Pre-deployment Series: Single Soldiers face relationships issues, challenges before deployments

Editor's Note: The following story is part three in a four-part Alaska Post series on deployment preparations. This week's installment in the pre-deployment series highlights emotional and relational preparations for single Soldiers who are confronted with a myriad of relational decisions as they prepare to deploy. Next week's story will conclude the series with an examination of preparations married Soldiers can make to ensure their relationships thrive during deployments.

FORT WAINWRIGHT, Alaska - In the flurry of activity leading up to a deployment - attending briefings and meetings, signing wills and powers of attorney and tackling childcare concerns - it might be easy to shift the focus entirely onto married Soldiers as the Army works to help build strong and ready families and forget that single Soldiers must also prepare.

Wainwright leaders and chaplains are working to prevent that from happening, recognizing that single Soldiers often face some of life's most challenging issues just as they are packing their duffel bags and answering their country's call to serve overseas alongside their married counterparts.

"The single Soldier still needs to do the same sort of (relationship) maintenance (as married Soldiers)," said Chaplain (Maj.) Dwight Broedel, Fort Wainwright's Family Life chaplain.

Comparing the process to vehicle winterization in Alaska's Interior, Broedel said single Soldiers must also winterize their lives.

"What will that look like'" he asked. "Certainly all the finance things and the wills and those things, but have they winterized their relationships' Love begins with the self. It's how do we love ourselves and understand our own love languages and our partners' love languages whether it's our girlfriends or boyfriends; whether it's our brothers and sisters, parents, or our squad mates."

Broedel has witnessed first-hand the outcomes of relationship decisions made by single Soldiers who felt compelled to get married prior to deployments and the devastation and heartbreak that often followed their impulsive decisions. He cites reasons like desire for physical intimacy, loneliness, fear, insecurity and even greed for some Soldiers' hurried weddings, but said that regardless of the motivation, rash relationship decisions often end badly.

"It's a predictable cycle," he explained. "They meet on Facebook; fall in love. They hurry up and get married for whatever reason. They don't really know each other and have all these expectations of what marriage is going to be."

Throw a deployment into this mixture and Broedel said the situation almost always spells disappointment and heartbreak.

"Often the reality is nothing like what they thought marriage was going to be so there is this gap. And the bigger the gap the bigger the problem," he said.

Possible problems from rash relational decisions can range from tough adjustments after returning from deployments to divorces, depression and anxiety disorders and even homicides and suicides, Broedel said.

"People get married because 'we're in love,' but they don't often consider all the emotional and financial consequences that flow from that decision," he said. "So we live in a society that sees marriage in a very disposable kind of way. 'I can just get a divorce.' But what's the cost of a divorce. What is the cost of a broken heart and lost dreams, dead love or a loveless marriage' What kind of price can you put on that'"

Researchers have attempted to do just that - put a price on divorce and heartbreak. Defense Department studies have shown a slow but steady increase in divorce rates in the military in the post-9/11 era.

And still others have placed a dollar amount on those divorces. Experts place divorce costs at anywhere from $10,000 to $50,000. Adding in child support, alimony and other obligations, the financial consequences for failed marriages are substantial.

But as Tom McFliker recently wrote on http://fatherhoodchannel.com, financial considerations are just the beginning. "Besides divorcees' wallets, divorce takes its toll on your body's sleep, appetite and exercise routine. The drain causes everything from gray hair to high blood pressure. Depression medications are expensive and can have severely negative side-effects.

The stress alone can be lethal, whether it comes out on the highway or at a bar."

Broedel said the antidotes for the allure of intimacy or the tricks or deceptions Soldiers often encounter as they make these important decisions before they deploy is to slow down.

"It's a huge gamble getting married to someone you don't know," he said. "Would you buy a car without checking under the hood'"

He said Soldiers should seek true friendships in their relationships, get premarital counseling, try to bolster their existing relationships with friends and family and work at growing personally and spiritually so they can be comfortable in and out of a relationship.

"My warning would be: don't rush into a relationship prematurely," he said. "I have seen some horrible things come out of this rashness. Friendship is the antidote. You have to figure what it means to be friends and what does this love really mean. And out of that growth of friendship and love comes this wild passion. That's good stuff. But if you go into it backwards you're going to end up tripping and falling."

Before clinging to the idea of marrying someone they do not really know as a life raft, Broedel said Soldiers should tap into the resources available to them through their friends and family and Army resources.

"Don't do this alone," Broedel said. "No Soldier stands alone unless he wants to. I don't recommend that. There is strength in unity."

From new single Soldier Strong Bonds and resiliency programs offered through their chaplains to BOSS events, Army Community Service programs, community resources through Military OneSource and Directorate of Family and Morale, Welfare and Recreation programs, events and trips, there are healthy options for Soldiers who are lonely, bored or confused.

"They also need to be connected with themselves, their God and their purpose," he said. "And if your life has no purpose, find one. People who have a purpose generally enjoy life a lot better."