NORFOLK, Va. — Military families in the Hampton Roads area are feeling the weight of rising tensions with Iran, and one retired military spouse is turning that anxiety into action.
Rebekah Sanderlin, who serves on the National Advisory Board of Blue Star Families, said the current climate has brought back familiar feelings for those who lived through the height of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
"The last week has reminded me a lot of what those days felt like, those early days of a big scary conflict," Sanderlin said.
Blue Star Families is an organization founded by military families in 2009 to support and connect military households. Sanderlin said the need for that kind of community became clear during her husband's time on active duty.
"My husband was active-duty army and at the time 2009, if you recall pretty much peak of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and we saw just a tremendous need in the community," Sanderlin said.
Now, with tensions rising involving Iran, Sanderlin said many families are experiencing that same sense of uncertainty.
"You worry about your spouse for sure, you worry about your friends and their families and you don't know what to expect, there's a lot, and there's just a lot of insecurity and anxiety and that what military families are also experiencing as much as anything it's the unknown," Sanderlin said.
Sanderlin said Blue Star Families focuses first on connecting families with resources, then on helping them build community.
"The other goal is to get people to come to events, come to our coffee connects and to our outdoor program events so they can meet one other person," Sanderlin said.
A Hampton Roads chapter is set to launch in mid-April, giving local military families another place to turn to.
For families facing the possibility of a loved one's deployment, Sanderlin offered this advice:
"All the anxiety that comes with the deployment, what I would say is lean on your family and friends and lean on the connections you built and let people help you," Sanderlin said.
