RALEIGH - Nearly two million children across the country have a parent in the military. And Sheri Hall, spokesperson for the Real Warriors Campaign, says deployment and subsequent depression is trying on children and talks about her own experience as the wife of a deployed soldier.

"Not always being able to talk to Dad when the girls needed to talk to him for me became the need to become to parents," Hall says. "That was hard for me to adjust being Mom and Dad, good guy and bad guy."

Hall says things were hard for her family during her husband's first tour because they could only send letters and didn't have face-to-face communication.

"During the second deployment, during the end of 2005, we had Yahoo Messenger," Hall says. "We could do that from time-to-time, but it was sometimes two or three a.m. my time."

And while deployment can be a very trying time, Hall says things can also be hard when soldiers return if they carry depression or other stress disorders from their time overseas, like happened with her husband.

"I call it hitting a wall. He could not put on his uniform and go to work," she says. "Luckily, he had a commander who was there for him and I reached out to the commander and he helped me to get my husband some help."

Hall says getting help for soldiers once they have returned can also be hard because of the attitude of many in the military.

"Our soldiers come back and have this tough exterior," she says. "They don't want anybody to know there's something wrong with them so it's really hard for them to take that step to reach out."

Hall says she hopes to raise awareness for the difficulties military families face and encourages reaching out to returning soldiers who may be having problems.