Military families brace for another government shutdown deadline

Besa Pinchotti was juggling tasks in her car, returning calls on her cellphone in between dentist visits for her children, when, after pausing for a moment, she said into her phone, "Military families are sick of feeling like political pawns."

She waited a beat and then emphasized the word "sick."

Pinchotti, the wife of a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, operates an email list of hundreds of thousands of military families from her post with the National Military Family Association, based in Virginia. For a third time in less than six months, Pinchotti has been warning families about the potentially blistering impact of a government shutdown.