Disclosure: This review was made possible by iConnect and Duracell. I was provided compensation to facilitate this post, but all opinions are 100% mine.
As most of you know, my husband is a United Stated Navy Veteran. Times were really tough when he was in the service and I am so glad that we decided to wait to have children. Neither of us wanted the heartache of them growing up without him around – especially during deployments. These last 7 months or so and because he was on a submarine, well, they were harder than normal. We would barely get to speak. We had email – sometimes – maybe. It was a tough life. We would not talk on the phone for weeks, or months, depending on how long he was under the water for. One of his Navy buddies told us that the first birthday party for his daughter he got to attend, was her 8th birthday. That’s rough.
On a submarine you can’t just pick up the phone to call your loved ones. Depending on how far down you are, sometimes you can’t even send and receive emails. Luckily I was working at the time (or I would have gone insane) and had some great friends and family members that wouldn’t mind me calling them and talking to them for hours if I was bored or lonely. We often thank servicemen and their families for the sacrifices they make, and having been a “Navy Wife”, I must say, this is justified. I cannot imagine having children while in the military. It would break my heart to have to explain to my girls why their daddy was going to be gone for the better part of the year. And I know it would have broken my husband’s heart as well – seeing what a hands-on and incredible father he is now.
To get through my husband’s deployments I would reread his emails, listen to his voice mails, and play a lot of video games (that definitely had a hand in me becoming the hardcore gamer I am today). I also read – a lot. I remember reading the entire Harry Potter series in a week. I recently saw a Duracell commercial (WARNING: Have tissues ready.) that brought me to tears. In it, a father sends a battery powered teddy bear with his voice to his daughter. This is based on a true story that they were inspired by. Duracell had the honor to meet a military family in California. The young daughter showed them how she was able to have the comfort of her father’s voice during his deployment through a battery-powered recordable teddy bear. I know that if we did have children while my husband was still in the Navy, we would have one (or 5) of these – and we would trust Duracell to power it while he was away.
Since the war in Afghanistan began in 2001, more than 2 million American children have had a deployed parent. Many of them have seen multiple deployments: 3, 4, or even 5 family separations. A major issue that children have during a military deployment is the void that opens when they lose their parent’s daily affection and love. Recordable teddy bears, along with other battery-powered devices such as recordable storybooks provide reliable comfort no matter when or where their parent is deployed. In honor of all of the families who stand beside our troops, Duracell wants to power more comforting moments for loved ones through a donation of $100,000 to USO’s Comfort Crew for Military Kids. Continue the conversation by sharing the film and find out how you can donate to the cause through the USO at http://www.uso.org/donate.
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