Military Family Research Paper

The moment is iconic. There is complete silence as the anticipations grows and settles among the crowd. Signs are made, children are waiting, and everyone smiles. The boat docks at the port or the plane lands on the strip. It is time.This moment has been seen all over social media; a split second of the life of military families. As a society we associate the reunion of military families after deployment with the wellbeing of their family relationships. We see the smiling faces, over joyed children, and the oversized ecstatic dogs and think “wow they must be happy”. In truth, military families often struggle with communication and family interaction during and after deployment. According to Defense Department records, divorces among active-duty
The world’s first recorded army appeared in the first known urban setting, Mesopotamia, in 3500 B.C. The Sumerians, led by the military dictator Sargon the Great , experienced extended conquests from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea and even further to the Taurus Mountains of Turkey (Mark). Just as the Sumerians became the first known world soldiers, their families became the first known military families. Communication technology during the deployment of the Sumerians was nonexistent. Communication genres used during the Sumerians conquest included speech, curving on stone tablets, and drawn pictures. None of the communication genres were utilized to communicate military spouses or children in this time period. Historically, military families lacked the technology and resources to efficiently communicate and strengthen family ties during deployment. The evolution of communication over the last five thousand years has contributed to the increased efficiency of communication between military partners and families (Air University). As a result military men were distant from families with little to no interaction during
Communication between military families is not excluded from this aspect. Depending on deployment location, deployed spouses can talk to their partner and children as many times a three times a week or as few as a four times a month. When deployed service men and women contact their families it is usually via some form of technology. A technological form of communication utilized by military families is email. Communicating via e-mail has become increasingly popular for separated military families because it is fast and each partner can get “up –to-date” on recent family information. If the solider doesn’t have access to email in their location they can stay in contact with their family through phone calls. Many military families utilize phone call for special event or if it is an emergency due to the expense of foreign or long distance phone calls (Military.com). Like letters and telegrams phone calls were found to be an insufficient form of communication between military families in a communication study. Many military wives commented about shying away from conflicting topics due to expense and short time period of phone calls. The communication study also showed the effect phone calls from deployed parents have on children. A direct correlation was found between what the researches classified as frequent quality calls from deployed parent and positive behavior in the children .