The AP carried an article on July 29 describing that 30% of troops returning from deployment suffer a delayed post traumatic stress reaction, and that authorities are now concerned with growing mental health problems.

The obvious stress to which they are responding is that of combat. Less obvious, but surely reflected in the skyrocketing divorce statistics for America’s warriors, is that the Defense Department supports a statute that promotes divorce and causes stress among the increasingly married force. Some 1500 divorces occurred recently upon the return of the USS Lincoln from deployment. Army officer divorces have tripled in three years. For all services the story is the same.

Under the egregious statute which DOD supports, a military spouse can be assured of a lifetime financial reward if only they will divorce their military sponsor. A lucrative incentive! Incredible as it seems DOD actually promotes military divorces via its support for this law!

How do the troops respond to this? Since DOD has never told them that their retirement security could be given away to a non-combatant third-party civilian, their reactions are perfectly understandable: first, bewilderment; second, anger; third, disbelief that their own chain of command would do such a thing, and finally, disgust and voting with their feet. On top of deployment stresses then, thousands of otherwise loyal and dedicated mid-level leaders see no future in staying on until retirement for half pay. Clearly family breakups, with accompanying financial devastation are the ultimate stressor, acquiesced to or actively promoted by DOD, Why, pray tell, is that good policy?

It looks disingenuous, even duplicitous, for DOD to spend taxpayer billions on mental health while they themselves support a law which contributes to the problem. On top of those billions, DOD wastes billions more recruiting and training new, inexperienced troops to replace those leaving. One might legitimately say that DOD gambles with national security because we have lost the trained mid-level leaders we need for the GWOT to their blind, unquestioned support for a bad law.

Please ask SecDef Rumsfeld to keep faith with the troops, to promote stability of military families, and to have the offending law, 10USC1408, declared unconstitutional. His address:

The Hon. Donald H. Rumsfeld
Secretary of Defense
1000 Defense Pentagon
Washington DC 20301

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Posted by Veterans Today on Aug 6 2005, With 0 Reads, Filed under Military. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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