Troops Find Love in War on Web

Staff Sgt. Bruce A. Green deployed to Iraq in 2006 during a particularly perilous period of the American occupation.

The destruction of the Golden Dome in Samara had set off a ruthless sectarian feud that caught American troops in the unenviable position of trying to forge a democracy while stemming off a civil war.

Like so many of his comrades, Green tried to keep it simple: Focus on the mission as a combat engineer and come home alive.

But he had another important target in his sights as well: finding love.

In his limited free time, the motivated Army NCO found comfort in a relationship he struck with a woman far from the dangerous Iraqi streets.

Melissa Borrego was a Texan who volunteered at the Dallas airport branch of the United Service Organizations. She saw firsthand the relief troops felt arriving home and she respected the men and women in uniform serving on death's doorstep.

The two met on a popular Web site that matches couples in search of love and companionship.

And as it turns out, Staff Sgt. Green isn't alone. One major online dating service has seen a 56 percent increase in members who list their occupation as military in the past two years. And Green's anecdotal evidence supports those statistics.

"It's not just me," Green told Military.com in an interview. "Two of my Soldiers have married someone they met online. So many of us get sick of having to get a new girlfriend after every deployment. We want someone who's going to stick with us through the hard times."

Gian Gonzaga, senior research scientist with eHarmony, said that the rise in military membership in recent years tracks with the findings of a body of research known as "terror management theory."

One of the main pillars of terror management theory, or TMT, is that people will seek comforting relationship as a way to deal with stress. The greater the stress -- the chance of death in a war zone, for instance -- the higher the need for a relationship, Gonzaga said.

"When people are faced with their own mortality, they are reminded of what is most important to them," Gonzaga said in an interview. "In those situations, you are going to seek social relationships that help you cope with stress."

Staff Sgt. Green, who does not have a PhD from the University of California at Berkley like Gonzaga, summed it up in a way many war-weary troops might recognize.

"I just wanted to talk with someone who is not going to judge me," he said. "When you talk to your family, they judge you like your family. When you talk to your friends, they judge you like your friends and when you talk to your Soldiers, they judge you like the Army judges you."

"But when I spoke with Melissa, I could just talk without being judged."

Jeff Schimel, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Alberta in Canada who studies terror management theory, said part of the quest for a relationship can be traced to our earliest experiences in life.
 
"The bond we experience with our parents is the foundation for all future relationships and the way we deal with stress," he said. "In our first days, when we experience anxiety we cry out and our parents come running to comfort us.

"Many view TMT as an extension of that bond. When we experience anxiety, particularly extreme anxiety, we seek a relationship that will ease our anxiety."

Julie Spira, the author of "The Perils of Cyber-Dating: Confessions of a Hopeful Romantic Looking for Love Online," said the theory coincides with her extensive experience tracking relationships online.

"In difficult times, especially scary times when your life is in danger, that fact that you have someone to communicate with give you a little more hope that you have someone in your corner pulling for you," she said. "If you know there's that special somebody who is thinking about you before you go to sleep, it kind of makes your day."

Like so many trends impacting service members, Spira stressed the increase in troops findings love online is a natural byproduct of rise in online dating across society.

"With the ease of technology and the decline of the stigma associated with online dating, it seems like everyone is out there trying to connect," said Spira, citing her research showing 40 million people looking for romance -- whether spouse searching or tryst hunting -- on no less than 25 different Web sites.

Today, the Greens are apart while the Soldier-husband trains for the drill field, but are prepared to reunite and hopefully spend a long life together. They want a home in Texas hill country -- and to have another child to join their young son.

"After two deployments and more time apart then together, I feel like we've earned some good time together to enjoy this love we've found," Melissa Green said.