The 'toughest job in the Army?' post a few days back prompted a fair bit of commentary – by FOB Tacoma standards, anyway.

It led to reader K S offering a number of resources that might be helpful for military spouses, vets, and others who may be having trouble with any number of deployment-related issues. So I'm reposting K S's list here figuring that more people might see it this way.

I know so many of you have been around the block on this stuff. Please feel free to add suggestions that you think others might find helpful.

The K S list:

Military OneSource

My Army Life Too Related to Army Community Services, offers lots of help for families, from moving advice to deployment suggestions to finances and more.

VA Vet Centers offer counseling (individual, women's groups, children, marital) to combat vets and their families - www.vetcenter.va.gov

The Family Readiness Center on Fort Lewis -- the big white building you can see east of the freeway near the DuPont gate.

Army Community Services (at Waller Hall on Fort Lewis) offers 'military life counselors' -- they'll talk to you about anything, and ACS has a bunch of services for spouses, including help with resumes, Army Emergency Relief loans and so on.

Army Family Team Building - AFTB - also at Waller Hall on Fort Lewis - offers classes for family members to aid in adjustment to various Army phases, from 'welcome to the Army' for newbies to 'how to teach others' for more experienced spouses. (Looks like the web site may be a little dated; in-person visit might be more productive. MG)

The Fort Lewis Craft Center is a great place to meet other spouses while doing fun things - classes are fun.

Enlisted/Officer's Spouses Clubs

The Fisher House (there's a link about scholarships).

Oh, and about a million non-profit groups out there, too numerous to list them all.

Click here for the Mother of All Links pages, including links to some or all of these groups: Operation Hero Miles, CinCHouse, Operation HomeFront, eCarePackage.org, National Military Family Association, US Army Community and Family Support Center.

Finally, K S says:

The bottom line is the recruiters are selling something that isn't helpful in the long run. The best resources you can have are FRIENDS and INFORMATION. And neither arrive by fairy godmother, and the FRG leader can only do so much. Successful families help themselves, too.