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A Background article for David

In the breaks in his writing schedule, David has promised to stop by and chat for a while!
A Background article for David
Post by dreamrider   » Tue Mar 08, 2011 12:53 pm

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Saw this article on Yahoo, on a different aspect of/ issue for women warriors. Thought David might find it interesting for deep background.

By KIMBERLY HEFLING, Associated Press Kimberly Hefling, Associated Press – 1 hr 18 mins ago
WASHINGTON – Two failed marriages were the cost of war for Sgt. Jennifer Schobey.

The breaking point in her first marriage came when her husband deployed to Afghanistan, the last in a long line of separations they had endured as they juggled two military careers. Schobey married another combat veteran, but eventually that union failed under the weight of two cases of post-traumatic stress disorder — his and hers. They are now getting divorced.

Separations. Injuries. Mental health issues. All are added weights to the normal strains of marriage.

For women in the military, there's a cold, hard reality: Their marriages are more than twice as likely to end in divorce as those of their male comrades — and up to three times as likely for enlisted women. And military women get divorced at higher rates than their peers outside the military, while military men divorce at lower rates than their civilian peers.

About 220,000 women have served in Afghanistan and Iraq in roles ranging from helicopter pilots to police officers. Last year, 7.8 percent of women in the military got a divorce, compared with 3 percent of military men, according to Pentagon statistics. Among the military's enlisted corps, nearly 9 percent of women saw their marriages end, compared with a little more than 3 percent of the men.

Like all divorces, the results can be a sense of loss and a financial blow. But for military women, a divorce can be a breaking point — even putting them at greater risk for homelessness down the road.

It has an effect, too, on military kids. The military has more single moms than dads, and an estimated 30,000 of them have deployed in support of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Why military women are more burdened by divorce is unclear, although societal pressure is likely a factor.

"It's a strange situation, where there's a fair amount of equality in terms of their military roles, but as the military increasingly treats women the same as it treats men in terms of their work expectations, however, society still expects them to fulfill their family roles. And that's not equally balanced between men and women," said David Segal, director of the Center for Research on Military Organization at the University of Maryland.

One speculation is that while more traditional men join the military, women who are attracted to military life are less conventional — and perhaps less willing to stay in a bad marriage.

About half of all married women in the military are married to a fellow service member, compared with less than 10 percent of military men. While it can be an advantage to be married to someone who understands military life, balancing two military careers poses challenges.

Former Army Sgt. Daniela Gibson, an Afghan war veteran, knows that first-hand. Gibson, 24, spent more than four years apart from her military husband and thousands of dollars on long-distance phone calls as they each did war deployments, training and moves. She said it's tough to not feel insecure about your own marriage as you watch others falling apart around you and see fellow service members cheating on their spouses, which she says is all too frequent during deployments.

"Even just rumors of cheating can really affect you," Gibson said.

Gibson left the military after she got pregnant. She's now raising their 1-year-old in Mannheim, Germany, while her husband continues his military career. Fortunately, she said, they were able to make their marriage work.

"It was really hard. . We've gone through a lot of difficult points in the relationship and sometimes we weren't even sure how it was going to end up. But at the end I think it made us closer because it kind of made us prove to ourselves how much we wanted it," Gibson said. "We weren't about to just give up."

Female service members married to civilians face their own challenges. The rate of divorce among military women is higher for those married to civilians, said Benjamin Karney, a psychology professor at UCLA who studied the issue for the Rand Corp. Research has found that the husbands of female service members were less likely to be employed than military wives.

"You've got to look at the realities of what military life is like on the family, and it really is kind of set up around a traditional married model of a husband and a wife that runs the house, if you will," said Kimberly Olson, a retired Air Force colonel who is executive director of Grace After Fire, a support organization for female veterans.

Olson said many female warriors don't get the support and space they need after war service to transition back to their roles as wives and mothers.

"The expectation that you can just turn that emotion back on like a light switch just because you walk off the airplane and they got signs and balloons and your baby runs to you, it is not very realistic," Olson said.

"It takes a while to get back into that tender, loving woman that's a mother. And if you're married, that tender loving woman that's the wife. And of course, a lot of people demand a lot of things from women, because we kind of have a bad habit of taking care of everybody else first and ourselves last," she said.

When divorce does happen, it only adds to the stress faced by an already stressed-out population.

Staff Sgt. Robin D. Duncan-Chisolm, 47, of Prince George's County in Maryland, was deployed to Iraq last year with the District of Columbia National Guard while she was getting a divorce. She said she worried the entire time that she'd lose custody of her teenage son or lose the house that she and her husband had shared.

"I was able to smile ... but inside I had a lot of turmoil I needed to have resolved, things I needed to bring closure to," Duncan-Chisolm said.

She credits her friendships and support in the Guard with helping her get through the divorce. She and her son were able to take advantage of support programs offered through the Guard's "Yellow Ribbon Reintegration Program" to help with her transition home.

"If you don't have anybody to talk to and anybody to turn to, sometimes it gets a little difficult, and I'm glad I had that system in place," Duncan-Chisolm said.

Former Army Sgt. 1st Class Tashawnya McCullough, 38, said she didn't have that support when she returned from Iraq in 2004 to where she was stationed in Germany. Divorced at the time from a service member she says cheated on her, lonely and struggling with her combat experience, she turned to alcohol. It took two months for her to get her girls, then ages 4 and 11, from the United States, where one lived with her ex-husband and the other with friends.

"My home was so quiet it drove me nuts, and I was by myself. It really affected me horribly. I was not doing well," McCullough said. "I was just trying to not feel or think about anything. I had a really hard time with drinking."

McCullough eventually got help for her drinking, remarried and found work in Texas with Grace After Fire helping other female veterans.

Each of the military services today offers a variety of programs focused on strengthening or enriching marriage. The Army, for example, offers a program called "Strong Bonds," which provides relationship help to married couples as well as single soldiers and "resiliency" classes for spouses of both sexes.

Despite these efforts, Christina Roof, national acting legislative director of AMVETS, said there are not enough programs specifically targeting divorce among female service members. She said some husbands just don't feel comfortable being surrounded by wives as part of military family support programs, but they need to be educated about issues their wives may face when they return from war.

"I think that stress of a woman coming home ... and the man having no real training of someone sitting down and saying this is what it might be like when your wife gets back, that's just a recipe for disaster," Roof said.

Genevieve Chase, a staff sergeant in the Army Reserves who founded American Women Veterans, said she hears complaints from female service members who say how hard it is for their civilian husbands to understand what they do and feel accepted. If the husband has served and leaves the military to support the woman's military career, she said he endures constant remarks from others.

"Unfortunately, male military spouses don't get any credit or recognition," Chase said.

Schobey said she's proud to serve in the military but it's not always easy on the service member — or the service member's spouse.

"I think a big issue, or something a lot of couples have to work through is the fact that at any time we can get that phone call ... you're deploying again, or for me, here's some orders, you're moving to another state," Schobey said. "Then, you're uprooting your entire family and you're moving. Your spouse is expected to be supporting you, but that's not always the case, obviously. For two times now, that's not the case for me."

____

Online:

American Women Veterans: http://www.americanwomenveterans.org

Grace After Fire: http://www.graceafterfire.org/

Army Strong Bonds: http://www.strongbonds.org/

Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America: http://iava.org/

AMVETS: http://www.amvets.org/

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Re: A Background article for David
Post by runsforcelery   » Sun May 29, 2011 3:37 pm

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dreamrider wrote:Saw this article on Yahoo, on a different aspect of/ issue for women warriors. Thought David might find it interesting for deep background.

Massive SNIP of really good stuff.



Many thanks. I know quite a few military women (and men) who have already seen this up close and personal. We don't see it much in the Honorverse because I figure society's had another couple of thousand years to figure out how to get it straight and deal with the fact that men and women face the same challenges in the military but that those challenges don't always hit the same stress buttons when they do. And, of course, for societal expectations and demands (which are unreasonable as hell all too often, unfortunately) to have evolved in tandem. As far as I'm concerned, anyone who puts his/her life at the service of his/her country and fellow citizens deserves every bit of support we can possibly give, and that very specifically includes things like helping to reintegrate them into civilian life when they leave the military and helping them maintain some semblance of a "normal" relationship with their families, spouses and children alike, while they serve. I've known about Grace After Fire for some time now, and I think it is one of the best things going for our military women. I only wish it wasn't necessary in the first place.


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Re: A Background article for David
Post by Tenshinai   » Wed Jun 29, 2011 5:03 pm

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runsforcelery wrote: We don't see it much in the Honorverse because I figure society's had another couple of thousand years to figure out how to get it straight and deal with the fact that men and women face the same challenges in the military but that those challenges don't always hit the same stress buttons when they do. And, of course, for societal expectations and demands (which are unreasonable as hell all too often, unfortunately) to have evolved in tandem.

...


Shouldnt need that much time, as among nations with women in the military, USA is among those with the most problems coming from this, directly or indirectly, and the culture behind it seems to not be so common elsewhere(that´s not to say i know of any place where things are just perfect).

My country has had women on international missions since early 90s now and regardless type of mission, lenght or level of danger etc, anything like the differences in divorce rates mentioned isnt seen at all.
And on-station pregnancies is a complete unknown, i dont know that it´s happened even once.

One of the examples that i think shows off the difference in culture best is when it comes to submarines.
USN is vehemently against women on submarines, citing all kinds of more or less ridiculous reasons, among which is the "absolute need" for separate bunks and facilities.
Sweden has been running mixed crews in our comparatively tiny subs perfectly fine over a decade now and noone even argued about any kind of need for separate bunks and facilities... And ever since the AIP improvements were added, they can behave much more like nuclear subs, like staying submerged for a few weeks and such, and there´s no problems even remotely close to what USN gets just on its surface ships or bases.

The best attempt at an explanation i´ve seen is probably that USAs society is so worried about "macho" that military men too often are unable to consider female militaries as simply "fellow crewmember".
I wont say what i think... ^_^

While "us over here" are certainly not even close to as "equal" as is common in the Honorverse books, USA is a rather bad point of reference since its on the far end of the scale in the here and now. So, as i said, hopefully things should go a bit faster at least.
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Re: A Background article for David
Post by FriarBob   » Thu Jun 30, 2011 12:12 pm

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Tenshinai wrote:
runsforcelery wrote: We don't see it much in the Honorverse because I figure society's had another couple of thousand years to figure out how to get it straight and deal with the fact that men and women face the same challenges in the military but that those challenges don't always hit the same stress buttons when they do. And, of course, for societal expectations and demands (which are unreasonable as hell all too often, unfortunately) to have evolved in tandem.

...


Shouldnt need that much time, as among nations with women in the military, USA is among those with the most problems coming from this, directly or indirectly, and the culture behind it seems to not be so common elsewhere(that´s not to say i know of any place where things are just perfect).

My country has had women on international missions since early 90s now and regardless type of mission, lenght or level of danger etc, anything like the differences in divorce rates mentioned isnt seen at all.
And on-station pregnancies is a complete unknown, i dont know that it´s happened even once.

One of the examples that i think shows off the difference in culture best is when it comes to submarines.
USN is vehemently against women on submarines, citing all kinds of more or less ridiculous reasons, among which is the "absolute need" for separate bunks and facilities.
Sweden has been running mixed crews in our comparatively tiny subs perfectly fine over a decade now and noone even argued about any kind of need for separate bunks and facilities... And ever since the AIP improvements were added, they can behave much more like nuclear subs, like staying submerged for a few weeks and such, and there´s no problems even remotely close to what USN gets just on its surface ships or bases.

The best attempt at an explanation i´ve seen is probably that USAs society is so worried about "macho" that military men too often are unable to consider female militaries as simply "fellow crewmember".
I wont say what i think... ^_^

While "us over here" are certainly not even close to as "equal" as is common in the Honorverse books, USA is a rather bad point of reference since its on the far end of the scale in the here and now. So, as i said, hopefully things should go a bit faster at least.


Well the problem isn't just mixed crews. It's also the husband OR wife left behind if one of the couple is NOT in the military.

I think that's probably the greatest difficulty. "Normal" couples don't have to endure six-month separations while their loved one is at risk of life and limb on a daily basis. We who don't go through that can't truly understand it, but as David said, we should do everything we possibly can to support them.

I will also quibble on the "ridiculous" label you give those objections for mixed crews. From YOUR cultural perspective they are. But your culture is no more "perfect" than ours. So they may seem ridiculous to you, but that doesn't actually mean they really are.
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Re: A Background article for David
Post by Tenshinai   » Sat Jul 02, 2011 5:21 pm

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FriarBob wrote:Well the problem isn't just mixed crews. It's also the husband OR wife left behind if one of the couple is NOT in the military.

I think that's probably the greatest difficulty. "Normal" couples don't have to endure six-month separations while their loved one is at risk of life and limb on a daily basis. We who don't go through that can't truly understand it, but as David said, we should do everything we possibly can to support them.

Yes of course. But this happens regardless of "crew composition".

FriarBob wrote:I will also quibble on the "ridiculous" label you give those objections for mixed crews. From YOUR cultural perspective they are. But your culture is no more "perfect" than ours. So they may seem ridiculous to you, but that doesn't actually mean they really are.


No i mean it, i and a couple of friends have discussed this on various forums, and some IRL as well, and the arguments coming from the "mixed crew opposition"(almost completely composed of americans) really IS mostly VERY ridiculous.
The common one is how its just sooo totally a MUST to have separated bunks and facilities and how dreadfully tihs would cut down on available space, which is a very valuable commodity indeed... Disproven by multiple nations running far smaller subs both with and without separation and not having notable problems nor trading away space for it.

Another common one is about how dreadfully it distracts those poor boys... If a supposedly "pro" military man cant handle having a woman nearby without loosing it, he most certainly is NOT a pro and should be thrown out for being a liability to his service regardless.

Then a really silly one(fortunately not quite as common), that women take too long because they have to wear makeup... Doh, if makeup is THAT important, the woman in question clearly isnt suited for the military (and probably wont go there in the first place), end of story.

Another *extremely* silly one is a claim that women cant handle the isolation of long submerged cruises... This is a truly sad claim to see as it´s been disproven so many times that "silly" or "ridiculous" isnt even halfway to covering it.

So yes, as i said, nearly all objections really are ridiculous, while the few that are not are more or less invalid anyway.
You might also say that the decision that even USN will begin to allow at least some female officers on subs from 2012, agrees with with what i said.

Aside from that, MY "cultural perspective" as well as experience is that as long as the people involved are professionals, gender is irrelevant.
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Re: A Background article for David
Post by namelessfly   » Fri Jul 29, 2011 11:59 am

namelessfly

Of course you enlightened folk don't have any combat experience to demonstrate how well mixed crews work when the shit hits the fan.

Israel had tightly integrated women into it's armed forces. It was a source of great pride about how enlightened they were. Then they got into a war and their young women started showing up in body bags and suddenly it was barbaric.


Tenshinai wrote:
FriarBob wrote:Well the problem isn't just mixed crews. It's also the husband OR wife left behind if one of the couple is NOT in the military.

I think that's probably the greatest difficulty. "Normal" couples don't have to endure six-month separations while their loved one is at risk of life and limb on a daily basis. We who don't go through that can't truly understand it, but as David said, we should do everything we possibly can to support them.

Yes of course. But this happens regardless of "crew composition".

FriarBob wrote:I will also quibble on the "ridiculous" label you give those objections for mixed crews. From YOUR cultural perspective they are. But your culture is no more "perfect" than ours. So they may seem ridiculous to you, but that doesn't actually mean they really are.


No i mean it, i and a couple of friends have discussed this on various forums, and some IRL as well, and the arguments coming from the "mixed crew opposition"(almost completely composed of americans) really IS mostly VERY ridiculous.
The common one is how its just sooo totally a MUST to have separated bunks and facilities and how dreadfully tihs would cut down on available space, which is a very valuable commodity indeed... Disproven by multiple nations running far smaller subs both with and without separation and not having notable problems nor trading away space for it.

Another common one is about how dreadfully it distracts those poor boys... If a supposedly "pro" military man cant handle having a woman nearby without loosing it, he most certainly is NOT a pro and should be thrown out for being a liability to his service regardless.

Then a really silly one(fortunately not quite as common), that women take too long because they have to wear makeup... Doh, if makeup is THAT important, the woman in question clearly isnt suited for the military (and probably wont go there in the first place), end of story.

Another *extremely* silly one is a claim that women cant handle the isolation of long submerged cruises... This is a truly sad claim to see as it´s been disproven so many times that "silly" or "ridiculous" isnt even halfway to covering it.

So yes, as i said, nearly all objections really are ridiculous, while the few that are not are more or less invalid anyway.
You might also say that the decision that even USN will begin to allow at least some female officers on subs from 2012, agrees with with what i said.

Aside from that, MY "cultural perspective" as well as experience is that as long as the people involved are professionals, gender is irrelevant.
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Re: A Background article for David
Post by Tenshinai   » Sun Jul 31, 2011 6:06 pm

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namelessfly wrote:Of course you enlightened folk don't have any combat experience to demonstrate how well mixed crews work when the shit hits the fan.

Israel had tightly integrated women into it's armed forces. It was a source of great pride about how enlightened they were. Then they got into a war and their young women started showing up in body bags and suddenly it was barbaric.


Where do you get the delusion that "we" dont have combat experience from?
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Re: A Background article for David
Post by pokermind   » Sat Nov 05, 2011 11:02 am

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I'm curious about Sweden's resent combat experience with submarines. I heard about Norway and Russian Subs in territorial waters back in the cold war, but not Sweden. Am I wrong or weren't you guys neutral in WW 2 too? What big wars has Sweden fought since the cold war's cooling? I know the US media is ethnocentric, liberal, and anti-war, but missing a war, please.
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Re: A Background article for David
Post by Tenshinai   » Sun Nov 06, 2011 9:50 pm

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pokermind wrote:I'm curious about Sweden's resent combat experience with submarines. I heard about Norway and Russian Subs in territorial waters back in the cold war, but not Sweden. Am I wrong or weren't you guys neutral in WW 2 too? What big wars has Sweden fought since the cold war's cooling? I know the US media is ethnocentric, liberal, and anti-war, but missing a war, please.

No big wars. And if you ask specifically about subs, the most they´ve done is intel gathering in "hot spots" and making fun of USN in exercises.

Presence in wars? Starts with Congo in the 1950s, the only time Sweden has had a fullscale extraterritorial airforce squadron base. And via a lot of peacekeeping ops, some of which turned into peace-enforcing or just pure messy we´ve recently been part of the Afghan forces for quite a few years by now.
Except for those two, Liberia, various places in the Middle-east and ex-Yugoslavia are probably the ones that have resulted in the most combat experience.

Anyway, subs whenever on duty usually operates on a "pseudo-hot" basis(ie they often behave pretty much as if it was a hot or nearly hot war going on except they dont shoot at anyone), and with our subs doing "patrols" at anywhere up to 9 weeks(that i know of, might have been longer as well) with mixed crews, claims of how it cant work seems more than a little lame.
In fact, there tend to be a lot of female sonar ops in our sub crews as many have shown talent in that direction, so maybe that´s why Gotland kicked USN rear end so badly? ^_^

*messing a bit with fly* ;)

Oh and about Norway/Soviet subs? Heh, that´s nothing, Try googling "Whiskey on the rocks 1981" for the worst incident Sweden had. Far from the only one.
Swedish military were practically seconds from firing on the Soviet naval force that wanted to salvage the stranded S-363, it wasn´t until the coastal defence force switched its radar to combat ready mode and started actively painting targets that the Soviet force turned away(but at least then it did so very quickly, obviously very much not wanting to provoke actual battle), just barely passing into Swedish territorial waters during their turn.

Even today it´s still not known for sure wether the sub got where it ran aground by mistake or by intent.
The only ones who seriously says it was intentionally seems to be the captain and his 2nd, the two people who would be responsible for the screwup if it was one, so i´m inclined to think it was accidental, also the fact that USSR was caught so very unprepared by the events also points in that direction. And since USSR no longer exists to be nasty about it, and yet noone has managed to find any evidence of the mission the captain claims, that´s another indication.

But the large number of incidents with submarines intruding on Swedish waters during the cold war(both very much real and in retrospect some more or less not real) caused a very strong reaction to improve Swedish ASW capabilities, and as a neutral nation during the cold war, the only reliable way to do that was for our own submarines to become REALLY good at sneaking around and playing hostiles so everyone had something to practise against.

Remember, during the coldwar, this place was less than 2 hours by air and 24 hours by sea from Soviet forces specifically training for an invasion here.
That, mixed with recalling the impossible situation in WWII kept Swedish military VERY well in shape.
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