Family members have learned that today, military separation is common and that long deployments are the norm. Coping with everyday problems and hardships by themselves is very difficult, and sometimes leads to loneliness and depression. In his day-to-day counseling of military family members, Marc Maxwell—a Department of Defense Guidance Counselor and veteran of the U.S. military—discovered that many members of his military community were unprepared for these separations. Surviving Military Separation: 365 Days is the helping hand they need to get through their family member’s deployment.

Marc quickly discovered his members required something fun, easy to understand, and enjoyable to enact and pass the time. Surviving Military Separation is the first book on the market to provide everyday steps and activities to help guide family members through these particularly trying times.

Lavishly illustrated with more than 140 pieces of original art by Val Laolagi, Surviving Military Separation is an activity guidebook created especially for family members of deployed personnel. This unique presentation has 365 days of activities for the entire family. The book’s unique setup and presentation allows readers to break down the long deployment into weeklong chunks, which passes the time much more quickly one step at a time.

Surviving Military Separation also includes a section for journal entries where readers communicate their thoughts and feelings for their children and deployed spouse to read at a later time. The guidebook also includes a calendar section to help family members remember important dates, stationary to write their deployed personnel, and a world map to assist family members in locating their deployed loved one.

Surviving Military Separation is being released on the heels of the military’s recent announcement of longer deployments. No one should go through a military separation without this book.