FORT JACKSON, S.C. -- As a mother with three children serving in the Army, Deanie Dempsey, wife of TRADOC Commander Gen. Martin Dempsey, had more than just a casual interest when she met with Fort Jackson family readiness group representatives during her visit here Tuesday.

The discussion centered around the best ways to get information out to FRG members.

"What you don't know is often more scary than what you do know. The more we can arm them (family members) with the knowledge of what is going on, the better," Dempsey said. "We've got Web sites out there. What we need to do is make sure they all know what those Web sites are."

Dempsey added that it is a particular challenge getting information to family members of individual augmentees who are deployed.

She said that the Army does a good job at home base communications, when the family member is at the same post the Soldier is deployed from, but struggles to provide the same level of service to IA families.

"Say you deploy from Fort Carson, but your spouse comes back to the Fort Jackson area. How do we track that' How do we take care of that family'" Dempsey asked. "Those are some of our biggest issues, how do we get the word out, how do we take care of them, when it's not the normal deployment'"

That is why Dempsey said when she visits various TRADOC installations, she wants to know what steps individual FRGs are taking.

"We want to know what each post is doing - the good, the bad and the ugly," she said. "The good, we need to share around the Army itself. The bad, we need to see what we can improve upon.

"At the end of the day what's most important is that they are armed with information."