Why do military men/women get married right before being deployed?

Question

I live by a Naval base... and I see this happen a LOT with the couples we know. Especially with couples who may not have known each other or been together that long; I'm talking less than a year. And most of the deployment is to Iraq.

What are the reasons? Do these marriages last?

Answer 1

I have a friend about to do this. Like you said in your question, they've been dating less than a year. I said congrats but in my mind I said dumbass. I suppose it is because of the benefits the military gives married personnel.

Answer 2

There is more money if you deploy married than single, but it is because the income is shared with dependents i.e. (wife, kids). Almost always the single soldier with minimum bills will come back with more money in his pocket. If you get married the soldier will receive Family Separation Allowance Type II which is 250 dollars a month. He will also receive BAH with dependents which is about 200 -400 more depending on what state and city your in. I would've gotten over 800 dollars more if I were married when I was deployed to Iraq as a E-4, but money isn't everything :)

Answer 3

What if you had just met a man who received his 'deployment orders' ... what if he was a good man who didn't have any close relatives or other family, or who 'needed to know a special person was waiting' at home for him. THAT is why there are so many 'quick marriages' right before a group is deployed to Iraq.
I dated a young man who was sent to Vietnam. Right before he was 'deployed' he got a 'letter' from his girlfriend back home, saying she'd fallen in love with another and was marrying him. He told me that he was NOT going to 'come home' again. I told him I would marry him if that is what it took to give him a 'reason' to come home. He wouldn't marry me, but we did 'write' and I was his 'beneficiary' ... on the day he was to 'come home' he took his rifle and went out to the edge of the air-field and 'shot at snipers' until he was shot and died. That was very 'heroic' but it was also extremely sad. That is the 'reason' so many marriages take place ... and some do last, while others don't ... but does it matter if those marriages help keep more of our soldiers sent to Iraq ALIVE to come home again? THINK ABOUT IT!

Answer 4

The answer falls within the purview of evolutionary psychology. The premise of evolutionary psychology is that individual people have strong motivations and drives that can be explained as necessary for the survival of the human species as a whole.

Someone about to go off into combat would thusly have a very strong subconscious motivation to make a baby before leaving.

In this context, marriage is simply the window dressing for that evolutionarily extremely important wedding night.

Assuming everything goes according to what nature intended, about 40 weeks later there will be a potential replacement for that warrior who may become a KIA (military slang for "killed in action").

Of course, the military usually views this trend as an annoyance, taking the view (especially for first tours of duty) that if you were intended to have a spouse they would have issued you one.

The military, as a career, is about on the same degree of stress as other professionals who are critical to our society's well being (doctors, lawyers, police, firefighters), and so the divorce rate will be slightly higher.

But assuming there was something more between both spouses than the strong drive to procreate in the face of impending possible death, than these relationship are just as likely to last as any other, stresses as mentioned above notwithstanding.

Answer 5

In the military, you never know when you will lose someone very close to you. The people you're talking about want to experience being married before the long separation partly because the one being deployed will have something to look forward to when coming home.

If they come home...

Answer 6

I'm sure its different for everyone, but in my cousins situation it did not work. She had been on and off with her boy friend (father of two of her children) for years. Well, he enlisted and a month before he left they got married. She continued to cheat on him and abuse drugs and alcohol(which was the problem before) but I think they just thought that getting married would change everything. It didn't! She continued everything all while spending all their money and then some while he was deployed to Afghan! I am sure lots of these marriages work out, but not in this case. It just made a world of trouble for her and our entire family.

Answer 7

Because being in the military you get more money every paycheck even if you aren't deployed..... and if you ARE thats even more money PLUS if (God forbid) something happened to the spouse while they were deployed, soldiers have a $400,000 life insurance policy that the spouse at home would recieve part of.

Answer 8

It could be a lot of reasons. Maybe they want to experience being married in case they don't make it or knowing someone's back home waiting for them gives them a reason to push on.

Answer 9

it all boils down to money hunny. marries soldiers get paid more than single ones -- there is a MAJOR difference in pay.

if your married the soldier will get an extra $250 for separation pay on each pay check, single soldiers do not get this.

if your married and live off post you get BAH and that equals out to an average of $900.00 ( this is housing allowance )

but see, if you marry someone and then its only on paper, the soldier get to keep that money and the person that is left behind cant touch it ( the soldiers usually have it allotmented to their savings where it cant be touched )

Answer 10

Typically, it's money and benefits related. They can last, but the odds aren't in their favor if they haven't been together very long or don't know each other that well.