Kids Worry About Soldier Parents

Fort Benning, Ga. looks like a typical American town, but one thing is missing.

About 5,000 soldiers from Fort Benning have been deployed to the war zone — moms and dads — leaving hundreds of kids back at home.

CBS News correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi visits one of six elementary schools on base where kids were writing letters to their parents overseas.

"Are you having fun in Iraq?" Alliyah Bell reads aloud from a letter to her mom. "I can't wait for you to come home."

But all the puffy glue and glitter in the world can't hide their real concerns.

"Are you really, really come back home in January?" Alliyah reads.

Alliyah Bell's mom was supposed to come home earlier this year, but her orders changed.

"If you are not coming home now, then tell me now," Alliyah reads. "Because I don't want to be counting down the days. Sorry."

Elise Melhado has been there. At 8 years old, she is a veteran.

"This is his third deployment, so we're kind of used to it," she says.

These proud military brats say civilian kids just don't get it.

"They don't know how hard it is," says one student named Joe.

Teachers here do know. But now, even some of them are being deployed.

This was P.E. teacher Adam Weinbaum's last day.

"I can't say where I'm going," Weingbaum says. "But I'm going."

His students were taking it hard.

"I just hope he makes it back OK," Christina Chavez, a student, says.

Kids here know more about the realities of war than many adults. To them, reports of casualties on the news is personal.

"It doesn't tell who it happened to," says a student named Sam. "Like when a causality — it doesn't tell the certain person."

Every child here knows it could be their parents and they worry. They will worry for a while.

"I'd like all the soldiers to come home," Sam says.