There is a new law that came out in September of 2009 and it is federal ... if a parent is deploying, if they are custodial or have full custody, they can draw up temporary orders while they are absent as to where their children will live. This does NOT have to be the bio-parent as long as the parent has reason to not put them with the bio-parent while they are gone.
I wanted to post this in case someone does a search for "new law", "military parents", "deploying", or whatever ....
It gave us a breath of relief.
There is a down side though - the temporary orders dissolve upon return to duty station and the bio-parent can stipulate the children do not leave the 48 states of the US.