Proposing a Solution to Problem
After my eleven year marriage ended in divorce, I suddenly found myself a single parent. My nine year old daughter was dependant upon me for everything; I knew right away that my ex-wife would not be of any help. This realization was a life altering moment. Throughout my marriage I was, misguidedly, focus completely on my military career. Meeting the challenges of providing for my daughter and performing my duties is, still to this day, the hardest thing I have ever encountered. I knew that I would have to re-marry, if I wanted to complete my commitment to the Army. I also realized that it would be a disservice to my daughter to think that I could provide, by myself, all the emotional support and nurturing necessary for her to mature into a woman. Marriage and the Army do not always mix well. Nine of out ten men in the Army, that I personally know, are on their second marriage, some even on a third and forth. Some researcher have found the military divorce rate to be as high as 56%. I believe the root cause to be separation from friends and family, induced by the frequent relocations mandated by the military. Not only are military wives torn away from their family support systems but are constantly separated from the
The last issue, contributing to the severity of this problem, was I still had five years remaining until I could retire from the Army. Having already been stationed in Washington for four years and it was inevitable that I would be reassigned soon. Which meant, if Cherie and I married, she would be away from her family until I retired. This fact would seriously effect our decision. At this point, I had been in the Army for fifteen years and had lived all over the world, but still felt ties to my hometown in Michigan. The majority of my family still lived there, and my father's health was failing. While I lived at home, my family was a very close knit group, but after being away for so long, I no longer felt the same. My father's expectations were that I would return someday and I never wanted to disappoint him. He was my role model, the person that I always wanted to be. After working my way through, what I call, a reorientation period, I began to date. Surprisingly, after dating only a few woman I knew what type of woman I was looking for. First and foremost, she would be everything that my daughter's mother was not, everything that my mother was not. Secondly, she would be a woman with interests similar to my own. It would be necessary to make sacrifices in order to fulfill the parental obligations that I take very seriously. Now, the only problem was where to find this particular woman. It's been three years and I often find myself reflecting on this momentous moment, knowing that it had
Some common words found in the essay are:
Marriage Army, Washington Cherie, , family close, serious issue,
Approximate Word count = 1024
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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