CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. — Patty Morgan’s husband was fighting in Iraq with the 101st Airborne, and she was caring for two children by herself. Their lease was expiring and they had committed to buying a house across town, so she was going through with the move anyway.
One hot morning in July, as she was about to drive boxes to the new place, she walked outside, infant car seat in hand, and opened the garage door — to find that her green Jeep had been stolen.
A few days later, she was told that her husband wouldn’t be home by Labor Day, as she had expected, but would serve in Iraq six months more, for a total of a year.
"It was a hell of a week," Morgan said.
Morgan’s experience is part of a significant change in Army life brought about by the war on terrorism: The extended, or repeated, deployments that characterize the post-Sept. 11 Army have intensified the burdens traditionally borne by military families. And most of the spouses who have remained behind are wondering how long the Army can keep it up.
This change is reflected in a recent poll conducted by The Washington Post, the Henry Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University, and in dozens of supplemental interviews. The poll, a nongovernmental survey of military spouses conducted after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, included more than 1,000 spouses living on or near the 10 heaviest-deploying Army bases.
While most of them said they have coped well, three-quarters said they believed that the Army may hit a personnel crisis as soldiers and their families tire of the pace and leave for civilian lives.
The findings come at a time when the Army is providing soldiers’ families with unprecedented levels of support. Over the past 30 years, beginning with the end of conscription after the Vietnam War, the service became smaller, more professional — and more married. By the 1991 Persian Gulf War, the military was caught flat-footed by the growing need to support soldiers’ families during a major deployment.
In response, the Army built a robust network of family supports ranging from day care to counseling to legal help to instruction in Army basics, household finance and coping with stress. In addition, spouses can volunteer together and watch over one another through Army Family Readiness Groups.
In the meantime, repeated and unpredictable deployments remain Army spouses’ biggest issue. In the poll, a slight majority — 55 percent — said their spouses’ current deployment had been extended longer than they expected. Of that group, more than a third said that had created "major problems" for them.
Of those spouses polled, 95 percent were women, and three-quarters had one or more children younger than 18. The same proportion had a spouse deployed overseas since Sept. 11, 2001. A third of those whose husbands had deployed and returned said they expected another deployment in the next year.
In approximately equal measures, large majorities of Army wives said that coping with their spouses’ deployment had been a problem, but that they were proud of their service to the country. Many resented media coverage that portrays them as not handling it well. "It’s not fair to us, or to the guys over there, to say that we’re all having nervous breakdowns, because we’re not," said Holly Petraeus, wife of the commander of the 101st Airborne.
At the same time, some worry about the toll on their marriages, and far more worry about the emotional strain they see in their children.
There is almost one child — about 470,000 — for each soldier on active duty in the Army. In interviews, mothers said the Iraq deployment has been harder on their children than it has been on them. In the poll, three-quarters said the deployment had created problems for their offspring, with more than a quarter characterizing the troubles as major.
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