When Both Parents Go Off To War

(CBS)  Charles McCottry's a master sergeant. And in his house he's a one-man Army, CBS News correspondent Mark Strassmann reports.

A single parent with four kids.

"How's school today, man?" McCottry asks his son.

From school pick-ups to doctor visits - he's it.

McCottry's done one tour in Iraq. Now it's his wife's turn. Cpt. Barbara McCottry, a nurse now in Baghdad.

This family has spent only ten months together in the last three years.

She wasn't home for Jordan's second birthday.

Not that he noticed.

"Go give Mama five. Yeah, that's not Mama. That's not Mama. That's okay," he says as his son, Jordan, reaches for the wrong people in the room.

To little Jordan, anyone, even our CBS News soundman, could be "mama."

"He doesn't have a clue that he has a mother," McCottry explains. "It hurts me," he said.

Today's U.S. military has 80,000 families like the McCottrys - husbands and wives both in uniform.

For these families, multiple tours in Iraq involve tough choices.

In Des Moines, Ruth and Brian Lerg loved the military - but love their family more.

In Iraq they both served as Army captains: she was a nurse, he was a pilot.

But these days, only son Owen wears a uniform - he's in Cub Scouts.

Both parents left the service, haunted by one deployment memory: handing off Owen to be raised by his grandparents.

"All I could do was stand there and cry, and just watch my little boy go away," Ruth Lerg says.

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Read More At Couric & Co.: When Mom And Dad Both Serve

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What the Lergs now have, Charles McCottry still wants: a family's chance to share more moments.

So CBS News took a family video to Barbara McCottry, at her post in a Baghdad hospital.

"I'm amazed at how big he is," she said. "I'm going to feel like a stranger when I get home."

She called on Jordan's second birthday.

"Say, 'Hi Momma,'" Charles McCottry says.

His big day became her big gift.

Listen.

"Tell Momma 'bye-bye,'" he says to Jordan.

"Bye," Jordan says.

"Say, 'love you,'" Charles says to Jordan.

"Love you," Jordan says to his mom.

"Love you." Just two words, but that's a start.

[haynesla]

MSgt McCottry and I were both in the U.S. Marine Corps together.. I know from experience that he has made numerous deployments to Japan because we were together... If possible could you provide a email address so I could make contact with him again after all these years... He has really served him country well and now should take time for himself and his family.. As he knows I will always love him as a brother...

[b-easy63]

I was a military brat. My dad spent over 20 years in the Air Force. During the Vietnam era. We are tough. We are also independent thinkers and know the difference between honorable service and being pawns in a President''s war of choice. What is the most ugly about this Iraq war, is how unnecessary it all is. All the deaths, all the destruction of Iraq and their people and all the loss to the families. Sure military kids are tough and courageous, but neither toughness or courage can replace a dead parent or the loss of a life together. Get it right--THIS war is wrong, soldiers and their families HAVE to do it and support it--it is their job and calling--but when ordinary people support it--it just means it lasts a hell of a lot longer. Imagine if we as a country supported gang violence--think it would end, or become a good thing, just because it is supported?

[eggy1620]

The US%u2019s current military commitments abroad are going to be proven to be the beginning of the end of the all volunteer armed forces. A significant number of active members are part of military families. Today%u2019s children of military members are going to remember how their childhoods were, how much they did not see their parents, and will choose not to follow their parents into the service. The only option when that happens in the next 10 to 20 years will be a return of the draft.

[bb19631]

Both parents don''t get deployed at the same time. Unless, they want to and have a good plan involving family members, to step in. One member goes the other stays home with the kids. Then they rotate. Military kids are very tough and couragous. God bless them all.