Shrapnel From Home

[MSgt213]

# It's a war that soldiers in Iraq weren't trained for: a long-distance fight to keep marriages and finances intact, and keep 'Jody' out of the picture.

By Faye Fiore, Times Staff Writer

Ain't no use in callin' home,

Jody's got your telephone.

Ain't no use in goin' home,

Jody's got your girl and gone.

Sound off! (One, two.)

Sound off! (Three, four.)



KILLEEN, Texas — Most of the men in 4th Squad, Charlie Battery, fought two wars while they were in Iraq. There was the war against the insurgents that had them patrolling for roadside bombs and raiding houses at all hours. Then there was the war back home, which had them struggling, over phone lines from 7,000 miles away, to keep their marriages and their bank accounts intact.

They say they eventually got used to the bombs. The crazy possibility of dying any minute didn't haunt them so much. But that other war, that was the one that tore them up in the downtime spent in Sgt. Cox's trailer at Camp Victory. It would get quiet, and then one or another of them would ask: "So, how are things going at home?" And they would begin to brood.

They all knew about "Jody," the opportunist of Army lore who moved in on a soldier's girl while the soldier was off fighting a war. They had sung hundreds of cadences in basic training deriding the name. But it had always seemed like a joke, something that happened to other guys.

After all, Sgt. Brent Cox, 36, and his wife, Kristina, were expecting their first child after 12 years of marriage.

Pvt. Ray Hall, 21, was married to his high school sweetheart, an airman first class stationed in San Antonio.

Spc. Jason Garcia, 23, believed that his on-again, off-again relationship with the mother of his then-2-year-old son was on again; he had given her his ATM card as a gesture of commitment.

But on the long-awaited day in February when the three soldiers returned here to Ft. Hood, Texas, turned in their rifles and stood on the parade field, only Hall had a sweetheart there to meet him. And he found himself wishing she hadn't come at all.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-jody15jul15,0,1624937.story?coll=la-home-headlines

[KarenS]

1. another casualty of War,,,, very very sad. n/t

[snowbear]

2. Very sad story...

:cry:

[wli]

3. Republicans: defending against marriage

[lateo]

4. This happened when we weren't at war too but...

the war has amplified it dramatically. When I was in the Army I spent about 8-9 months of the year in the field. Luckily I was single the whole time. I saw all the shit my married soldiers went through trying to make it work.

Now, on top of all the training exercises they have to do...there is Iraq. So it is even more difficult to maintain the marriage.