Military families brace for another government shutdown deadline [Video]

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.

Congress is racing toward March 1 and March 8 deadlines to fund the federal government. If no deal is agreed upon this week, a series of key programs and services for military service members and their families will shutter. If a deal isn’t reached by March 8, the Pentagon itself …