Dark Side of Military "Prevention" Efforts

Dark Side of Military "Prevention" Efforts
Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
September 9, 2013

Suicide Prevention results on efforts prove we've been snookered addresses how much money has been spent on "prevention" efforts but the worst one shows that with all these years of this "training" we are at a point where Veterans seeking death over life is at least 55 a day. That number came from the report of 1,000 veterans a month attempting suicided tied into the deaths of 22 veterans a day. I left out the totals for attempted military suicides since the 2012 Suicide Event Report with the numbers in it have not been released yet (plus the report has the latest data on all branches including the Army National Guards and Army Reserves) so while I showed the numbers that have been released, it is focusing more on the attempted suicides they admit to. The truth is we'll never really know how high these numbers are but we do have a baseline. We also know what is behind the rise in veterans wanting to die.

This was written in 2011 and what happened in 2012 proved them right and the military wrong.

The Dark Side of Comprehensive Soldier Fitness

Also problematic, the CSF program is adapted primarily from the Penn Resiliency Program (PRP) where interventions were focused on dramatically different, non-military populations.

Even with these groups, a 2009 meta-analysis of 17 controlled studies reveals that the PRP program has been only modestly and inconsistently effective. PRP produced small reductions in mild self-reported depressive symptoms, but it did so only in children already identified as at high risk for depression and not for those from the general population.

Nor did PRP interventions reduce symptoms more than comparison prevention programs based on other principles, raising questions as to whether PRP's effects are related to the "resilience" theory undergirding the program.

Further, like many experimental programs, PRP had better outcomes when administered by highly trained research staff than when given by staff recruited from the community. This raises doubts as to how effectively the CSF program will be administered by non-commissioned officers who are required to serve as "Master Resilience Trainers."

It is also important to note here two controversial aspects of the Comprehensive Soldier Fitness program that have already received attention from investigative journalists.

First, Mark Benjamin has raised provocative questions, not yet fully answered, about the circumstances surrounding the huge, $31 million no-bid contract awarded to Seligman ("whose work formed the psychological underpinnings of the Bush administration's torture program") by the Department of Defense for his team's CSF involvement.

Benjamin notes that the government allows sole-source contracts only under very limited conditions. The Army contract documents note that "there is only one responsible source due to a unique capability provided, and no other supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements." But as we have detailed above, public claims about the effectiveness of the Penn Resiliency Program and its superiority to alternative prevention programs are significantly overstated, casting doubt upon the rationale for awarding the sole-source contract.

They took a program designed to treat kids with very little evidence it worked, then decided to force it onto the troops expecting it to work? Huh? Really?

Why would they give a contract to save lives to the same man they went to for how to torture others?
Considering this came out while we ended up with the highest suicide rate on record in 2012, someone should have been paying attention.

Army strong
August 20, 2009
Training soldiers for battle, and emotional resiliency
The Army has worked diligently to stem the tragic swell of suicides and cases of post-traumatic stress disorder among soldiers burdened by physical and psychic wounds of repeated deployments. It is no quantum leap, then, that the Army would take a proactive stand and require some 1.1 million active-duty troops, reservists and National Guard members to begin "emotional resiliency" training that arms soldiers with coping skills in all kinds of situations. The hope is to stem the tide of PTSD, which plagues up to a fifth of troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, and head off other mental-health problems.

Let's take a look at another claim made focused on divorces

The Huffington Post has an article Military Divorce Risk Increases with Lengthy Deployments This included a link to a USA Today story Military divorce rate at highest level since 1999.

The military divorce rate reached its highest level since 1999, as nearly 30,000 marriages ended in fiscal 2011, raising the prospect that troop withdrawals may lead to more divorce, according to interviews and Pentagon data released Tuesday.

While that sounds really bad, the American Forces Press Service reported this way back in 2005.

Recognizing the stresses military life and multiple deployments put on families, the services are stepping up their efforts to help their members strengthen their family relationships and avoid the divorce courts.

A full range of outreach programs - from support groups for spouses of deployed troops to weekend retreats for military couples - aims to help military families endure the hardships that military life often imposes.

Specific service-by-service statistics about divorce rates within the military weren't available, but the rates for the Army give a snapshot of what are believed to be a militarywide trend.

Army officials reported 10,477 divorces among the active-duty force in fiscal 2004, a number that's climbed steadily over the past five years. In fiscal 2003, the Army reported fewer than 7,500 divorces; in 2002, just over 7,000, and in 2001, about 5,600.

During the past two years, the divorce rate has been higher among Army officers than their enlisted counterparts, reversing the previous trend, officials said. In fiscal 2003, the Army reported almost 1,900 divorces among its 56,000 married officers. The following year, that number jumped to more than 3,300 - an increase of almost 1,500.

Bad numbers going up should have proven this does not work.

Iraq war veteran had a lot on his mind before crash

PTSD may provide answers to deadly Thruway crash
WNYT News
Posted at: 02/24/2013
By: Dan Bazile

While state police continue to look into why 43 year old Julian With got on the Thruway the wrong way early Friday morning causing a deadly crash, his friends are speaking out. They say the Iraq war veteran had a lot on his mind.

“He was one of them easy go guy. He had his problems. But it was probably from the war, you know,” says neighbor David Stafford.

Aside from the war, Stafford says there were issues at home. With recently wrote on his facebook page that his wife had left him. Just hours before the crash, he was arrested by Bethlehem police for violating an order of protection in a domestic dispute. Add to that a post on his facebook page that said his mother had three months to live.
read more here

Military Divorce Rate Down Slightly in 2012

Military Divorce Rate Down Slightly in 2012
Jan 23, 2013
Military.com
by Amy Bushatz

The military divorce rate went down slightly in 2012, settling at 3.5 percent, according to Pentagon statistics released to Military.com on Tuesday.

Military officials and divorce experts are hopeful that the overall rate, which had crept slowly up from 2.6 percent in 2001 to 3.7 percent in 2011, is starting to move downward. Still, researchers are hesitant to call the decrease a real trend until they see it continue for a longer period.

“The sense is that things are possibly drifting down,” said Benjamin Karney, a researcher with the RAND Corp. who has studied military divorce. “Interpreting it is a challenge. As much as it would be terrific to say ‘Oh great, we’ve turned a corner,’ it’s really hard to do that in one year.”

The divorce rate is measured by comparing the number of married military members at the beginning to the end of the fiscal year while taking into account attrition, new recruits, and new marriages.

Between 2011 and 2012, the divorce rate went down slightly in every service among male and female servicemembers of all ranks.

Enlisted female soldiers and Marines, however, continue to experience the highest rate of divorce -- 9.4 percent and 9.3 percent respectively. In the Army, the female enlisted divorce rate is more than triple that of enlisted males. Still, those rates are down from the 2011 rates of 9.6 percent in Army and 9.8 percent in the Marine Corps.

“The divorce rates are perhaps trickling down because the pace of deployment is getting slower,” he said. “Another possibility is that the economy is kind of bouncing back and military families are absolutely affected by the broader national economy, so maybe their lives are gradually getting easier.”
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Divorce Rate Among Afghanistan, Iraq War Vets Increases by 42 Percent

Divorce Rate Among Afghanistan, Iraq War Vets Increases by 42 Percent (VIDEO)
By Luiza Oleszczuk
Christian Post Reporter

The divorce rate among military couples has increased 42 percent throughout the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, a recent study shows, adding to the woes of U.S. military veterans returning from the Middle East who already have to tackle war-related problems like post-traumatic stress disorder and high unemployment rates.

Couples' plans to pursue divorce gain plausibility with each subsequent month a service member is deployed, according to new research by Family Life, a nonprofit that focuses on marriage and parenting issues. The first 90 days after deployment are the most critical for military marriages, the organization says.

"That window is the proven time frame during which people develop habits and set the tone for the future of their marriage. It's critical for military couples to establish healthy habits quickly as they struggle to reconnect and restructure their families," Family Life Founder and President Dennis Rainey said in a statement.

Some of the most common issues touching fresh veterans are a rushed transition to civilian life, renegotiating roles with the partner, realizing both spouses have changed during deployment, and possibly the influence of post-traumatic stress disorder, the organization claims.
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Military Divorce Rates Continue Steady Climb

Military Divorce Rates Continue Steady Climb

December 14, 2011
Military.com
by Amy Bushatz

This year's overall military divorce rate has increased slightly over last year's, part of a continued upward trend since 2001, according to Defense Department statistics released Tuesday.

Researchers and military officials say the steady up-tick confirms a reality they have been expecting and dealing with all along -- years of repeated deployments slowly but surely wear on military marriages.

"What we would expect, what we predicted a while ago, is that there would be gradual ripple effects," said Benjamin Karney, an expert on military divorce and researcher with the RAND Corp.
"When we first started analyzing this in 2007, we were not seeing too much of an increase in military divorce. But we suggested that over time the effects on families would expand. And it seems like we're gradually seeing that sort of thing happen."

Since the start of operations in Afghanistan in 2001, the overall divorce rate among military members has risen from 2.6 percent in 2001 to 3.7 percent in 2011. While the year-to-year rise is statistically small, Karney said, the big picture view shows a military force replete with struggling marriages.
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PBS’ Favorite Unsung Heroine for 2009 Abandoned for Speaking Out

A tale of two military sides


Maybe as the cable news stations are fixated on Don't Ask Don't Tell regarding gay people serving in the military, someone can come up with something to make families attractive enough to report on as well. Considering how many members in the military are gay vs how many families there are in the military but not serving themselves, there are a hell of a lot more of them.

We don't see reports on CNN covering PTSD or suicides with as much devotion as they have been doing since the earthquake in Haiti, but it is a crisis right here, right now claiming more lives after war than during it, plus taking whole families down with it. Once in a while they do a brief report almost as if they felt they had to then they just move on to cover the latest news everyone else is jumping on. Tabloid journalism at it's finest hiding under humanitarian coverage.

Should they report on the fact bodies are being dumped into piles barely covered by dirt instead of shown some respect? Absolutely but considering we're burying bodies of servicemen and women taken by suicide, they should be shown some respect as well.

Maybe I'm wrong but I thought the job of journalists was to inform about what was going on in the world, including this country and telling stories that should be in the spotlight so that people will be informed enough to know they should care.

Had some gay people not been brave enough to seek justice for themselves and others, this issue would still be a deep dark secret and no one would really care if a gay service member was kicked out once in a while. Then it didn't matter if this was right or wrong because it just wasn't personal to most Americans. Now it is. It is because we know some of their stories.

With military families we know their stories way too late to do much at all. We read about the suicides and how the families are grieving as they beg for privacy or others traveling to Washington to try to stop other families from feeling their pain. We read about the numbers of divorces, but we don't know their stories except for very few willing to talk after to a reporter willing to ask.

Well, here we have a story of a woman who used to be of interest to reporters when they needed her to help them put together an article they could just right and move on from. Not that most of them were ever personally involved in any of this, or they would have not been able to walk away from any of this. This military wife didn't walk away. She was shoved away.

Carissa is a dear friend and there have been very few advocates for the servicemen and women coming from within. She broke the unspoken rule of telling the truth about what was going on and she gained the media spotlight so fast it was a testament to her talent as well as her work. To see what has happened to her in a little over a year should be an alarm bell to every reporter out there that there is a serious problem this nation has and it stems from the military culture itself.

How many divorces could have been prevented if the military had resources that worked? How many suicides could have been prevented if the military families were given enough educational weapons to fight the ghosts soldiers bring back from battle? Ever wonder?

We have spouses willing to drop their own lives and careers to be married to someone willing to lay down their lives for this country. We have kids settling for going without making any long lasting friends because they have to move too often. We have men and women deployed worrying about what it happening back home because their spouse is too lonely and no one seems to care. They move away from their extended families so they can be with their military spouse but then when they deploy, where are they supposed to go with kids in school and families hundreds of miles away? Working? How can they find a job when they may be transferred? There are only so many jobs on base or temp jobs in traveling distance.

So when we read about divorces in the military, read this and then maybe the next time you hear some numbers it'll be a bit more personal to you because you will see what happened to a wife after she cared enough to try to change what was wrong.

PBS’ Favorite Unsung Heroine for 2009 Abandoned for Speaking Out
February 2, 2010 by Robert L. Hanafin ·
Last December I posted an article Military Divorces continue to increase, a spokesman for the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) said that,

“Every marriage has controllable and uncontrollable factors, but when you interject eight years of war, preparing for war, being at war, coming home and having to think about going back to war again, and when you have children, it just has a tremendous impact on the family unit.” However, the VFW also said that the military prides itself on taking care of military families.

As a retired military officer who served in two services the Army and Air Force, I can assure you that WE do take care of our own as long as our own stays in line, and does not make wave. However, what happens to military spouses once their uniformed husband or wife decides that that the Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marines is their real family during a war that our nation is not committed to?

Yes, we can say that before a man or women marries someone in uniform they must agree to the Soldier’s Creed, Airmen’s Creed or whatever creed, even the one made up for Military Spouses to place ‘the mission’ above all else including family, but that does nothing for the spouse and children that the military member, and the Pentagon abandons.

Despite being a licensed attorney in good standing with the bar in MD, having been named a national unsung heroine by PBS for women’s history month in 2009 AND being an being an unpaid advocate for Wounded Warriors and Military Families, plus an active duty spouse for nearly eight years, she has not been able to find a job despite her best efforts.

She has been applying for jobs since April of 2009, and now she, like many other spouses enduring military divorces, is desperate for help. She is being forced into the streets with her two sons (ages 6 and 9), because she has to move out of her on-post housing by March 8.

She is willing to relocate ANYWHERE in the country and she is now open to any position even if she is overqualified.

Simply put no military spouse rather they decide to permanently marry the military or not should have to send out such a desperate plea for help.

Frankly, I should not even have to be posting this, because this lady and thousands like her feel abandoned.

If anyone has any ideas how to approach the over issue of how military spouses once divorced are mistreated and abandoned, or can at least help this lady with job prospects, please contact me.

read more here

Favorite Unsung Heroine for 2009 Abandoned for Speaking Out

Broken Military Marriages: Another Casualty of War

Broken Military Marriages: Another Casualty of War
By Stacy Bannerman, AlterNet. Posted January 23, 2009.



If politicians want to protect marriage, they should work to support veterans and military families.

More than 13,000 military marriages ended last year, and mine came dangerously close to becoming one of them, but it wasn’t because of some gays getting hitched. Military marriages are at increasingly high risk of failure, and combat is the cause.

Most of the boots on the ground in Iraq are worn by Marines, active duty Army, or Army National Guard. They have served the most and longest deployments, seen the most combat, and suffered the most injuries, both physical and psychological. In 2008, the active-duty Army and Marines also had a higher percentage of failed marriages than the Navy or Air Force, whose rates held steady or decreased slightly.

Divorce rates for women in the Army or Marines were nearly three times that of their male counterparts, which speaks volumes about the effect of war on women, as well as the gender roles, societal expectations, and resiliency of their husbands. The fact that the Veterans Administration has just a handful of gender-specific treatment programs for women, and there’s been scant attention, research, and support for women veterans speaks for itself.

A study published in Armed Forces & Society revealed that male combat veterans were 62 percent more likely than civilian males to have at least one failed marriage. In 2006, Kansas State University professor Walter Schumm surveyed 337 soldiers at Fort Riley who had recently returned from Iraq. 6.1 percent said they would probably divorce, and 12.2 percent indicated that they would be divorcing. By comparison, two to four percent of civilian marriages end in divorce each year.

Due to the unprecedented deployments of citizen soldiers and the unique challenges faced by the families they leave behind, divorce rates among Guard and Reservists may be even higher than active duty. The military doesn’t monitor the divorce rates of citizen soldiers, who are more likely than active duty troops to be married, and nearly twice as likely to have combat-related stress. According to SOFAR (Strategic Outreach to Families of All Reservists), "20 percent of returned married troops are planning a divorce, [and] problems in relationships in families are four times higher after … deployment."
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Soldiers Deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan Wars Also Fight for Child Custody

Soldiers Deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan Wars Also Fight for Child Custody

Ann Scott Tyson


Washington Post

Dec 30, 2008
December 30, 2008, Fort Lee, Virginia - Army Sgt. Stephanie Greer was serving with a vehicle-maintenance unit in the volatile Iraqi city of Ramadi, part of President Bush's "surge" strategy to stabilize the country, when she learned of a far-off and most unexpected battle: Her estranged husband was going to fight her for custody of their daughter.

Greer had temporary custody of Mackenzie when she began her second deployment to Iraq in early 2007. Her husband was to care for the 7-year-old while Greer was overseas, but soon he challenged that arrangement in divorce proceedings. "He said I was unstable because I was deployed or training too much," she said.

As a result, throughout her 15-month combat tour, Greer had to mount from 4,000 miles away a legal campaign to keep her daughter.

"If I had not deployed, I know I never would have faced this situation," said Greer, 39. "I don't think it should be held against you, and I don't think my time away, or me deploying, affects my ability to be a mother or provide for my kids."

If she expected support in that position from the military, she was disappointed. Instead, the message she said she received from her superiors was: Deal with it.
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Military families turn to more resources to cope

As number of deployments rises, military families turn to more resources to cope

08:24 PM PST on Thursday, December 25, 2008

By MARK MUCKENFUSS
The Press-Enterprise

Reports in recent months on the state of the military family have not been encouraging.

Earlier this month, The Associated Press reported that military documents showed a 12percent increase in the divorce rate among Marines in the past year. Recent studies, including at least one conducted by the military, show an elevated risk of domestic violence among military personnel and veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder. Cases of post-traumatic stress are on the rise.

The strain placed on relationships by military deployments is never easy. But the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have brought an unprecedented number of repeated deployments that experts say put even more demands upon individual soldiers and their families.

NUMBERS INCREASE

But Marianne Espinoza knows that other couples struggle. She deals with them on a daily basis. So does Peter Morris, program manager for Family Advocacy at the Marine base in Twentynine Palms

"Of the people we're seeing, it seems that multiple deployments are complicating their lives," Morris said.

Although the number of Marines seeking counseling in his program hasn't risen significantly in the past year, he said, the percentage of those seeking help with anger management has nearly doubled. In fiscal year 2007, Morris said, his program saw 77 clients for anger management out of a total of 535. For 2008, the total number of clients rose slightly to 560, but anger management cases jumped to 144.

Morris attributes part of the increase to better promotion of his program's services and an increased effort to identify and treat Marines who may be having problems.

But, he said, "I think the doubling may also reflect that for some individuals the stress is telling."

This part is wrong. Too bad the reporter did not know the facts. The 300,000 is the number the RAND Corp. released in a study on PTSD. They also used another 350,000 for their TBI figures. There have been over 1.8 million deployed between Iraq and Afghanistan, just to clear the record up on this report.

TRAUMA TRANSFERS

Helga West is president and CEO of Witness Justice, a Maryland-based organization that advocates for victims of violent crime and, more recently, military personnel. A voluntary Web-based survey conducted by Witness Justice showed the trauma of the battlefield being transferred to the home front.

West admits that the 248 survey participants are "not very representative" of the military as a whole. More than 300,000 have served in Iraq and/or Afghanistan. Nonetheless, she believes the results should raise concerns. She points to the fact that 60 percent of the respondents said their family relationships had changed after deployment. Fifty-five percent said that family life was challenging after their return.
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http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/stories/PE_News_Local_S_vets26.3879dbc.html

Happy Holidays: Military Divorce Numbers On the Rise and why

This is what Paul Rieckhoff of IAVA has to say on this. He talks about the re-deployments, which is part of it. He talks about the economy, again, part of the problem. He also puts in the National Guard and Reservists, again, correct. But he left out the biggest reason for divorces of all.

Happy Holidays: Military Divorce Numbers On the Rise
Paul RieckhoffPosted December 5, 2008 09:08 AM (EST)

The holidays are usually a joyous time to spend with family and friends, sipping eggnog, trading presents, singing carols. But this year given the gloomy economic circumstances and ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, I'm reminded of a line from the holiday classic Christmas Vacation: "It's Christmas and we're all in misery."

For some military families, the stress of war has proven to be too much:

While 1st Lt. Mike Robison was serving in Iraq in 2003-04, his wife, Candance, depicted him as a "good, brave man"... But the marriage fell apart after Robison's return home to Texas. Candance said they argued over her role managing the household and how he treated her 10-year old daughter from a previous relationship.

"It absolutely changed him," Candance said of his deployment. "I still struggle every day--that year has affected every single aspect of my life."


Heartbreaking stories like the Robisons' are increasingly common. This week, new numbers from the Department of Defense confirm that the divorce rate among active-duty troops is rising.
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What's the biggest reason people, regular people, have for getting divorced? They say their partner changed. Most of us can put up with the stress of money. After all that happens in just about every marriage. Most of us can put up with a lot if the person we married stays the way they were and we know we are loved. That is the reason we decide to marry the person we marry. We love them and they love us. We want to spend the rest of our lives with them and we expect them to stay just the way they are.

We may allow for slight changes because no one is really totally honest when we are dating. What we don't want to allow for is drastic changes. We don't know how to handle them. We don't know what to expect when the person we thought we knew changes. We end up wondering when the changes will stop happening and if we will even still like them.

This is PTSD. Unexpected drastic changes.

I was watching a video the other day addressing how a National Guardsman came home and was changed by PTSD. He was thinking about committing suicide. The wife was stunned and hurt by the fact her husband, the man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with, wanted to leave her and wanted to die. She knew he had PTSD but still she didn't know enough to understand where all of that was coming from and it really didn't matter what she meant to him when he was being eaten up alive. The fact is, nothing we do, no matter how much we love them, we cannot get them past PTSD without professional help.

What knowledge does is it helps us to get them to go for help. It helps us help them. With support, they are a lot more likely to seek help. One more thing knowledge does, and this is a big one, it keeps us from making PTSD worse.

How many times have you heard about a wife getting punched out for waking up her husband from a nightmare? It happens a lot more times than you will ever hear about. It happens when they are also having a flashback. In those times, they are in the grips of danger and under tremendous stress, reliving having their lives on the line. If we understand this, we are a lot less likely to make serious mistakes that can escalate into violence. The same thing happens with arguments. They think differently, process things differently, remember differently. If we know what comes with PTSD, we know when to drop a subject and walk away before things get out of hand. We know we can talk about it later when things are calmer.

I've been married for 24 years and made all the mistakes the newer wives are making even knowing what I know. Even with all the knowledge in the world, we're still human emotional people. When those times come we're able to get over without holding a grudge and forgive. There are unacceptable things done that I will not put up with but he knows what they are. If I didn't know what came with PTSD, it would be nearly impossible to not take it personally.

What really gets me is when a wife will tell me they don't want to know what PTSD is, or a husband does not want to know what happened when his wife was deployed. When they refuse to acknowledge life away from them and what the men and women deployed into combat go thru, they are paving the road to disaster. If they have children, it's even worse. The kids end up more upset and pulling away from their parent and resenting both of them.

Until we all take a serious look at what goes into destroying a marriage in the military, we're doomed to see a lot more of them collapse when they could be saved.

We can talk all we want about the usual suspects in wreaking a marriage but there is nothing usual about putting PTSD into a household without acknowledging it. My marriage would have been over and done with within the first four years if I didn't know what was doing it to both of us. Too many marriages have failed when they could have been saved. We have enough problems living with a "normal" spouse that has not been changed by PTSD and the divorce rate in the civilian population proves that. When you add in PTSD, it's the prefection of misery if they don't fully understand it.


Senior Chaplain Kathie "Costos" DiCesare
International Fellowship of Chaplains
Namguardianangel@aol.com
www.Namguardianangel.com
www.Woundedtimes.blogspot.com
www.youtube.com/NamGuardianAngel
"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive veterans of early wars were treated and appreciated by our nation." - George Washington

Longer deployments taking toll on soldiers

'The human psyche can only take so much'
Longer deployments taking toll on soldiers as combat stress, suicides, depression and family pressures soar
By Kirsten Scharnberg Tribune correspondent
May 5, 2008
FT. RILEY, Kan.—On this historic Army post where more than 7,000 soldiers have been deployed to Iraq on extended tours of duty, virtually everyone has a story about how the long absences have affected those back home.

The young wives who decide the lifestyle is too hard and pen "Dear John" letters before packing up.

The families that begin to unravel when a soldier comes home mentally or physically damaged from more than a year in combat.

The chaplains who work round-the-clock to staff new family intervention programs: for war-strained marriages, for suicide prevention, for kids missing their parents.

"The human psyche can only take so much," said Capt. Jeff Van Ness, a chaplain who returned from duty in Iraq just two weeks ago. "And a 15-month deployment seems to be where we really began to see some breaking points."

Just over a year ago, the Defense Department announced that the Army would shift from 12-month tours to 15-month tours to support a surge of forces into Iraq. Since then, there has been constant debate about how well that gambit worked militarily and politically.

But it is on Army installations like Ft. Riley, a sprawling base in the heart of Kansas, where officials are taking stock of the human toll these extended tours have taken on tens of thousands of Army families nationwide.

Suicide rates are up, with the Pentagon reporting that some 20 percent more troops committed suicide in 2007 than in 2006. Divorce rates, which have been escalating since 2003, remain at about 3.3 percent, up from 2.9 percent before the start of the war. Incidences of combat stress are soaring, with a new independent study finding that as many as 1 in 5 service members are returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder or major depression, a reality that deeply affects their families. And numerous posts, including Ft. Riley, are beginning to study whether there are correlations between deployments and domestic assaults, sexual assaults and alcohol offenses.

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http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-military-families_frimay05,0,7557849.story