Marc Maxwell, OU phD student and author of Surviving Military Separation, acknowledges the difficulty families have during deployment. The book has received global acclaim in countries such as Germany and Japan. Photo Provided.

An OU Ph.D. student hopes to calm anxieties caused by military separation with his book, “Surviving Military Separation.”

Marc Maxwell was first inspired to write his book a few years ago when the 1st Armored Division was deployed to Iraq, he said in an e-mail. Maxwell, a Department of Defense guidance counselor, began seeing many spouses of servicemen and women for counseling, he said.

The spouses didn’t know what to do with themselves, he said. The services and activities the military provided for them weren’t working. The thousands of miles of separation left them unable to know what the next step was, he said.

There were books on the market about deployment but none with step-by-step guides to help families along the way, he said. So Maxwell decided to create a book that had 365 activities broken into 52-week sections.

“The book’s setup allows the reader the ability to break down the deployment into weeks instead of months,” he said. “This gives the family member a chance to take the deployment one step at a time.”

Family members can expect to feel anxious, proud of their service member, and a sense of abandonment during the deployment, Maxwell said.

Families need to remember they aren’t alone and that assistance can always be found, he said.

Maxwell’s book could have helped more people than he might have imagined, and closer to home.

Bekah Cope, dental hygiene sophomore, is engaged to a National Guard Member. Her fiance, Jared Weise, returned home to Tulsa Jan. 20 after serving a four-month tour in Kuwait.

Cope said her fiance’s tour was one of the most challenging things she’s ever had to face.

The first couple of weeks were difficult and took some adjusting, she said. As time went on, the couple found it more difficult to be in a long-distance relationship. They had some good days but Weise could only call her once a day at the most, Cope said.

Cope said she and Weise started fighting and couldn’t fix problems like ordinary couples, she said.

Eventually Cope had to put it out of her mind.

She said she dealt with her fiance’s absence by staying busy and tried not to think about him too often.

“I’m not saying I didn’t love him, I just didn’t want to dwell on the fact that he was away from me,” Cope said.

Maxwell’s book aims to serve families that need reminders their soldiers will be home soon, he said.

Maxwell served five years as an Army Airborne Ranger and was once deployed for ten months. He said he wished his family had a tool like his book to deal with his deployment.

“Surviving Military Separation” isn’t just helping American families, though.

Family readiness groups and spouses clubs from Germany and Japan have ordered copies for their family members in bulk, Maxwell said.

“I truly believe that this book will help our family members cope with a deployment, any deployment,” he said.

Feeling anxious and worrying when a loved one will come home is a difficult task because there’s usually a possibility of redeployment.

Cope said that she has to come to the realization that Weise might be deployed again but hopes it never happens again. The separation was hard on the couple but she said they survived it.

“We can handle more because of it,” Cope said. “We made it out fine, even though we fought.”