I Was Wondering When This Was Going To Happen

"Capt. Jessica Hegenbart and her husband, Chief Warrant Officer Brian Hegenbart, had to live separately for two months when they arrived at Camp Striker because all the trailers for couples were full and were mostly allotted by rank."

Tell me that, as absurd as this is, at least they started with the troops at the bottom instead of Colonels shacking up?

I think its pretty ri-Goddamn-diculous for the Army to have spouses together in a combat zone. How effective will one be if the other gets killed or wounded? I believe that if one goes, both will go.

So basically, we just gave the AQ shitheads another prime target...

Each day, I become more and more disappointed with the US Army.

During many of my deployments, our senior commanders allowed spouses to visit each other if they were on different bases etc... I'm fairly certain that units could let married couples live together if they had appropriate facilities - I was in all male units so we never had to deal with this issue.

It's a small group of soldiers and the odds of husband and wife being on the same base is even smaller. So why not?

Prime target for AQ? Seriously? I mean it would be a tragedy if husband and wife were killed together, however I believe that there would be a greater probability of that happening in a mess hall than in their trailer.

And the issue of spouses being in a combat zone together - better that than having them separated for multiple years as they tag-team overseas.

Overall I think the Army is doing a pretty good job given the circumstances, therefore I'm going to save my disappointment for more important issues.

I agree with the silver oak leaf that this is just friggin wrong. First it was the BK at Camp Victory and now we have shifted to families living together in the AO. Is this even a conflict anymore or just another duty station?

My question would be, is the Army going to go back and retro-actively adjust some of the discipline they have handed out in the past for like actions? Example, when i was over there in 04-05 with the USMC we had an Army Sgt who was based out of B-Dad who was sent to the isolated Camp we lived on to be a security element for an Army Tm we were working with. This Sgt found out his wife had been moved to B-Dad also and sought her out and they spent the night together, i know it had only been 12 months for him, he should have waited, but his commanders felt this was unjust and promptly NJP'd both of them and sent him from his unit to us about 150+ miles south to be banished and not see his wife until after her deployment was over. BTW, both of their deployments overlapped each other so it was even longer than a normal rotation before they saw each other again.

Now there is a policy in place promoting the same action, talk about getting screwed...twice!!

I don't see the issue with this. Honestly, you don't have to practice being uncomfortable -- one is at adept at it simply by virtue of being in the Army. So when the Army can through two soldiers a bone at no extra cost to the government, why not?

When I was in A-stan, the Guard unit had several married couples. After several weeks of being one or two tents apart, the CG allowed the couples to have tents to themselves. No one complained because soldiers married to each other and living in the same tent didn't find it's way into the priority list. My experience, my two cents...

Yes, sir,

The Marines do--

When I was at Al Asad back in Oct, I saw a couple of SSgts in the air wing, who lived together and went to work together, and who ate chow together...

Great for THEIR morale, crappy for everyones else's!

PS-How's it going sir? Long time no see...

But Sgt Battles, that's the Air Wing! :-)

I'll shoot you an email...

This thread reminds me of my first XO who yelled "if the Navy wanted you to be married it would have issued you a wife with your sea bag!!" when I was dumb enough to ask for four hours at home prior to an underway. Stupid me.

Seriously, this is kinda funny. I picture you guys writing this stuff between trips to the window to yell "hey, you kids get off of my yard!" I mean really bullnav, do you think a spouse is still going to be going strong if their husband / wife gets offed while living in a Different tent?