Text 6822, 101 rader
Skriven 2004-12-30 06:29:16 av Sean Dennis (1:18/200)
Ärende: Interesting article
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They never had anything like this when I was in the Army!

From:
http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/12/29/military.marriages.ap/index.html

$2 million to save Army marriages

As many as 1 in 5 married soldiers sent to war get a divorce

Wednesday, December 29, 2004 Posted: 4:12 PM EST (2112 GMT)
     
HOPKINSVILLE, Kentucky (AP) -- When Sgt. Jose Bermudez returned from Iraq early
this year, he came home to a new baby and a troubled marriage.

"We were on the brink of divorce," Mandy Bermudez acknowledged as the couple
ate lunch recently with their three children, all under age 3.

The Bermudezes were among 300 couples with the Fort Campbell-based 101st
Airborne Division who have attended "marriage enrichment" seminars put on by
the Army in hopes of saving war-ravaged relationships.

With studies showing divorce rates as high as 21 percent among couples where
one spouse has been sent off to war, the Army is spending $2 million on a
variety of marriage programs, including vouchers for romantic getaways to
places like the Opryland Hotel in Nashville, Tennessee.

"I've been in the Army 20 years, and I've never seen the Army pay for programs
like this," said Lt. Col. Chester Egert, chaplain for the 101st.

One program being implemented Army-wide teaches couples forgiveness and the
skills to communicate. It includes a 40-hour course with lessons on the
dangers of alcohol and tobacco and how to recognize post-traumatic stress.
Soldiers who complete it are rewarded with promotion points and a weekend
retreat with their spouse.

"If you learn those skills, you can make an impact on the number of divorces,
and the number, we think, of reports of physical violence," said Col. Glen
Bloomstrom, director of ministry initiatives for the Chief of Chaplains.

To make the program more desirable, commanders are encouraged to give their
soldiers time off to attend. Baby-sitting is often provided.

"What we're trying to do is change the culture, that it's OK to work on your
marriage and take some time, and invest in your lifelong relationship --
especially now when we're asking so much of your military spouses," Bloomstrom
said.

Jose Bermudez said it seems as if everyone he knows at Fort Campbell is either
getting a divorce or contemplating one. Many couples want to get things
decided because the division has been alerted it could return to Iraq as early
as mid-2005.

At Fort Campbell and elsewhere, many couples got married right before one
spouse left for Iraq. Others, like the Bermudezes, have been married longer
but still have spent little time together.

The Bermudezes met in 2000 and married six months later. He was later sent off
to Kosovo and Iraq. "We didn't know each other that well. That's part of the
problem," Mandy Bermudez said.

Bermudez is 26, his wife 25. Their second child was born while he was in Iraq,
and she became pregnant with the third while he was home on a two-week leave.

Mandy Bermudez said part of the problem with their marriage was that he had
trouble adjusting to the routine she had established for herself while he was
in Iraq. Finding affordable day care has also been a major source of stress,
she said.

She said the two joined a church, and "it turned our marriage around." He and
his wife decided to stay together.

"I can't leave these three kids with her," Jose Bermudez said. "It's worth it
to try and work it out."

The Army's recent foray into marriage counseling was started in the late 1990s
by a chaplain in Hawaii working with a unit with a high number of divorces. In
2001, laws were changed to allow the Army to pay for lodging and meals for the
retreats.

The effort is similar to another series of Army programs to help returning
soldiers reconnect emotionally with spouses and children. Those programs began
after four wives at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, were killed, allegedly by
their soldier husbands, in 2002.

Egert said the Army's effort doesn't just make for stronger families -- it
makes for better soldiers.

"Soldiers will come apart in Afghanistan and Iraq. They'll absolutely collapse
if they think their wife is going to leave them or their husband is going to
leave them," Egert said. "I've seen soldiers hospitalized because they
absolutely had a nervous breakdown because they were worried about their
families."

Added Bloomstrom: "You are really giving something that the couples know they
need, at a time they may be receptive to hear it."

Later,
Sean

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