Thanks for this.

I'm busy writing a journal entry about suicide and PTSD. All the news is bad, and getting worse. This was a much needed bright spot, a soldier who got help. I wish Sanders (and his buddy Godding) well.

Question for Hunter: Should the armed services be recruiting married enlisted personnel and permitting EM’s to marry below a certain rank? In past era’s most enlisted personnel (both volunteer and conscripts) were unmarried or if they were married they were usually mature senior NCO types. For young people the stress of family life is difficult enough in our modern haphazard culture but mix in the repeated long deployments particularly for the hapless Army and you have a high probability of family distress and soldier depression. My suggestion would be to restrict enlistments to unmarried people unless they are senior NCOs’ from other branches of the armed forces reenlisting and bringing specialized skills with them. This of course might reduce the number of recruits but it also might play an important role in reducing the problems associated with Tom’s article.?

The Marines have tried to restrict EMs from getting married. It didn't end well, went over about as well as the Cucolo baby bump thing in Iraq.

Having dealt with many of these soldiers and their relationships I'd love to say yes...but I can't. Bottom line is the pool of recruits is ever smaller as it is - and the Army is a young man's game. There is a myriad of contributing factors in all this, some primary (men like women, women like military men), others secondary (a marriage is a ticket out of the barracks, more allotments pay). Personal anecdote warning: Almost the day I took command of a company I had a PFC in the unit get married - way too young. Before I left command they had a kid - she was surprisingly not pregnant when they married but was shortly thereafter - and were working towards an imminent divorce. In this example there wasn't even a deployment involved!

In the end though our soldiers are young, dumb and full of cum...and we need to educate them (try to convince them not to marry, good luck with that, I never succeeded) and care for them the best we can and pick them up when they fall. BTW divorce is rampant in the senior NCO and officer ranks these days too - so unless we intend to create a real Spartiate and maybe offer comfort women, I don't think you can realistically restrict things to EMs.

Part of the premise of my journal article is that we don't do anywhere near enough to prepare soldiers for combat. Similarly we don't prepare them (or their families) enough for separation from their loved ones. It's tragic.

An excellent example of keen observation and shrewd barracks psychology by a buddy . . . that worked out this time.

As mentioned by Hunter, we don't do enough to prepare our Soldiers and Marines for life in the service, specifically those in the combat arms and the infantry in particular. We never have, and now we are in the long war with a limited human resource that shoulders a disproportionate burden from the rest of the population.

The rank and file is our nation’s cutting edge blade. The foible is where that blade is weakest - I always had a sneaking hunch in showing this foible aptly described by previous responses, we would be admitting that our profession of arms is fragile and not in keeping with the warrior image - odd, since the United States is not a warrior culture to begin with.

One can only wonder as to the number of GIs who have received the type of news Specialist Sanders did. And, how many found "a new love" as he was able to.

I would like you to consider the linkage between the shortage of troops being sent into battle in both Iraq and Afghanistan and the unprecedented suicide rates. Do you believe that tour after tour, with little time at home, is a contributing factor? The troops do. Admiral Mullen says he does.

When I am out and about I make it a point to thank our men and women in uniform. I also ask them about their experiences and thoughts. With the exception of one Army Guardsman O-5, here are the top three concerns:
- Too few resources.
- Not enough time between tours.
- Poor leadership/guidance.

I have spoken to hundreds of these fine Americans. The stress they are under, for the reasons they speak of, are not being attended to by our military and civilian leaders.

Confer,

Great post. Candidly, I think the inability/unwillingness to solve these glaring problems resides in the reflexive requirement to "save" the AVF model. If you look at some of the statements made by the Army G1 (LTG Bostick) and the Chief of the Army Reserve (LTG Stultz), they speak of the AVF in reverential, almost sacred, terms.

When you have folks who are incapable of even reevaluating their own ideologies, glaring problems get ignored. The AVF requires extracting the maximum service out of the fewest possible "volunteers" - consequences be damned. This is why we have endless deployments, insufficient "dwell time" and leaders under tremendous pressure to keep as many soldiers as possible "deployable" even if their own common sense, morality and ethics suggest otherwise.

The "cult of the AVF" is a problem. No one dares to tell the emporer he is naked.

One simple solution is to not pay housing allowances to young soldiers, as was the case prior to WWII. Here part of a good article:

"Captain Connable urged the adoption of General Mundy's idea of banning the recruitment of married people, and punishing those who marry during their first enlistment. This is the right idea, but only the wrong approach. Marriage is a religious matter, and our political leadership nor the federal courts will allow restrictions on an individual's right to enlist while married, or right to marry after enlistment. However, the strong marriage incentive could be removed if all E-3s and below receive equal pay and benefits, regardless of marital status.

A return to the traditional system in which only career servicemen are provided private quarters would mean that teenage GIs could get married, but that taxpayers will not reward them with a private home. This would remove a financial incentive for married people to enlist, and deter them from marriage until they reach the grade of E-4 at around 21 years of age, with greater maturity and better pay.

Eliminating the marriage incentive will discourage hasty marriages by teenage servicemen. It will not reward unmarried GIs for having children in order to qualify for a housing allowance. (Men receive a housing allowance for having a child out of wedlock.) Paper marriages would also be eliminated, which occur when a serviceman marries an older "friend" often a divorcee he met at a local bar. The "temporary spouse" gets military medical care and half the housing allowance, or they may share an apartment.

Equal pay for teenage GIs will have many benefits. A single GI undergoing tough entry level training will not be agitated that the married man in the next bunk is paid 30% more. Bachelor sergeants will no longer be incensed that many newly arrived privates get larger paychecks. Fewer GIs will work extra hours to make up for the absence of married personnel. Fewer military beneficiaries will mean better overall family care and housing for career servicemen. Most importantly, all GIs can focus more mental energy on their mission, rather than family strife."

The entire article is here: http://www.g2mil.com/married_teenage_warriors.htm

And yes, Optempo causes strain, and its not the fault of terrorists, but Army and Marine Generals. They can reduce the deployment strain if they want, but they prefer to stress the force so they can testify before Congress about the need for an ever bigger force. Civilian leaders must intervene and cut the optempo.

Perhaps Mr. Ricks can dig into the question of why the "overstressed" Marine Corps insists on deploying infantry battalions to Okianwa for seven months where they are not needed, not welcome, and unable to do much training due to range and space limitations. The answer is "Well, we've been doing that for decades." followed by some jibberish about how 4000 combat Marines are needed on Okinawa lest East Asia descend into chaos.

A great post Mr. Ricks. I don't agree with the no married troops idea at all. What I would be happy to do is serve on any base the military would allow me to be on,all I require is several hots,a cot and water-coffee would help. I have a masters in counseling,more than 20 years experience in the field. I served as an enlisted man in europe with HHC 7th ATC Grafenwohr, FRG and have a son currently serving. I'm retired but healthy and don't require a salary. Id be very happy to give these young people a civilian to talk to whenever they asked and needed it. I'm willing to bet that are more out their like me who would and can jump at the chance to help- if the damned (pardon me) bureaucracy would let us.