I myself have felt the uncertainty and worry; my heart racing at every report of another roadside bombing or military base attack … me and the other 154,000 families with U.S. military servicemen who will be serving in Afghanistan by year’s end.
In March, it will be the U.S. military’s eighth year at war in Afghanistan. Eight years of our families being separated, eight years of one parent struggling to support family while simultaneously raising children, eight years of children not understanding why mom or dad can’t be there for their birthday.
In hopes to finally end this calamity, President Obama ordered 30,000 more soldiers to Afghanistan on December 1, 2009, adding to the 124,000 already there. This makes the number of overall troops deployed to the entire Middle East now exceed two million. Obama aims to strengthen Afghanistan’s security forces to make the U.S. withdrawal faster and more efficient by July of 2011. Obama unintentionally is also causing 30,000 more families to have financial and emotional hardship for the next year.
When Congress was debating whether they should deploy more troops, little consideration was given to what that expansion might do to families of those deployed, the people this war was supposed to be protecting in the first place. Studies from RAND Corp, the Army Reserve Family Program, the Department of Health and Human Services and the US Department of Veteran Affairs have all shown the same result: deployment of a spouse or parent significantly damages family life and stresses both those serving and their family.
Children of those deployed feel this stress the most. Thirty percent of military family teens live with anxiety disorder while their parents are deployed. Over the past eight years, teens of those serving have sought mental health treatment two million times. Much of the stress is caused by having more responsibility at home and having to miss school activities. The more stress the single parent has and the harder he or she is handling the deployment, the more the child’s feelings will mirror his or her parent’s. Girls especially have a difficult time coping with deployment and consequently find it harder to reconnect with the parent once the father or mother returns from war. Teens often show academic decline and rapid mood changes that cause actual physical pain, such as stomach aches. But it’s not only children and teens who are being affected deployment.
Spouses of deployed soldiers are also being pushed down under the weight of large amounts of anxiety. They often times have to balance multiple jobs to support their children, leaving them little time to listen and talk with them. USA Today reports the divorce rate between military families has risen 78 percent since 2003. The divorces are not just due to separation, but also because of the struggles that occur when the couple is finally reunited.
Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is the not so silent killer of many military families. PTSD is an anxiety disorder associated with serious traumatic events such as survivor guilt. PTSD affects one in eight returning veterans in the first three months at home. Veterans with this condition commonly develop eating disorders, alcohol abuse and other addictive behaviors. Sufferers also show severe mood swings of hostility and fear. Their behavior, though unintentional, generally alienates their family members.
President Bush, who was president during the majority of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, cut $1.5 billion in military family spending. Recently under Obama’s administration, weekend marriage retreats have been introduced in the hopes of reducing the growing military divorce rate, and in his State of the Union Address Obama promised an 8.8 billion dollar increase in military family spending.
Still, even more should be done. The government needs to make more widely available support programs for children of those in the military or other government agencies. Whole family guidance with veterans could also help to lessen effects of PTSD and to initiate reconnection. Families, minors especially, need to be aware of why their kin are at war, how to handle their feelings and who to go to with questions. The President needs to spend this budget increase wisely and put the families of those who are serving in the forefront (to help not only them, but the men and women who risk their lives every day in war zones) by making professional help and support more plentiful and easily accessed by the public.
I want to know that the government is trying to help the growing number of families like mine. I want to know that I have someone to talk to when the road side bombings and military base attacks happen.