Divorce Rate Among Iraq/Afghanistan Troops On the Rise

I read an article today from the Los Angeles Times: "Fighting Terror, losing Family" by Faye Fiore. It states that those who have been deployed to Iraq have seen a big increase in divorce rates. Having been there myself, I really feel for those men and women who are having to deal with marital/relationship stresses on top of fighting their war everyday.

When I was deployed to the Persian Gulf for Operation Desert Shield, I experienced that myself. I had been in a 2 yr relationship (that I hoped would last forever), but during my deployment it fell apart. There is hardly anything more devastating than having to deal with that in a time of war. But there was nothing I could do. It was like being in a straight-jacket in the middle of hell. I had to soldier on. I'm just thankful that (a) my unit was like a family and I had many good friends to help me deal and (b) I loved what we did (flying missions of every kind from dropping troops and documents to ferrying supplies). I just put nose to the grindestone and threw myself into my work.

Me and mine got back together after I got out and went home. But many relationships are forever destroyed. I wonder how many of our troops have taken their lives over this? The suicide rates have inched up each year as well. Our troops are being hammered from every angle. That's why this whole thing makes me so mad. No soldier, Marine, Airman or Sailor should EVER be forced to pull more than one tour of duty in Iraq or any other conflict (unless they volunteer). It's unhealthy and its just plain WRONG.

Here are the stats from the article:

(Divorce counts by fiscal year among active-duty personnel in all branches of the U.S. military do not include activated Reserve or National Guard numbers):

2000: 19,223
2001: 18,774
2002: 21,629
2003: 23,080
2004: 26,784

As staggering as those numbers are, if one notices, we were not at "war" in 2000 and there were just over 19,000 divorces.
The increase is significant, but is also well within norms for a "war" time period.




seekerof

Originally posted by Seekerof
if one notices, we were not at "war" in 2000 and there were just over 19,000 divorces.
The increase is significant, but is also well within norms for a "war" time period.

If one simply notes the increase, one would know this little adventure is killing military families. Go family values!

What are the numbers, the 'norms of war', btw?







[edit on 7/18/05 by EastCoastKid]

[edit on 7/18/05 by EastCoastKid]

I was working for family services when the gulf war in the 90s and the truth of the braking on military families was more about the problems when the soldiers came back home.

Lots of abuse and difficulty getting back into a "pre war" family life.

I saw a lot of sad cases that involved children and spouse abuses.

Same thing, but with two differences: The Gulf War was wrapped up very quickly, relatively speaking; and the soldiers serving in the Iraq war are there for much longer and they are exposed to much more brutality. Those are big differences.

That's not even taking into account that there are girls out there, and maybe guys who literally scam on our troops. Those guys are serving at bases far away from home, and they're lonely. They fall for the first chick that comes along, many times. I saw it first hand. Its a travesty how those skanks work the guys.

Thank God I had my high school sweetheart back home.

[edit on 7/18/05 by EastCoastKid]

War is hell, in more ways than one, ECK.





seekerof