Infidelity In The U.S. Military

Semper Fi, Honey? -- Jacey Eckhart, New York Times

MY husband looks more like Cary Grant in “Operation Petticoat” every day — accomplished, senior and ravishingly handsome. Ordinarily, this would not be a problem for me. Ordinarily, this Cary Grantness would be cause for a skip in my step and a naughty gleam in my eye.

But this is not an ordinary week for military marriages. This is a week in which heroes are brought down by their all-too-human flaws. This is a week of women who look like Kardashians turning over their e-mail accounts to the F.B.I. This is a week of military spouses — male and female — being hand-fed humiliation by the person whose career ambitions they supported for years.

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My Comment: Another must read post comes from Rebecca Sinclair who is married to Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Sinclair, a former deputy commander of the 82nd Airborne Division in Afghanistan and who is now being tried at Fort Bragg, N.C., on charges including adultery and sexual misconduct. That post is here.

Update: In Praise of Holly Petraeus and Other Military Spouses -- Bethanne Patrick, Daily Beast

U.S. Military Divorce Rates Climbing

Military Divorce Rate At Highest Level Since 1999 -- USA Today

The military divorce rate reached its highest level since 1999, as nearly 30,000 marriages ended in fiscal 2011, raising the prospect that troop withdrawals may lead to more divorce, according to interviews and Pentagon data released Tuesday.

"As the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan draw down, we're going to put more families together who haven't been used to being together," says Chaplain Carleton Birch, a spokesman for the Army Office of the Chief of Chaplains.

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Update: Military Divorce Rates Continue Steady Climb -- Military.com

My Comment: With the wars winding down .... and service personnel returning home .... I expect this total to climb significantly in the next year or two.

U.S. Military Divorce Rate Rises As War Stress Frays Marriages

From The L.A. Times:

The divorce rate in the armed forces increased slightly again in the last year as military marriages continued to bear the stress of the nation’s ninth year at war.

In the 2009 fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, there were an estimated 27,312 divorces among the nearly 765,000 married members of the active-duty Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps, according to figures provided by the Pentagon today.

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My Comment: Deployments lasting for a year. The stress of a love one being in a war zone. It is amazing that half of these marriages actually survive.