Abstract

Report after report and study after study begins by pointing out that the American military’s post 9/11 engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan are taxing service members and their families like none before. Lessons learned from draft era conflicts are of little use in understanding the full scale of the impact of these wars at home. For example, after the Cold War, the active duty force was reduced from 2.1 million to 1.4 million, 1 thus requiring fewer service members and families to carry war’s deadly burden and requiring longer and repeated deployments, especially in the Army and Marine Corp. American soldiers in Vietnam trying to survive the carnage of that killing field, and their families waiting at home, could count down a 365 day clock, knowing that if they survived that long, they wouldn’t have to go back. That is not the case today. The increasing pace of military operations necessitated by America’s militarized response to 9/11—what is euphemistically referred to as OPTEMPO—is taking an unacceptable toll at home on both service members and their families. As General Chiarelli, Army Vice Chief of Staff, put it: we now must face the unintended consequences of leading an expeditionary Army that included involuntary enlistment extensions, accelerated promotions, extended deployment rotations, reduced dwell time and potentially diverted focus from leading and caring for Soldiers in the post, camp and station environment. 2 The summary of the 2009 National Leadership Summit on Military Families noted “There was consensus among participants that service members and their families are experiencing severe strain due to wartime deployments. The length and frequency of these deployments and lack of sufficient dwell time for recovery and reintegration has no parallel in the history of the modern all-volunteer force, or in the extent to which they tax Reserve component families.” He also reported that “A number of participants strongly believed that policymakers should strive to reduce the length and frequency of deployments.” 3 The difficulty of military deployments always extends beyond the battlefield; when units deploy, local consumer economies suffer, families must adjust to life without loved ones and with the knowledge of the danger they may well be facing. When service members return, they may bring physical and emotional pain back with them, exacerbated by the new daily rhythms their families have had to forge in their absence. In addition to the more acute physical and emotional wounds service members must manage upon their return with uneven access to services, they face the challenge of readjusting to the rules, expectations, and pace of life at home and repositioning themselves in a social network that has shifted over the year or more they have spent in a war zone. 1

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