of Fort Hood 's environment . He insists that every soldier on a day schedule leave work in to be home for dinner by 6 p.m. On Thursday , many are told to leave by 3 p.m. so they can have the afternoon with the family . And no one at Fort Hood works weekends unless Lynch signs off on it . He likes to point out that when a soldier deploys overseas , the only thing he ca n't get is time with his family , so it 's important to get it between deployments -- what the military calls `` dwell time . '' Lynch 's `` home by dinner '' order creates a daily traffic jam on the base in Killeen , Texas , as tens of thousands of soldiers leave at once . Master Sgt. Guadalupe Stratman enjoys Fort Hood 's family-first attitude . She has a husband and three sons . When she 's not cooking dinner after leaving the base , she 's helping with homework or `` just watching them grow . '' It 's not just about keeping military spouses and children happy , it 's about creating a more resilient soldier
FORT HOOD , Texas -LRB- CNN -RRB- -- Families of tens of thousands of soldiers based at Fort Hood have one military wife to thank for a more normal routine at the base . A blunt conversation with an Army wife started Lt. Gen. Rick Lynch on the path toward his family-first policies . When Lt. Gen. Rick Lynch first took over as commander of the largest Army base in the United States , a soldier 's wife approached him and gave him a talking to about how soldiers do n't `` really '' get to spend time at home when they come home from war . `` She said ` General , do n't talk to us about dwell time . Because my husband might as well be in Iraq , ' '' Lynch told CNN last week . '' ` He comes home after the kids go to bed , we never see him on weekends and you take him away to train all the time . ' '' Lynch said that woman 's comments `` really hit me in the gut . '' In response , Lynch made `` focus on the family '' a key part