Saturday, September 17, 2005

War and divorce Friday, Sep 16, 2005 By Jack Moseley Absence sometimes really does make the heart grow fonder - of someone else. That's particularly true of married couples separated by war and mobilizations of National Guard troops. Older Americans recall the "Dear John" letters from wives and sweethearts that GIs received on the front lines during World War II and Korea. The same thing happened with Vietnam. When I was mobilized and sent to Fort Polk, La., to somehow fight communism and defend the city of Berlin for a year, my division of the Texas National Guard set a new record for divorces in the U.S. military for a single 12-month period. Seems the Texas girls discovered new Texas men, and their former husbands and sweethearts discovered Louisiana women. Thank goodness, I was single at that time. But most of the Texas guardsmen were young, inexperienced in the ways of the world and had never really been away from home for an extended period of time. Many had married their first sweethearts right out of high school. 8:29:51 AM    comment []