Combat tours take toll on families (1/3ページ)

When the nation's top-ranking military commanders talk about the Army being stressed nearly to the breaking point by repeat combat deployments, a lot of that concern doesn't have to do with the battlefield. It has to do with home.

Lengthy and repeated combat deployments with insufficient recovery time at home stations have placed "incredible stress" on soldiers and their families, testing the resolve of the all-volunteer force like never before, Gen. Richard Cody, the Army's vice chief of staff, testified before a Senate Armed Services subcommittee on April 1.

Divorces have skyrocketed, substance abuse has spiked in tandem with post-traumatic stress, talented people are leaving the Army and many children are being raised in what become single-parent homes during lengthy overseas tours.

It's taken a toll at Schofield Barracks in Honolulu, families say.

The Stryker brigade with 4,000 soldiers is just north of Baghdad on a 15-month deployment. The same unit spent all of 2004 and part of 2005 in Iraq.

About 7,000 Schofield soldiers with the 25th Infantry Division headquarters, 3rd Brigade and Aviation Brigade returned to Hawaii in October. The same units are expected to leave again for Iraq later this year and early in 2009 - a year after coming home.

Four or five divorces were pending during the 15 months that one company of about 130 3rd Brigade Schofield soldiers recently was in northern Iraq. After the unit returned, there were at least 10 to 15 more, family members say.

They also say there have been drunken-driving fatalities and fatal drug overdoses.

Shauna Smith, whose husband, 1st Sgt. Christopher Smith, is with the 3rd Brigade at Schofield, said a good friend has been married seven years. In that time, her husband has been on five deployments.