Ranger,
Thanks for your service to the country. Your experiences have certainly been more difficult than most of us on the air side can imagine.
With your tax free combat zone pay raises, I would consider saving and doing your stuff little bit at a time on the part 61 side. Here is why. You mentioned you have a family. If you plan on staying in for a while, then time is on your side to save and do the instrument training slowly over time. That way you can save the Post 9-11 GI Bill for your children.
With Jeppesen books available used for cheap on Amazon, and with the knowledge you have already from having a PPL, DVDs, and today's flight simulators, you could certainly do a lot of the prep work on your own and probably do the instrument rating fairly quickly when you do start training. You probably know either some pilots in the army, or a few people working on their CFIs who would love to practice teaching and they could guide you through using MS Flight Sim in the appropriate ways to get some good understandings of the way approaches work, and how they are flown without building any bad negative transfer type of habits for your actual time in the aircraft.
Just my .02, Good Luck and be safe over there.