TUALATIN — War or no war, Americans still have to pay their taxes.

But the families of service men and women deployed to the Middle East have enough on their minds these days without thinking about filing their tax returns.

So members of Tualatin Post 3452 of the Veterans of Foreign Wars stepped in Saturday, March 15, to sponsor a free income tax preparation service at Tualatin’s VFW Patriot Hall for families of deployed troops.

It’s one way that the VFW can help military families through these stressful times and support the troops, said Post 3452 Commander Dale Potts.

“They know they’ve got to do their taxes, but they’re stressed out about war,” Potts said.

“We’re not for or against the war – we’re supporting our troops. A lot of us went through Vietnam, and it was terrible how the troops were treated,” added Potts, who entered the U.S. Navy during the Vietnam War and remained in the Navy Reserve until retiring in 1996.

Four tax preparers volunteered their services for five hours Saturday and prepared tax returns for 12 families who either made appointments or dropped by Patriot Hall. One preparer stayed an extra hour to complete a complicated tax return.

The first person who arrived, Potts said, was a mother who brought tax papers for her son, who is on his way to the Middle East from Fort Carson, Colo.

The next two customers were female soldiers who recently returned from duty in Egypt. One of them, Angel Smith of Beaverton, is a National Guard staff sergeant who used to work for the Tualatin Police Department.

“It’s kind of complicated this year,” Smith said of her tax return forms. “So far I’m just sitting here, and he’s doing all the work,” she added with a grin, referring to Brian Wozniak of Vancouver, Wash., as he punched numbers into a computer. Wozniak is a senior tax specialist for the Internal Revenue Service.

Wives from as far away as Salem and Hillsboro also showed up with their tax forms, several of them bringing babies and small children with them. They included Danielle Baca of Dundee, whose husband, Bob, an engineering officer with an infantry unit, is at Fort Carson and expects to be in Kuwait in two or four weeks.

“We usually go to H&R Block,” Baca said, noting that the only tax complication she faced so far was not having all of her husband’s personal identification numbers immediately available because of his absence.

The free tax service also was offered Saturday at the Gresham Armory.