WD, and therein lies the rub. You cannot leave the children alone, you can't always get a baby sitter at short notice, and one's OH's job is arguably more important as an intensive care nurse than your's as a crewman on 'just another' exercise.
Military Service and OH' s job or career are often mutually incompatible.
More than once our children had to be dumped on a willing neighbour even for mundane things like a practice Royal lunch; we didn't actually get to the real lunch.