Test sites: In Jail/ In Iraq - 11/26/06

[Smartmarriages]

- NO MORE JERKS BEING TAUGHT IN JAIL
- LONG STINTS IN IRAQ FRACTURE FAMILIES

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- NO MORE JERKS BEING TAUGHT IN JAIL

(This article features John Van Epp and Judge Jim Sheridan in an interesting
application of the Jerks program that could be applied in other community
marriage initiatives. Both Van Epp and Sheridan will present several times
in Denver. Stop by their Exhibits and I'm sure they'll answer your
questions. - diane )

No More Jerks 
Saturday, November 25, 2006
By Erik Gable
Daily Telegram News Editor
 
A new program at the Lenawee County Jail aims to stop inmates from falling
back into destructive relationships after their release.

ADRIAN ‹ The situation is all too familiar for Lenawee County Sheriff Larry
Richardson.

A female inmate is released from the Lenawee County Jail. Then she goes back
to her old life and starts dating a man who leads her down the same path
that landed her in trouble in the first place. Right now, Richardson said,
he knows of two women serving time in the jail for exactly that reason.

Now a local group called Marriages That Work is trying to change that by
offering a program called Pick a Partner, developed by the psychologist who
wrote the book ³How to Avoid Marrying A Jerk,² to jail inmates. The 12-hour,
six-week course will be available only to female inmates at first, but
Richardson said he hopes it will eventually be offered to men as well.

³If a number of things are done prior to a person leaving incarceration, the
chance of recidivism drops off,² said James Sheridan, a Lenawee County
District Court judge who writes a weekly column about marriage for The Daily
Telegram. ³One of those things is improving relationship skills.²

The classes will be led by Joyce Faulhaber, executive director of Family
Matters of Southeast Michigan, which is a division of Marriages That Work.

³Really, this is about building a relationship in a safe way and in a way
that you can get to know important things about that particular person,²
Faulhaber said.

For example, Faulhaber said, the program will teach participants ³the
definition of a jerk² and encourage people to know some important facts
about the people they date, such as their family background, their attitudes
and their values. Participants are also encouraged to look at previous
relationships, both their own and their prospective partner¹s.

Sometimes, Faulhaber said, ³you have a new face, but you have the same old
script.² To avoid that trap, she said, people need to be aware of what went
wrong in previous relationships and alert to warning signs in the future.

Sheridan said the program also teaches people to follow a specific
progression in their relationships. You need to know who someone is before
you can trust them, he said; you need to trust them before you can rely on
them; you need to be able to rely on them before you commit to them; and you
need a certain level of commitment before being physically intimate.
Otherwise, Sheridan said, ³you have people relying on other people simply
because they had sex with them the night before.²

Faulhaber has been leading a Pick a Partner class at the Catherine Cobb
Domestic Violence Shelter in Adrian, and she said the response has been
mostly positive.

Gary McCullough, executive director of the Adrian counseling firm
McCullough, Vargas & Associates, said his company has been doing substance
abuse counseling in the Lenawee County Jail for several years, but until
now, relationship skills haven¹t been touched.

But, McCullough said, ³we know from going in and talking to these groups of
ladies and men that many of them have relationship problems.²

McCullough, Vargas & Associates is funding the pilot project, McCullough
said, adding that government funding for such programs is hard to come by.

Richardson said the Lenawee County Jail usually houses between 42 and 48
women at any given time. Women make up about one sixth of the jail¹s
population.

³I¹m hoping that this will do a lot of good for us,² Richardson said.

On the Web:

Marriages That Work: www.marriagedoneright.com

Pick a Partner program: www.nojerks.com

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- LONG STINTS IN IRAQ FRACTURE FAMILIES
3rd Infantry Division Will Be the First Deployed for a THIRD Year-Long Tour
By Ann Scott Tyson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 26, 2006

(In Denver at the 11th Annual Smart Marriages Conference, we'll see what we
can learn from the intensified experience of these active duty soldiers and
their spouses. It's a chance to look at commitment and attachment, trust and
communication, parenting and meaning-making in a telescoped, pressure cooker
environment. The Army can't afford to fool around and is coming up with
effective marriage-strengthening interventions. My guess is we can learn a
lot. - diane) 

FORT STEWART, Ga. -- As a gray dawn broke, hundreds of 3rd Infantry Division
soldiers gathered on a Georgia marching ground this month and listened to a
long list of names of fallen comrades. Taps rose mournfully above rows of
young redbud trees planted for each of the division's 317 soldiers who have
died in Iraq.

Col. John Charlton, commander of the division's 1st Brigade, which next
month begins its third Iraq tour in four years, stepped forward. "Be
thankful for your families, your health, and for every day that you're
alive," he advised. The brigade's mission, he said, is to bring peace to
Iraq's volatile western Anbar province and its capital, Ramadi, which he
said despite progress remain "a dangerous area, a very dangerous area."

"Take this time . . . to be thinking about those soldiers represented behind
or in front of you," he said, "and as you'll notice, there's still some
space on the sidewalk there for more trees."

This week, U.S. troops will have been fighting in Iraq longer than they did
in World War II, with no relief in sight. Soldiers from 1st Brigade
preparing at Fort Stewart for their third Iraq tour have been spending as
much time in Iraq as at home. The rotations -- a year in Iraq followed by a
year at home -- dictate soldiers' most intimate decisions: They mandate when
troops can marry and have children. They sever relationships that cannot
sustain the stress of absence or danger. And they lead some couples to pray
for the war to end.

After the memorial service, Lt. Col. Doug Crissman gathered his 1st Brigade
soldiers and sent them on leave with a warning not to get hurt, go to jail
or go AWOL.

"You're all a little bit nervous. Hell, I'm nervous," said Crissman, of
Burke, Va., who commands the 2nd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment. "The Army
is asking us to do some tough stuff."

Then his voice softened as he nudged his troops to be attentive to their
families. "I need you to think about this visit a little differently," he
said. "Spend time with them. . . . Tell them you love them."

Strained Relationships

In the living room of his Savannah home, Capt. Thom Frohnhoefer tumbled with
his daughter Maggie, 2, as she jangled and waved his metal dog tags.

"She's the one I had after the first deployment," Frohnhoefer said. "It will
be harder this time because she knows Daddy is leaving."

>From courtship to parenting to divorce, the time away at war is having a
profound impact on the families of active-duty soldiers, according to
interviews with dozens of soldiers from the 3rd Infantry Division and their
relatives. The division spearheaded the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003
and returned for a second, year-long tour in January 2005.

For 1st Brigade soldiers such as Frohnhoefer, having children poses a
wrenching choice: Leave your wife alone in pregnancy and birth, or miss your
newborn's first year.

Frohnhoefer and several others in his brigade opted to start pregnancies
soon after returning in January, creating a mini baby boom. Frohnhoefer's
second daughter, Haley, was born three weeks ago. Another soldier in the
unit had a baby last week.

"We take a lot of pictures," said Frohnhoefer, 28, of Queens, N.Y., as his
wife, Audrey, quieted Haley with a pacifier. His biggest fear, he said, is
"my kids not knowing me if something were to happen to me."

Sgt. 1st Class Jonathan Harper, 37, of Wichita, has two children and wanted
more, but his wife gave him what he calls "the ultimatum": He had to be home
for the pregnancy and beyond. The result: no more kids. "With me being gone,
it's too much of a burden," he said.

For single soldiers, finding a spouse is difficult. Spec. Christian Brown,
25, of New Smyrna Beach, Fla., is afraid that when he leaves next month he
will lose the girlfriend he met earlier this year. "She doesn't know if she
can handle me being gone," he said, adding that he no longer plans to
reenlist.

Other soldiers are arranging hasty marriages before they leave -- for added
benefits and to provide for their spouses if they die -- a trend officers
discourage because they say it makes soldiers more vulnerable to divorce.

Capt. Neil Johnson, 25, of Crystal River, Fla., said that he wed in November
2004 but that the uncertainty and fear surrounding his Army job led to his
divorce in June. "If I had been in Florida, I'd probably still be married,"
he said. Army divorce rates surged after 2001 and remain elevated, although
they fell somewhat last year. Johnson sees more divorces coming. "It seems
normal," he said. "No one is surprised."

Anxiety, depression and psychological trauma from repeated exposure to
combat add to the stress, affecting 15 percent to 20 percent of soldiers,
said Maj. Christopher H. Warner, a 3rd Infantry Division psychiatrist. Those
factors contribute to drinking, drug use and domestic violence among a small
percentage of soldiers, officers said.

While some GIs grow more resilient to combat stress, others get worse,
Warner said. One soldier attacked by gunfire and bombs repeatedly at Iraqi
bridges found himself afraid to drive through underpasses at home. Some
soldiers under treatment for combat stress return to war but are screened to
see if they pose a risk, Warner said.

Still, the bulk of psychological problems for soldiers relate to home-front
issues such as separation and infidelity, he said.

Many soldiers doubt civilians can understand the pressures they face, and
they see a widening gap between Army life and what some call "the outside
world." "There are times you feel like, 'Why is it us?' " Audrey said.
Civilians, she said, "don't have a concept of what we go through."

A Changing Army .......

For the full article, visit:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/25/AR2006112500
977.html?referrer=emailarticle

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