Being An Air Force Wife

This is the second post in my series of domestic abuse in the military. Part one can be found here.

The military has a domestic violence problem—or, as the Army calls it, a “spousal aggression issue.” Sometimes, when soldiers have just returned from a war zone the media speculates that post-traumatic stress may be to blame. This seems somewhat specious. The Defense Department doesn’t break down pre- and post-deployment figures, but the fact is that rates of domestic violence in the military have been high for years—two to five times higher than among civilians. In the 1990s, the military quietly watched as its domestic violence rates shot up from 19 per 1,000 soldiers in 1990 to 26 per 1,000 soldiers in 1996. After three soldiers stationed at Kentucky’s Fort Campbell were charged with killing their wives or girlfriends, an alarmed Congress appointed a task force to investigate and make recommendations. Last year, according to DoD figures, there were 16,400 cases of domestic violence reported, with 9,450 of them substantiated. That’s still a rate of 14 cases for every 1,000 couples, compared with 3 per 1,000 among civilians. And consider that many soldiers spent all or part of last year deployed and thus physically separated from their spouses. (more…)

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October is Domestic Violence Awareness month and many blogs here at 451 Press are focusing a few posts on the subject.

I want to explore and talk about abuse within a military family. Historically the military has failed to take domestic violence seriously by not providing services and support for victims and failing to punish service members who abuse their partners. But this indifference has changed as a result of the successful lobbying of Congress by the Family Violence Prevention Fund (FVPF) and other domestic violence advocacy organizations who worked with the Department of Defense (DoD) to create the Defense Task Force on Domestic Violence (DTFDV). (more…)

With October being domestic abuse awareness month, I thought I would explore the domestic abuse problem within the military community. Domestic violence is prevalent in the military family, but since it is dealt with internally, the statistics aren’t widely known.

Many blogs here at 451Press will be discussing this topic, in hopes to raise awareness, and I will provide links as the individual posts are published.