Elaine Brye swears she never told her children to join the military, but all four became officers.
"If you knew these kids, there is no way you could tell them what to do," Brye told CBS News correspondent Wyatt Andrews.
There's Army helicopter pilot Brendan Brye, Navy recon pilot Jordan Brye, Air Force aerospace engineer Katrina Moon and Marine Corps fighter pilot Eric Brye. Call it coincidence or fate, but the family photo looks like a recruitment poster for the Pentagon.
Service runs in the family. Brye and her husband, Courtney, both served in the Air Force. Both of Brye's parents were in the Army. As the Brye children grew up on their farm in rural Ohio, home movies reveal four future officers dressed in flag-like stars on the Fourth of July.
It's one thing to raise a child as a patriot; it's another to watch that child morph into an officer with orders to go to war. Three of the Bryes have deployed to war zones, including the Middle East and Afghanistan, and Brye said each time, nothing can prepare a mother to handle those deployment farewells.
"When you know that they are going to a place where they could be harmed and you don't know if they're coming back," Brye said. "There is a fear in that and there is a loss in that that's indescribable."
Almost 2.7 million Americans have deployed since 9/11, which means millions of military mothers have had to see their children go into harm's way.
That sacrifice asked of American moms led Brye to write this book "Be Safe, Love Mom." It's a book about comforting military families, but with a surprisingly tough edge. She borrows the military phrase "embrace the suck," urging fellow moms to handle a child's deployment by enduring it.
"It means that, don't waste time complaining about it, do what has to be done. If it is hard, too bad, just power through it," Brye said.
Read more plus video:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/be-safe-love-mom-military-mom-elaine-brye-with-four-officer-children/
