Focal Point: Divided We Fall

Original Air Date: Dec. 13, 2006

Troop deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq led to a dramatic increase in divorce among Army couples from 2001 to 2004, including many stationed at Fort Bragg. WRAL's Focal Point documentary "Divided We Fall" examines the cause of divorce in the military and looks at how the high divorce rate has changed the way the Army deals with issues of marriage and family life.

Watch the Documentary

Part 1: Meet an Army officer and his wife to learn firsthand the challenges families face and the stresses that are put on a marriage when a spouse is deployed to a war zone.

Part 2: Some military couples are able to deal with the challenges of wartime deployments. Others are not. Why do those couples fail, and what can we learn from them?

Part 3: The old Army mindset was: "If we had wanted you to have a wife, we would have issued you one." No more. The Army is starting to understand the connection between a soldier's performance in the field and the health of his or her marriage at home.

Part 4: Many families have learned how to cope with the challenges of repeated deployments and have some lessons to teach other families now facing those challenges for the first time.

Focal Point Extra

The Covenant Love Family Church in Fayetteville produced a DVD called "Anchored in Hope" about the challenges faced by military families at wartime. In the DVD a group of military wives discusses those challenges and ways of coping with them. Watch an excerpt.

Online Resources

• U.S. Army Programs Combat Rising Divorce Rates
• National Health Marriage Resource Center
• Covenant Love Family Church (To purchase a copy of the DVD "Anchored in Hope.")
  
• Triangle Baptist Church, which offers a support group for military spouses in the Triangle.

Web links are provided for informational purposes only. Views and opinions expressed on the Web sites of these organizations do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of WRAL-TV and its parent company Capitol Broadcasting Co.