A surprising divorce statistic
For us those who have served in the in the Naval components of the military divorce has become a near punchline. Since the start of the seemingly endless 12-18 month deployments of the post-9/11 Army I’m sure it’s much the same on that side of the house (if not before). People in the military often discuss their first marriages as a fairly regular phenomenon.
So it comes as a bit of a surprise to me to read this headline in the Military Times: Air Force divorce rate highest in military.
The divorce rate among airmen today is almost 64 percent higher than in 2001, and is the highest in the military, according to a recent Defense Department report.
A decade ago, when the U.S. invaded Afghanistan, the rate stood at 2.5 divorces per 100 marriages. In 2011, the number jumped to 3.9. The rate has climbed steadily in the past decade except in 2005 and in 2008, when it dropped ever so slightly, according to Air Force statistics obtained by Air Force Times.
Bizarre, no? But here’s where they lose me:
Chief Master Sgt. of the Air Force James Roy said that multiple deployments and the stress of two wars have contributed to the rise in Air Force divorces.
“Deployments do take a toll on families. What we do is not easy, and separation can be difficult. It can also be a challenge when our Airmen transition home after their deployments,” Roy said in a statement to Air Force Times.
You know what? Bullshit.
There’s something going on in the force that extends beyond the regular stress of deployments. I’ll double down on that statement knowing the quality of life and “homesteading” efforts they’ve made over on the Blue Side. I gratefully recognize that the components of AFSOC gets worn the hell out. The reality, though, is that for the overwhelming majority of the Air Force is that they’re looking at four to six month deployments, per year, MAX. Absolute max. I’d be flat out shocked to see a significant demographic of non-SOCOM Airmen who were deployed more than a quarter of their time in.
The average divorce rate today in the US stands at about 3.4 per thousand. In other words higher than the military average during times of non-conflict but lower than the AF average now.
The article goes into further sociological conjecture but I’m not really buying most of it. For our tuned in readers I ask: what’s going on?
Category: Air Force
Tax exempt dollars, time away (re-discovery of self), a easy out via JAG’s lib leanings.
Sorry posted anonymously above, and edit please to say “Tax exempt dollars earned.”
My currently son-in-law is in Qatar…Qatar, where the lead dipshit is forming a “Sunni Relaliatory Force” to help out either in Iraq or anywhere else I guess Sunni’s are being hurt.
My point is, yes, 6mos., where he’s doing next to nada, lifting, doing his 0500-1700’ish job, HVAC repair.
He’s there, my daughter, and grandson are here, in Va. She’s a medic. Having to deal with the sick, lame and lazy every day.
Between the two she has it much harder.
Will it end in divorce?
Hell I don’t know.
My wife and I guide them, having survived our own military services (Army), time apart and time together. She was also a medic, I was an intel (sigint intercept/counter sig) guy who went on to do CA as late as ’05 at the ripe old age of 39 (that’s old when you’re team is in their early 20’s).
We made it so far.
In the ’50s or early ’60s Reader’s Digest did an article about this and stated that the Strategic Air Command had a higher divorce rate than all military sevices combined. My brand new 17 y/o wife (I was a 20 y/o AF E3) and I did 10 years in SAC and and 4 1/2 frs here and there. We celebrated our 55th Dec 27. It can be done if you commit to it.
#3 should have read,4 1/2 yrs here and there(Hickam, Travis).
I’ve had a practice wife, like many others. Divorce has been common in the Army [in my experience], especially in the SOF community, where long deployments were a standard feature pre-9/11.
I would be shocked to find out if USAF had a higher rate of divorce than Big Green, given the deployment tour lengths.
The joke on the boats when someone got married wasn’t if someone would get a divorce but when. In almost six years on two different boats I can remember ONE guy who got married while on the boat as opposed to before getting there or after getting out. Divorces, OTOH…75 percent divorce rates seemed to be the norm.
It’s that time of year when the bowl games are on and the Military Times puts out their screamer headlines of higher divorce rates even if the change from last year may not be big.
The problem is the AF deployment machine has been broken for years. In general, we don’t deploy as full units. Your support structure, rating chain may stay stateside while a squad goes forward. You then have 6mos to form, storm, norm, and rarely perform. You’re assigned to AEFs, Bands, Buckets, to try to give predictability. The only thing predictable is those who give the most get F*cked the hardest. Add to it the RIFs that have been going on since 02 or 03. RIF a ton of folks, then deploy the remaining more frequently. It’s 6 month tours (I don’t know many people on 120 day turns any more outside of aircrews and AFSOC) and the 356 fairy has been visiting many more nowadays. And while only 6mos, it may happen annually or more. I thought that Big Green had about 15 mos of dwell after return whereas some AFSCs are going out every year.
Now, the sociologist in me would posit that maybe the lack of support structure deployed and frequency versus length. But I think our sample size is going to screw up any analysis–since we’re comparing different specialties, tour lengths, tour frequencies, etc. It may also be the ‘corporate’ nature of the AF where NCO time doesn’t exist and you don’t have the familial relationship with the unit as much.
I don’t have any statistics to back this up, but I was raised an Air Force brat (Vietnam era), spent 4 years in the peace time Army and have a sister who’s married to a recently retired Air Force lifer (GWOT era). It seems to me that there are fewer MOS’s in the AF than in the other branches that would require significant time away from home when there’s not a war going on, so it’s not surprising that when the country goes to war and people in career fields who hadn’t been required to be separated from their families suddenly are, they would see an increase in all the negative social outcomes associated with separation.
It’s probably an aberration, but both my mother and my sister have told me that they thought their husband’s deployments helped strengthen their marriages. They felt that the time apart helped them better appreciate having their husbands around when they were home.
It might be interesting to see the raw data on length of marriage prior to the first deployment. I’d be willing to bet that couples who hadn’t been married long prior to that first separation were much less likely to survive the deployment than couples who had had time to grow together before being pulled apart.
I don’t know about the Air Force, but it seems like everyone who deploys comes back changed. I keep being told I have a “problem” but I don’t feel like I have a problem. I wonder if the problems are not the Soldiers and Airmen, but the people around them with the “problems”. Soldiers and Airmen seem to be getting alot of the attention due to PTSD now in the headlines but I bet most don’t have PTSD. A lot of this can be boiled down to family dynamics and its not necessarily the Soldier/Airman’s fault.
As an AF spouse married to an E7, I can say it is generally the alcoholism and the things that come with it, that kills soo many marriages. Unfortunately, the USAF isn’t inclined to do anything about it unless they screw up at work.
Had I married mine when he was still “young and dumb” it wouldn’t have lasted.
This is just another load of crap from Military “Crimes” in an attempt to sell more papers. I have worked with AF manpower and personnel data for over 13 years. I have also had a few dealings with reporters from AF “Crimes.” They will take whatever data you give them and twist it to whatever conclusion they want. For instance, in the story, they break out the rates by AFSC and claim that a military Aide-de-campe has the second highest divorce rate. WTF? First, that is not a permanent AFSC (it is an 8 or 9 series). People in that career field are qualified in other AFSCs. Second, the number of people in the career field is statistically insignificant, so the conclusion is invalid.
They also compare AFSC groups without any regards to the population size – they are basing their claims strictly on percentages. Finally, I really doubt they attempted to correlate deployments with the divorce rate.
I’m currently working supporting the Air Force, and having significant culture shock. From the Big Wigs to lower enlisted, I constantly hear the refrain of ‘not my job, that’s your problem,’ and a lack of accountability. Where folks’ feet are held to the fire, they get mighty resentful – to the point of complaining to contracting to get a contractor fired.
Two tenets of marriage are taking responsibility, and accepting accountability. From what I’ve seen of the Air Force so far, I’m not surprised that the service’s values undermine marriage.
My girlfriends and I have talked about this, in a roundabout way for years. I grew up AF, married Army. Although DH is retired now, it wasn’t until after a tour in both Afghanistan and Iraq. While my childhood was during a “peace time”, it was also the cold-war era. I remember many a training deployment for both parents.
We’ve often wondered if the shorter but more frequent deployments weren’t harder than the longer ones. And DH has often said it was much easier during the Iraq deployment (in 2004 as part of 3rd ACR) was much easier to get through because they were so busy than the Afghanistan tour because he went later in the fight there, when things were calmer.
I can say that as weird as it initially sounds, it was much easier to adjust and deal with the longer deployments than the shorter TDYs. Even moreso than the 30 days downrange training. You’re able to find your groove, so to speak, during the long tours while the shorter ones tend to keep the family in flux. So, maybe the very fact that the AF does the shorter more frequent tours is harder on marriages.
I would also posit that the changes the AF has made to be more like a fighting force (vs the corporate service) have also lended to the higher divorce rate. I’d be interested to know whether the divorce rate is higher or increasing in “older” marriages or newer ones.
Perhaps with all the news coverage of the jobs people are doing, move AF wives are finding out their enlisted husbands aren’t the fighter pilots or PJ’s they thought they were marrying. Those AF wives are longing for the men in Green with light blue cords, or the grunts that are getting time off from being sheep for the Navy that drives them around….
#14: Naw. Think tankerswife is on to something. And I’m curious about the demographics as well.
#14…Umm, NO. If I wanted a guy in a pickle suit, I could easily have gotten one. I view them, SEALs, and Delta guys like I do bull riders; might be nice for a booty call (before I got married), but no way in hell I’d marry one.
I still stand by my statement about the rampant drinking and related behavior. I’ve seen enough of it with my own eyes as well as having younger spouses want to cry on my shoulder. Add in babies/toddlers/young kids, tours or deployments that where spouses can’t go (even NCS) and it makes the USAF more like the rest of the military.
Watching the married guys who treated their one year tours in Korea like a free pass to drink like fish and bed anything that looked remotely female.
Long distance relationships (married/dating) usually fail, except in Hollywood movies or romance novels; whether you are in the military or not. Being in the military emphasizes deployments. As for the zoomies having the highest rate… I want to know the Enlisted vs. Officer stats and dig a bit deeper (eg. MOS, type of unit etc.). Leadership can only go so far- ” If they wanted you to have a wife, they’d issue you one” somehow rings true.
Delta force divorce rate is 99%. I am one of the 99%, and I can say from every other spouse I’ve talked with, the speech and reasons given by the Delta Force Soldiers is almost identical. Every spouse, and I’ve talked with almost 100 so far, say’s the same thing. “Oh my god, it’s like they have a script or something!! My Husband did/said the EXACT same thing!” Surprising? Chilling? I think planned, by Delta Force to get rid of nuclear family and replace it with Delta family. I speck truth and from experiance. M.B.
Thank you for speaking the truth M.B. I too am a Delta Force divorce/widow I prefer to call it. The men change so much once they get in, you don’t know who is living in your house anymore, or where all the petty snarky comments are coming from. But This is my experiance; They hire only the best looking females, who are willing to flirt and have been caught on video in building during office hour screwing on desktops. Way to go Delta! Family First my butt! If you want to end your current marriage, go Delta. And be prepared to be a victim of spouse abuse. One wife’s husband put a gun IN HER MOUTH. Most wives wake to their husbands trying to strangle them. I put this out for all the wives going in to know. Removal of this post will result in this going public in newspapers and television.
I am exercising my right to freedom of speech, which is in the Constitution and enforced by the US Armed forces. You Have been warned. Deletion of my truths is taking away my freedom. I have to read all the promotional pro-delta crap, this is truth time on the real deal.
Arby, you are an IDIOT!
Delta Force Divorce Rate 99%, If you are a wife of a soldier wanting to go Delta, you can kiss your family life goodby in2-3 years. First they are real nice, suck in your family, then they pick apart your nuclear family and brainwash hubby that Delta is family. They get treated like kings, so coming home to you is a huge letdown. They hire only great looking females, who sleep with any and all, so again you look less and less appealing. Soon, they return home from a deployment with all their body hair shaved off and an empty bottle of Viagra in their kit bag along with no affection for family and the same script every other asshole in that unit uses, word for word. Yep, take it from experience, Delta guys fuck anything, lie about everything, and feel entitled to all things, esp being above the law. They are trained to get away with murder, and do. Buddies in every corner hide auto accidents resulting in deaths, hog tying annoying neighbors along fence lines as they burn down the house because they were “noisy with their music”. What do Delta do when not deployed killing people and destroying property? The same shit. Ever wonder why Fayetteville has the highest violent crime rate in the nation? I bet you don’t now.
Re: “Delta Divore Rate”,
I don’t know who you are or why you feel it necessary to both declare you’ll “go to the media” if we remove your posts and share you’re misunderstanding of your Constitutional rights.
Regardless, I’m going to leave your posts up because you’re obviously unhinged. Or a liar. Or just a bitter angry ex-wife. It doesn’t matter really, I’m going to leave your posts because I WANT people to see what a nut you are, just in case you post the same nonsense somewhere else. As long as you don’t post innocent, third party’s personal information, jeopardize the safety of anyone down range or post spam or malware links you can be as crazy as you want to be here.
As for “going to the media?” Knock yourself out.
I just started dating a delta guy. I have dated and sf guy before and he was just like the rest of them. Pretty typical. But the delta guy I’m seeing seems pretty down to earth. I am always concerned they are using some jedi mind trick and wonder if he is doing the same. Can anyone give me any information on what a chick has to go through? Backgrounds? Stalking? What are there habits in this respect? I let my intuition guide me and so far I have nothing on this guy…
Also…could anyone tell me what they’re typical day is like in general? Long hours? Etc.
Thank u