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Combat tours take toll on families

Apr-14-2008 » Filed Under: 2/25 SBCT , Homefront

By William Cole, Honolulu Advertiser

When the nation's top-ranking military commanders talk about the Army being stressed nearly to the breaking point by repeat combat deployments, a lot of that concern doesn't have to do with the battlefield. It has to do with home.

Gen. Richard Cody, the Army's vice chief of staff, reiterated the mantra again on April 1 before a Senate Armed Services subcommittee.

Cody said the Army today is out of balance.

"The current demand for forces in Iraq and Afghanistan exceeds our sustainable supply of soldiers, of units and equipment, and limits our ability to provide ready forces for other contingencies," Cody said.

Lengthy and repeated combat deployments with insufficient recovery time at home stations have placed "incredible stress" on soldiers and their families, testing the resolve of the all-volunteer force like never before, Cody testified.

It's taken a toll at Schofield Barracks, families say.

Divorces have skyrocketed, substance abuse has spiked in tandem with post-traumatic stress, talented people are leaving the Army, and many children are being raised in what become single-parent homes during lengthy overseas tours.

The Stryker brigade and 4,000 soldiers are just north of Baghdad on a 15-month deployment. The same unit — minus the 19-ton Stryker vehicles — spent all of 2004 and part of 2005 in Iraq. [...]


Comments For "Combat tours take toll on families":

This article is obviously, ENTIRELY true. There have been so many divorces in my husbands platoon alone this deplyoment that I can hardley count them. The army is very much "out of whack" and something needs to change.....but... you know what us army wives always say.... If the Army wanted its soldiers to have families they would have been issued one!

Posted by: Tara Kerr | April 15, 2008 11:45 AM

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