Trouble at Home

Newsweek, October, 2006 by Catharine Skipp and Dan Ephron

The first year of the deployment was bearable, at least. Jodi Velotta got by on the daily phone calls and e-mail exchanges she had with her husband, Brad, in Iraq. She sent photos of their fast-growing brood, while Brad, a 29-year-old Army captain, focused on keeping his men alive. But since August, when Brad's Blackhawk Company and the rest of the 4-23 unit of the 172nd Stryker Brigade were redeployed to the heart of Baghdad, the couple has grown more distant, like two planets spinning farther away from each other.

"This is just starting to get old for all of us. The phone calls are getting stale," Jodi, 31, told NEWSWEEK. "Everything is getting frustrating; you don't know if you are saying the right things." They love each other deeply, but Jodi says her husband doesn't...

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