By Captain Gene Thomas Gomulka
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Dear Gene-Thomas, Recent articles in Stars & Stripes and USA
Today called attention to rising military divorce rates. These stories
appeared around the same time the Army and Marine Corps admitted
to not meeting their recruiting goals. Do you see a relation between
these two issues?
Rick
---
Dear Rick,
There most certainly is a relationship between current recruiting
problems and an increase in military divorces particularly among
personnel who have deployed more than once to Iraq and Afghanistan.
One of the first persons to identify this relationship was David
Usher who wrote in May about how "Divorce And Child Support Are
Eviscerating Military Recruitment." In answering the question, "What
is the real reason men are not enlisting?", Usher wrote: "Men are
not stupid. They have learned that when they are patriotic and join
the military, the chances are better than 50% that they will end
up divorced and come home to a huge child support debt." While he
does not discount how many may be discouraged by the prospect of
being killed or wounded in combat, he does note how one can be a
war casualty even without earning a Purple Heart.
Following his return from Iraq, a chaplain went with a sergeant
from his unit to visit a comrade who had lost a limb in combat.
When they were driving back after their visit, the sergeant told
the chaplain something he will never forget. The sergeant said that
he would gladly have suffered the loss of an arm or a leg rather
than have suffered the loss of his wife who was now divorcing him
and seeking custody of their son. It was at that point that the
chaplain realized that his unit had suffered far more "casualties"
than had been reported by the Pentagon or the media.
Military personnel who are happily married are more likely to make
the military a career than personnel who divorce or have problematic
marriages. Consequently, retention rates drop when more military
couples divorce. Decreasing retention rates result in increased
recruiting accession goals. It's not surprising, therefore, that
as Army and Marine Corps retention rates go down, recruiting goals
are going up, some of which are not being met.
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If DoD wants to help recruiting, it must promote retention. If
it wants to promote retention, it must provide engaged and married
personnel with effective tools to help them survive the challenges
of military married life. While most couples who complete premarital
inventories (e.g., Marriage
and Military Life, FOCCUS, Prepare) experience stronger marriages,
some 25 percent of them (between the ages of 17 and 25) decide to
cancel their marriage plans, often saving themselves from premature
commitments that end in divorce. Additionally, approximately 25
percent of married military couples who were considering divorce
end up reconciling and finding happiness after seeking professional
help (from chaplains, counselors or civilian clergy) or by utilizing
marriage enrichment tools like The
Survival Guide for Marriage in the Military.
After viewing reports that showed how the largest increase in divorce
rates have involved Army officers, it would behoove the service
academies and ROTC units to enhance their training in the area of
marriage and military life. Enlisted basic training curriculums
should also be critiqued to ensure that personnel from all branches
of the armed services are receiving the best training possible to
prevent them from becoming divorce statistics or finding themselves
unhappily married for the rest of their lives. In so doing, not
only will the military promote retention and (indirectly) recruitment,
it will also help lower growing divorce rates while promoting happier
and long-lasting marriages.
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© 2005 Gene Thomas Gomulka. All opinions
expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily
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