BUT THEN, BEING SINGLE MIGHT NOT BE SO BAD AS THIS

For Nicholas, Erika and Logan Stewmon, seeing Mom and Dad both home together is getting to be a very strange thing.

The three children, ages 14, 12 and 5, belong to a dual-military family in Illesheim, Germany. Their father, Chief Warrant Officer 4 Brian Stewmon, pilots an AH-64D Apache Longbow helicopter for the Illesheim-based 6th Squadron, 6th Cavalry Regiment. Their mother, Capt. Michelle Stewmon, is a nurse for the 67th Combat Support Hospital in Würzburg.

Brian Stewmon returned late last month from an 11½-month tour in Iraq. He got home just in time to kiss his wife goodbye and send her off on her own yearlong deployment.

“We expected separation, but we never expected two years,” Michelle Stewmon said last week, just after arriving in Kuwait. “People don’t know that it’s going on. They’re shocked this is happening.”