Grim Marriage Stats Are Latest Iraq Casualty

Dec. 22, 2007— -- When April Shacklee wished her husband farewell last year, she was prepared to be separated from him for a year. However, his deployment to Iraq ended up lasting 15 months.

The so-called troop surge in Iraq required the Pentagon to add three months to the tour of duty for nearly everyone serving there. Of the 160,000 American troops in Iraq, 135,000 are on 15-month tours.

While an extra three months may not seem like much to a civilian, to the soldier witnessing the horrors of war in Iraq, or to the newly married wife sitting at home, the extra months can be unbearable. As Shacklee attests, "That is 90 days tacked on to 365 — it is interminable, it was so, so long, so long." Shacklee was finally reunited with her husband Michael at Fort Hood, Texas, this week.

But for many families, the extended tours are more than just difficult. A Pentagon study obtained by NPR connects longer deployments to higher rates of divorce. A team of Army psychologists and counselors traveled to Iraq this fall and spoke to 2,300 soldiers. They found that a third of privates and corporals, and a quarter of sergeants, intended to divorce their spouses at the end of their 15-month tour. The study also reportedly finds an increase in suicides.

The military knows these extended commitments are unsustainable. Col. Larry Phelps, of the First Cavalry, admits, "There is no way to tell you it doesn't have an impact on the soldiers."

The problem is aggravated by the fact that many of these soldiers are called to return to Iraq for extended tours, multiple times. There are simply not enough troops to allow soldiers to take time off to recover.

Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Richard Cody acknowledges the situation. "We know that we need to get back to 12 months as fast as we can."

But the military expects extended tours to last at least through the summer.

Aaron Katersky, Gina Sunseri and Kira Mesdag contributed to this report.