Joe Boyles
One of the great challenges facing military families is deployment when the service member travels to a forward deployed station, often overseas, for an extended period of time. The military acronym is TDY which stands for ‘temporary duty.’ Sometimes that period of TDY may stretch to six months or more. My longest period of TDY was 196 days in a war zone. As you can imagine, it was very stressful for my wife back in 1972.
The United States has commitments all around the world. Marines, soldiers, and airmen man bases and posts to fulfill those commitments. The Navy is always at sea, and the U.S. Coast Guard stands a diligent watch. Since more than three-quarters of the globe is covered by water, the Navy and Coast Guard patrol the oceans worldwide, primarily to keep sea lanes open for the transportation of commerce.
Back to my experience – in 27 years of active duty with the Air Force, seven were spent forward deployed in overseas assignments. These were all flying assignments in fighter squadrons. Although my family accompanied me for two of the longer assignments, we traveled frequently from home station with our jets to even more forward bases in Italy and Turkey.
I’m going to guess that I might have spent as many as nine years or a third of my career away from my family. That’s a lot and can take considerable toll on the relationship between husband and wife. In retrospection, I tip my hat to my wife. I think she bore more responsibility and kept things going at home when duty took me away.
It takes a strong marriage willing to grow and prosper to survive these separations. I think it is equally tough on the children. Additionally, they are being uprooted every couple of years to move to a new home, new school and new friends. Again from my perspective, I had twelve duty assignments over the course of my career, and we had children under our roof for ten of those assignments.
Deployments in today’s military seem more frequent and longer than I recall. Ever since 9/11, the combat deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq have taken their toll. We are now more than fifteen years into these conflicts with no apparent end in sight. It is not that common to hear of instances with soldiers who have deployed five or more times to the war zone.
Additionally, there are taxing missions into the horn of Africa and our long-standing argument with North Korea. More than twenty thousand US servicemen and women are stationed today in South Korea, hopefully to keep the peace.
My first duty assignment out of flight training in 1972 was to South Korea. I left behind on the other side of the world my family – a young wife and year-old daughter. We were separated for a little over a year. Our only communication was by mail. Over thirteen months, we did have two short reunions which were wonderful, but the time away seemed forever.
The communications today is much better thanks to the internet. The military has recognized how difficult these frequent separations are, and have built a stronger support structure. Additionally, the families support each other. Everyone is in the same boat, and the trials are equally understood.
Combat adds to the stress. The military mission is dangerous, and casualties are frequent. This adds even more stress to families separated by long distance and fear for their loved one’s safety. The most fearful sight is the arrival of an official vehicle at the front door driven by a commander and a chaplain with somber faces. I’ve seen it too often. I did it once as the commander. While it is part of the job, it leaves an indelible impression.
Many times, the stress is just too much to bear. Families split or service members resign to pursue a more peaceful, normal career. I’m not sure if the suicide rate is above the national average, but I wouldn’t be surprised.
Not all of our military is married with families. Given the age of our active duty forces and demographics, my guess is that fewer than half are married which eases the burden of deployment. For our Guard and Reserve forces that don’t deploy as often and are generally older, the rate of married is higher.
Against the backdrop of this narrative is the reminder that we have had an all-volunteer military for more than forty years. There is no draft or compulsory service.