“Come give Daddy a hug.”

She slowly walked toward her father, wanting to hug him so badly but trying to make time slow down. She was not ready for the goodbye. She held him tightly and closed her eyes wishing she could hold on forever. She could not hold back the tears that ran down her face or the sharp pain in her heart.

Sophomore Kallie Wagner’s father, Master Sergeant James Wagner, is a fighter crew chief and has been deployed four times. He has been to South Korea, Saudi Arabia and twice to Iraq, and it wasn’t easy on the family any of those times.

Kallie remembers each of those deployments.

Now she has been nominated for Operation Homefront Military Child of the Year, an award given to military children who demonstrate resiliency, leadership and academic achievement. Semi-finalists for the award will be announced this month.

Her father’s active duty service qualified Kallie for the nomination. The deployments are simply part of his job.

“The hardest part of a deployment is the goodbye,” Kallie’s mother Heather Wagner said. “It is hard to explain what is like to watch my kids say goodbye to their father.”

Mrs. Wagner said the challenges a military family faces before, during and after deployment are as diverse and unique as the families themselves. No two deployments are ever the same because people change, families change and circumstances change.

“It [the deployment] was really hard because I have two little brothers, my mother was really stressed and I had to mature a bit early,” Kallie said.

Master Sergeant Wagner was deployed for 12 months during which time his youngest son turned one. He had to reestablish a relationship. It was hard not being there when his son joined his first baseball team and having to see somebody else teach him how to play.

“Watching his teammates warm-up with their fathers was hard on Ryan,” Mrs. Wagner said. “Watching someone else teach his son how to be a catcher was hard on James.”

Unfortunately, things were not only hard at home and on the field but also in school. Classmates would ask questions without thinking what the words meant. “So, if he dies, are you going to stay here or what?” “How many people has your dad killed?”

Mrs. Wagner said none of those things should ever be said to a military child.

“I was older and I understood, but my little brothers did not,” Kallie said.

Kallie kept her head up because she knew that her father would soon come back home.

Mrs. Wagner said that knowledge is part of being a military child.

“The moment’s heavy with a heart-wrenching and suffocating pain,” Mrs. Wagner said. “It is a desperate moment, but one laced with resolve. There are tears, but at some point, the sadness mixes with determination and becomes strength. For our family, that strength, along with prayers and support from our family and friends, carries us through to the best part of the deployment: the welcome home.”

And always, always, with that welcome, there is that hug. The best hug in the world.