Divorce Rate Increases in Marine Corps, Army
Divorce rate increases in Marine Corps, Army as wars strain marriages
The long and repeated deployments required of many troops have been widely blamed for unprecedented stresses on military couples. Spouses at home must manage families and households without their partner. The strain also has contributed to higher suicide rates and more mental health problems among troops.
The Marines and soldiers have been the bulk of the land force fighting the two wars.
The divorce rate stayed at 3.5 percent this year for the Air Force and went down slightly to 3 percent from 3.2 percent for the Navy.
Women in the military usually suffer higher rates of failed marriages than men and that trend held true again last year. Army women divorced at a rate of 8.5 percent compared to 2.9 percent for men. Female Marines divorced at a rate of 9.2 percent, compared to 3.3 percent of the married men.
There is no comparable system for tracking civilian divorces. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the divorce rate for the general population was 3.6 per 1,000 people in 2005 — the most recent statistics immediately available; that was the lowest rate since 1970.
The per capita divorce rate is different from a second method of calculation — the percentage of marriages that eventually will end in divorce or separation. The CDC said that year that 43 percent of all first marriages end in divorce within 10 years.
The military numbers also do not speak to troubled but intact marriages. In mental health surveys taken in Iraq, some 15 percent of troops have said they intended to divorce when they got home.
All the services have started programs to help couples weather wartime stresses.
"Military families continue to stand behind their soldiers and help those in need," Boyce said, noting that 58 percent of soldiers in today's Army are married. "America is now in the third-longest war in its history. This is the first extended conflict since the Revolution fought with an all-volunteer Army."
