Home-front connection: A blessing or a burden?

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http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=49364

Home-front connection: A blessing or a burden?
Technology gives some soldiers relief and others stress
By Allison Batdorff, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Tuesday, October 9, 2007

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With satellite phones and Internet cafes in some of the dustiest command outposts, communicating with the home front can be easy. Servicemembers can get in touch with their loved ones once a week, if not once a day. But it’s a blessing and a curse.

It’s a blessing to Spc. April Carmichael. Her husband keeps her in the loop by e-mailing her their children’s school projects and grades while she spends 15 months as a physical therapist at 3rd Brigade Support Battalion in Ramadi.

“It helps me feel involved in my children’s lives,” said Carmichael. “It’s hard when you’re gone to remember that your life is still going to be there. You just feel like ‘I just missed 15 months of their lives.’”

But while the Internet allows more access to friends and family back home, hearing about the day-to-day problems can also put stress on soldiers, said Maj. Christopher Warner, the division psychiatrist and deputy division surgeon for Task Force Marne in Baghdad.

“Many of our soldiers either want to stay engaged and try and fix (the problems) themselves or may have spouses that expect them to fix them,” Warner said in an e-mail. “Either way, it can be very difficult and can increase the stress for both.”

Warner helped author a 2005 study published in last month’s issue of Military Medicine that said issues like family, financial and legal problems outrank actual combat exposure when it comes to what’s worrying most soldiers in Iraq.

Task Force Baghdad also had five suicides during the deployment, most of them junior-enlisted Caucasian men under the age of 30 suffering from home-front and marital stresses during their first deployment.

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http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=49364