Budget Cut Woes Leave Military, Families Uncertain

With family members waving from a pier, sailors aboard a Navy destroyer left for an overseas mission with more uncertainty than ever about their homecoming as potentially massive budget cuts reshape military plans.

The political hick-hack in Congress over the budget is having real-life consequences for service members in the Navy and maybe soon in other branches. It comes at a time when some military families were getting used to deployments coming back down to normal lengths after more than a decade of two wars, when the Pentagon routinely extended the time forces stayed in the field.

The guided-missile destroyer USS Barry headed out Thursday for what was supposed to be a six-month deployment in Europe as part of a NATO plan to provide a ballistic-missile shield for the continent. The Navy has warned that tours like this one could be extended for unspecified periods after billions of dollars in automatic spending cuts known as sequestration take place March 1, unless Congress acts to avert them.
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