In the wake of the "scandal" involving...

retired Army General David Patraeus, who resigned as Director of the CIA after it was revealed that he'd been having an extramarital affair, the possible court-martial of Brigadier Jeffrey Sinclair has fallen below the radar.

In case you weren't aware of it, there was an Article 32 hearing, the military equivalent of a preliminary hearing, where charges that allege adultery, sexual assault and more against the 27 year Army veteran, who was the deputy commander of the elite 82nd Airborne Division deployed to Afghanistan.  Whether or not there will be a court-martial remains to be seen, as the results of the Article 32 hearing have not yet been released.

But, General Sinclair's wife Rebecca has spoken out about the situation.  This past Monday she said "I am not condoning anything, and I'm not excusing my husband's infidelity. I'm not saying that just because we're on this deployment cycle and because of the war, that causes infidelity  I'm just trying to understand it, and I'm trying to get conversations started so that people can look behind and see the bigger issue."

She had written an op-ed piece that was published in the Washington Post last week on the issue and on Monday was in New York giving interviews, one of which contained the above quote.  Her commentary really isn't so much a defense of her husband, although she hopes he will be cleared and wants to repair their relationship.  Instead she wants to make it clear what a strain military life places on a marriage.

She's right on target there.  In the 11 years since the 9/11 attacks, her husband has been gone for six of those years.  That's roughly 55% of the time.  Imagine for a moment spending 55% of your time for over a decade away from your spouse.  Not a pretty picture, is it?  Statistics for FY2011 (which ended 9/30/2011) showed more than 30,000 military personnel divorced during that year, a rate of 3.7%.  The rate among the rest of the population in the U.S. was only 3.5%.  It was also the highest rate for military families since 1999.  That would seem to indicate that the strain of 11 years of non-stop deployment to combat zones is only increasing.

This is something that there is no easy solution to.  Separation from family is a part of military life.  During both of my "short" tours overseas, 12 months in South Korea and 15 months on Guam, a number of my fellow servicemembers were away from their spouses.  Such tours usually don't permit a spouse to go with the military member, even when they aren't in a combat zone.

The only way this trend will ever go in the other direction will be when there is no need for deployments to a combat zone and when we are able to reduce our military commitments outside the borders of the U.S.  Until then, part of the price of freedom will be a higher than normal divorce rate among our military personnel.