Deployments cause spike
in Army’s divorce rate

An attorney says the divorce
rate is higher here because
of the military population

NEW YORK » While U.S. casualties steadily mount in Iraq, another toll is rising rapidly on the home front: The Army's divorce rate has soared in the past three years, most notably for officers, as longer and more frequent war zone deployments place extra strain on couples.

"We've seen nothing like this before," said Col. Glen Bloomstrom, a chaplain who oversees family-support programs. "It indicates the amount of stress on couples, on families, as the Army conducts the global war on terrorism."

Between 2001 and 2004, divorces among active-duty Army officers and enlisted personnel nearly doubled, to 10,477 from 5,658, even though total troop strength remained stable. In 2002 the divorce rate among married officers was 1.9 percent -- 1,060 divorces out of 54,542 marriages; by 2004 the rate had tripled to 6 percent, with 3,325 divorces out of 55,550 marriages.

There is no comparable system for tracking the national divorce rate, though according to the Centers for Disease Control, 43 percent of all first marriages end in divorce within 10 years.

"I notice there are more divorces in Hawaii since a good portion of our population is military personnel," said Edward Smith, an attorney who works with many military divorce cases.

Smith noted that in many situations the military person is the one who files for the divorce right after he or she returns from deployment.

"They seem to be in a rush to get the divorce finalized before they are deployed again."

Smith said one of the most common factors contributing to a couple's desire for a divorce is their inability to relate to one another's experiences because "civilian life in Hawaii is so fundamentally different from life on the front line."

He added that the time period of deployment is "just enough time for instability to gain a foothold in marriage."

With divorce rates that have risen more sharply than other service branches, the Army has broadened its efforts to help -- offering confidential counseling hot lines, support groups for spouses, weekend couples' retreats, even advice to single soldiers on how to pick partners wisely. Bloomstrom says he wants all 2,400 of the Army's chaplains to be available for marriage-support work.

Staff Sgt. Allen Owens, a 15-year Army veteran, and his wife, Linda, praised a recent marriage retreat that they and 20 other couples from Fort Campbell, Ky., participated in with their chaplain at a hotel in Nashville, Tenn.

Owens was part of a 101st Airborne Division unit that advanced into Baghdad in the early phases of the Iraq war, and he expects at least one more stint in Iraq. That would again leave his wife alone with their four children. The weekend retreat, he said, offered a chance to "decompress and do an in-depth study of your relationship and your personalities."

"Even if there's nothing going wrong, it's a great way to learn about your spouse," Linda Owens said.

While some of the Army's programs aim to prepare couples for their first deployment-related separation, others try to help couples with the often-difficult adjustments when a spouse returns from combat-zone duty to a mate who has been shouldering extra responsibilities at home.

"Our hope is to change the culture," Bloomstrom said. "Initially, there's a stigma about any program to do with relationships. We need to teach that there's nothing wrong with preventive maintenance for marriage."

Martha Rudd, an Army spokeswoman, attributed the recent surge in divorces to the stress and uncertainty caused by a stepped-up deployment cycle.

"An awful lot of people are going back to Iraq for a second tour -- that must be hard to take," she said. "You can get through one tour, but then you think, 'Please, no more.'"

Bloomstrom said the high divorce rate among officers was no surprise because they bear the brunt of implementing major changes in Army operations, often working 18 or more hours a day.