Printer Friendly Page
FAMILIES CRACKING UNDER WAR PRESSURE -- "I
don't
know one military family that is still together
or anything
like they were before the Soldier in the family
went to war."
For more on military and veteran families, use
the VA Watchdog search engine...click here...
http://www.yourvabenefits.org/
sessearch.php?q=family+
families&op=or
Story here...
http://www.military.com/
NewsContent/0,13319,148297,00.html
Story below:
-------------------------
Families Cracking Under War Pressure
Agence France-Presse
U.S. military families have become the unseen
victims of the war in Iraq, with those left behind suffering when
Soldiers go off to fight and when they finally return home.
"I don't know one military family that is still together or anything
like they were before the Soldier in the family went to war,"
30-year-old Mylinda, whose husband was among the first Marines to be
deployed in Iraq, told AFP.
Mylinda's husband returned home from Iraq around a year ago after "we
both decided then that he should leave the military because otherwise he
would have had to go back," she said.
"We did pretty well when he first got back, but he never spoke about
Iraq.
"I could see he was unhappy and he lost self-confidence when he left the
military and couldn't find a job," she said.
But then came the bombshell.
"In March, he said he didn't want to be married any more," Mylinda said.
The majority of Iraq veterans who took part in a recent study
acknowledged having "some family problem at least once a week," said Dr
Steven Sayers of the Veterans Administration (VA) Medical Center in
Philadelphia.
"About three-quarters of the veterans acknowledged having some family
problem at least once a week. About half were unsure of their role or
responsibility in the household," he said.
"It could be that being depressed, they are too self-critical, and that
may complicate the task of being reintegrated into the family," Sayers
said, adding that all the veterans sampled for the study had shown signs
of depression or Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
Children are among those who suffer most, both during their parent's
deployment and after they return.
A study conducted for the Pentagon earlier this year showed that child
abuse rose 42 percent and neglect doubled when a parent is deployed to a
combat zone.
Retrospectively, Mylinda acknowledged that she was not "in control" of
her family when her husband was in Iraq.
"I remember thinking I was in control of everything, but now I look back
at events and things that happened, and I think maybe I wasn't," she
said.
"I let my oldest, who was seven, do a lot of things I wouldn't usually
approve of him doing -- riding his bike around town by himself, going
off with friends unsupervised. Now he tells me the things he did, and I
think: 'But I would never let you do that.'"
Dr Wendy Lane, head of the child protection team at the University of
Maryland, blamed maltreatment and neglect by the parent left at home on
severe stress.
"Child neglect and abuse are often the result of stress and the absence
of social support," Lane told AFP.
"Having a spouse deployed is bound to be stressful, and it also removes
that social support -- having someone to help with childcare
responsibilities, to talk to about life's stress so that you don't take
it out on your children," she said.
Mylinda said her children were angered and hurt by their parents'
separation.
"The kids had a really hard time with it. My oldest was mad about it,"
she said. "But I don't think they associated it with Iraq ... They
pretty much blamed themselves."
Pentagon official Lieutenant Colonel Les Melnyk told AFP that it was
"difficult if not impossible" to determine if a military family's
divorce or separation was due to deployment.
But, added Melnyk: "Strong marriages can weather a deployment, weak ones
will be tested."
Although Melnyk and Sayers pointed to a number of programs and
counselling available to Soldiers and their families, Mylinda said she
and her children were not offered any help.
"My husband got all kinds of different classes and courses. He was able
to talk to a lot of people on the boat coming back from Iraq -- about
marriage, about family. But we didn't get anything," said Mylinda.
Mylinda's mother -- herself the wife of a veteran of the 1990s' Desert
Storm campaign in Iraq -- blasted the US military for failing to
adequately train Soldiers for combat and life after the armed forces.
"When an army recruiter came to the school where I taught, I did
everything I could to keep kids from joining. I had seen too many people
go off to fight in Desert Storm and then come back, changed for the
worse," she said, asking not to be named.
"When we were in the military, it was a good, strong group of men that
knew what they had to do and how to do it," she said.
"Now, you have boy scouts fighting over there. They get kids out of high
school, put them in boot camp and then send them to fight.
"When they get out, all they know how to do is kill someone."
-------------------------
Larry Scott --
