Senior Enlisteds' Role in the Big "I Do"

A chaplain assigned to a deploying unit recently wrote about how so many of his young troops continue to rush into marriage in their early 20s only to find themselves divorced within a few years. While Army chaplains have recently adopted a new program to help lower high military divorce rates, the fact is that only a very small percentage of young troops attend worship services, and even fewer seek counseling from chaplains before getting married. If military leaders want to do something about high divorce rates that impact both retention and operational readiness, they would be wise to recognize how senior enlisted can be an extremely vital resource in helping junior enlisted understand all the responsibilities associated with saying "I do." 

Senior enlisted personnel have far more contact on a daily basis with junior personnel than chaplains and family support center counselors that often offer pre-marital programs and counseling. If anyone knows that "Private Jones" or "Seaman White" is planning on marrying, it's ordinarily not the unit chaplain or a base counselor, but his or her senior enlisted supervisor. Sometimes, senior enlisted personnel are aware of marriage plans even before the parents of engaged service members.

If a senior enlisted himself married very young only later to divorce, he could handle young personnel requesting leave to get married in one of two ways. He could simply recommend approval of the leave request with the attitude that this young enlisted may also have to live with the consequences of a failed marriage; or, he could take time and talk with the young person about discerning if he or she is really ready to make a life-long permanent commitment and assume the responsibilities of parenthood.

Consider, for example, what this senior enlisted had to say to one of his young men who was requesting leave to marry: "Around 19 years ago, when I was your age on my first tour of duty, I met this girl. She was tired of living at home with her parents and I was feeling kind of lonely being so far away from my family and friends back in New York. Well, to make a long story short, we got married and I deployed shortly thereafter only to discover that she became pregnant right before I deployed. I didn't send as much money home to her as I should have while I was deployed, and when I returned home and she had the baby, I guess I wasn’t the most helpful guy around the house. We started fighting about how much time I was spending with my friends and how I felt she needed to get a job if we were going to be able to pay all our bills. In time we started fighting a lot and within a year of my son’s birth she filed for divorce. She remarried about three years later and I just recently finished sending in my last child support payment. I sat down and calculated that I paid out over $100,000.00 in child support over the past 18 years. But let me tell you, it’s not the money that bothers me. What hurts more is that my wife got custody of our son who has become far more attached to his step-father than to me. Anyhow, what I want to say to you is that getting married is one of the most important decisions you will ever make in your life. I’d like your marriage to succeed where my first marriage failed." (A video recreation of this encounter is available for viewing at: http://www.plaintec.net/webmovie.mov)

If senior enlisted offered similar advice and were provided with self-grading, military oriented marriage materials that can help junior enlisted assess their preparedness to marry while respecting their privacy, not only could high military divorce rates be lowered, but better military marriages could also result in lower abuse and suicide rates as well. In light of the fact that the Army alone experienced more than 56,000 divorces since the United States became militarily involved in Afghanistan and Iraq, it would behoove all branches of the Armed Forces to call upon its senior enlisted personnel to exercise leadership in helping junior personnel with one of the most important decisions of their lives.

Gene-Thomas Gomulka – “A voice for military families”
Columnist and author of The Survival Guide for Marriage in the Military and Marriage and Military Life available at www.plaintec.net

Have a question or comment? Write Gene-Thomas at letters@plaintec.net