Characteristics of Families of Soldiers who Return Prematurely from Overseas Deployments: An Assessment from Operation Restore Hope (Somalia)

Abstract

Nearly 500 wives, married to enlisted soldiers who deployed to Somalia for Operation Restore Hope, participated in a postdeployment study in the summer of 1993. About 10% of their husbands had returned early from Somalia for family reasons. Analysis of their wives’ reports suggests that early returns were associated most often with childbirth or problematic pregnancies rather than other factors such as inexperience with deployments, negative attitudes towards the military, a lack of support services, or lower coping abilities. However, in hindsight, our results probably reflect compliance with military policy at that time for that deployment, under which pregnancy-related concerns were one of the most legitimate reasons for permitting an early return. The results support sociological theories that highlight the importance of macrosocial factors in influencing the lives of individual families somewhat independently of the microsocial environment of the families.