.
But the sisterhood of Army wives is what helps most of them cope when their husbands are gone. The tightest of bonds are formed over fears of deployment, realities of Army life, and the emotional roller coaster of R&R homecomings and goodbyes
