'Army Wives' drills deep for drama

BY CRISTINA KINON
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Wednesday, June 4th 2008, 4:00 AM

"Army Wives" star Sally Pressman, who plays military base newbie Roxy, says fans should prepare themselves for a roller-coaster ride of emotions straight out of the gate this season.

"Get ready for an incredibly emotional premiere," Pressman told the Daily News. "And as far as the rest of the season, I think all the characters are going to experience a lot of growth, but with Roxy, it's tenfold. We're going to see her settle into life on the post, have her husband deployed for the first time, and have him return."

Lifetime's "Army Wives" returns for its second season this Sunday at 10. The show, the most successful in the network's 23-year history, follows a small group of women and men who live on an Army base with military spouses. There's drama, romance and rivalries.

"Army Wives" creator Katherine Fugate based the series on the nonfiction book "Under the Sabers: The Unwritten Code of Military Marriage," by Tanya Biank. It explored the murders of four soldiers' wives, carried out by their husbands, at Fort Bragg, N.C., in 2002.

"I read that book, and it was very traumatic and very difficult, but it also opened the gates of a military post," said Fugate. "We drive by them all the time, but we don't know what goes on inside."

In their time-off since last summer, Fugate, Pressman and the other women of the show visited Fort Bragg and spent time with military families based there.

"It was an invaluable experience," Pressman said. "The wives were so responsive to us."

"We actually have the Department of Defense's cooperation this season - we didn't last year," said Fugate. "Everything will be far more authentic this time around."

Not that it wasn't authentic before.

Pressman says that on her trip to Fort Bragg, none of the wives offered criticisms of the show. Their only hope was that it could offer more of an insight into what happens to families when husbands leave, and then return, from war.

"I'm always touched by how much a person changes, having been at war, and how much it requires their relationships to go to deeper and deeper levels," said Fugate. "That will be explored with Roxy and Trevor, the youngest couple on our show.

"He's gone to war for the first time and he'll be forever changed after that experience," said Fugate. "Their relationship, which was ideal and romantic and just about them, is now going to be about this new component."

"One of the wives [at Fort Bragg] said that the first time her husband deployed, she stayed in bed for weeks, and the only thing that got her out was her kids," said Pressman.

"So I think that's something you're definitely going to see Roxy go through in the first episode," she said. "She is just beside herself and really shuts down from the world."

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