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Mrs. Obama calls Army wife Carmen one of her heroes. Carmen has been married to her husband, Clifford, for 10 years and the couple has two children. Carmen and Clifford have talked about adding a third child to their family, but with Clifford set to deploy sometime this year, the couple has decided to wait. "A pregnancy now would only result in him missing the first year of our child's life," says Carmen.

A day in the life of Carmen and her family

The couple says Clifford's deployments cause a lot of pressure on their family—even when Clifford is returning home. "That is something that is hard and that I have anxiety about, because I want to make sure the transition is smooth...because I'm aware that we've done things and we've grown without him, and we don't want him to feel like we didn't need him."

The First Lady says that Carmen is one of her heroes, because in addition to taking care of her own family's needs, she's incredibly involved with helping other military families. "She's helping other families adjust, she's delivering bad news and being there for other spouses when their husbands are away," Mrs. Obama says. "So she's shouldering, in addition to her own burden, and this is typical. This is typical of our military families—holding it together, making it happen."

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