Marriage is hard enough when you are there with your spouse everyday. Now imagine a marriage when you are gone for a year at a time and home only 6 months before your next deployment. I know a bunch of guys who got married right before we deployed, they wanted that fat check you get for being married; they wanted something to look froward to when they got back; and - most importantly - they didn’t want to lose the person they “loved”. Loved is the right word, because most of those guys don’t love that person any more. I remember hearing seargents and joes crying to me and anyone who would listen about how their wives were out f*cking “Jody”. These guys would run up to our first seargent and beg - literally - to be sent home because of issues with their wives. “Haha”, was the typical response. The chain of command didn’t give them one second of thought, and that’s mainly because our chain of command was having the exact same problems. Our chain of command wanted to go home too, and “Haha” was the same response our chain of command’s chaing of command gave them when they went and begged to be sent home.
I remember when one guy was telling me about how his wife was clearing out his bank account every two weeks, and when he called to talk to her she was a total b*tch to him. There was nothing that guy could do. I also remember a group of guys who’s wives were all hanging out together and going out to clubs together, one wife would tell on another wife and another wife would do the same. It’s bad enough to have to worry about stepping on a land mine or being sniped, but when you have guys with their families on their minds 24-7 and you need that guy to cover your back it makes them less effective in the field. Another buddy who recently completed tour number five, is getting ready for tour six, and just re-up’ed for 6 more years (crazy!!) was welcomed home with “You go on another tour and I won’t be here when you get back.”.
The articles below are really connected. Marriage and stress go hand-in-hand, and when you add a combat zone with a year long deployment, stress is not the word. It’s really insanity. Most marriages I saw in the army were horrible. Either the guy was a total ass and the wife was nice, or the wife was a total b*tch and the guy was alright. I would have to assume that most marriages are this way regardless of being in the service or not, but without a doubt year long deployments and extended campaigns overseas is the number one reason why these marriages are failing at a greater rate and more soliders are having stress related issues.
Before I even left for my tour in Afghanistan in December, 2002, a group of special force and delta operators had come back from Afghanistan (the Iraq war didn’t start until Feburary or March of 2003) and murdered their wives. You would think these wives would know better than to screw around when their husband is one of the best trained killers in the army. A lot of these guys killed their wives and then themselves.
If you want to help these soliders, then help end these wars. Hopefully this will reduce their stress levels and stop their wives from cheating on them. Then again, maybe not.
Divorce rate increases in Marine Corps, Army
Bases brace for surge in stress-related disorders
Special Forces soldier charged in wife’s slaying hangs himself
This post was submitted by mmwebster4.