May 2004

America's warriors face danger with strength and courage. We are awed at their ability to remain unshaken as surprise attacks come from civilians and more soldiers die every day. But what most Americans don't understand is that an equally terrifying battle wages within many of these heroic men and women. It's the war of a broken heart, resulting from strained marriages.

As General Dick Abel, executive director of Campus Crusade for Christ's Military Ministry, says, "There's some real challenges in military life that the man in the street does not understand, and these are the ones that serve our nation, that make great sacrifices."

The average age of military personnel is just over 19, yet 65 percent are married. With deployments, frequent moves (an average of once every three years), and most of them in their first years of marriage, these men and women face unique problems that often lead to infidelity and/or divorce.

Abel and his wife, Ann, refer to the fighter's family left at home as the "rear echelon," emphasizing that the family is an important part of the military lifestyle as well. In an interview on "FamilyLife Today," FamilyLife's daily radio program, Ann said, "If the spouse who leaves knows he's leaving a troubled family behind, that is bound to play on his mind, and it must not enable him to do as good and perfect a job as he could possibly do if he didn't have this concern about his family back home. So I think it is really important that this 'rear echelon' is able to function—and function well."

The Military Ministry and FamilyLife, both divisions of Campus Crusade, have formed a partnership to meet the special needs of military marriages. This combined effort, referred to as Family Ministries, reaches military personnel through Military Marriage Seminars and a HomeBuilders Couples Series® study called Defending the Military Marriage.

The Military Marriage Seminars are a shorter version of FamilyLife's three-day Weekend to Remember® conferences. The only real difference is the speakers themselves—unlike most FamilyLife speakers, each one has had some experience with the armed forces and understands the challenges of this distinctive lifestyle. That's part of a strategy to bring a certain camaraderie and connectedness between the speakers and the audience.

"They are able to connect with the audience because they are talking military," explains Gabe Buchholtz, a FamilyLife staff member who formerly served in the military. "The Air Force speakers can speak to Air Force issues; the Army speakers can speak to Army issues. That makes it very personal. And our military audiences want someone with credibility to speak to them."

In 2003, the Military Ministry completed 18 seminars on military installations across the country. One military wife had been married for nine years and had divorce papers in hand when she attended the seminar. "This couldn't have come at a better time," she said. "Our anniversary was during the seminar. There was little hope to continue, as we did not have God in our lives. Now there is hope." Her husband indicated a decision to receive Christ as his Savior and Lord at the conference.

Another woman married two years also invited Jesus into her life at the conference. She said, "[This seminar] saved our marriage! Now we have the weapons we were in great need of in order to win the battle of love and marriage."

As a follow-up to these conferences, the couples are encouraged to participate in Defending the Military Marriage, a small group study in the HomeBuilders series written by Lt. Col. Jim Fishback, U.S. Army (Ret.) and Bea Fishback of the Military Ministry.

With 1.4 million active duty military personnel, the Family Ministries branch of the Military Ministry has a lot of room to expand, and opportunities for growth develop daily. With tools like these seminars and HomeBuilders, military personnel will have stronger marriages and clearer minds to protect our country.