TCBF said:
"It amazes me how many people go off to basic or other training and they don't have their home lives sorted out.'
- This is the Planet Earth. Nobody has their home lives sorted out. Nobody. My son's education has been in tatters for three years (and two school boards) because of personal issues that the teachers/aids/etc. cannot leave at home when they come to school. Walking wounded. Trying to get an honest day's organized work out of that crew would require the non-standard use of cattle prods.
I didn't mean to say that people don't have problems or issues at home, of course we all do.
I was referring to those people who just signed up for training with some pretty serious issues at home - a recruit that left a young teenager home alone because the recruit thought the military would fly them home on weekends during training; a recruit who's pregnant girlfriend (not his baby) dumps him..and so on.
To me those are predictable things that should have been dealt with before they got to basic training. Life is unpredictable enough, but some issues like childcare and crazy girlfriends can and should be addressed before you leave home. Maybe you have to make the decision that now is not the time to go to basic training.
This thread is about a common law spouse who doesn't support the guy's decision to join the military. There were people in that situation while I was at bmq and they had a very hard time focussing on the training because of the time they spent on the phone working on their relationship.
Jake want's to know how important support from the spouse is...well I guess that depends on the individual and whether or not the unsupportive spouse is going to create emotional problems for the person who is doing the basic training. Jake says his question has been answered. I am happy for him it has been. Unfortunately there seems to be quite a few people who go to bmq with these kinds of loose ends at home and end up not completing their training because they are pre-occupied with issues they could have reasonably foreseen and dealt with prior to leaving home.
Maybe I'm just a hard-a$$. I don't know. I guess I can look at it from the point of view that the people who do spend all that time on the phone and crying can bring the platoon closer because there will always be those people who lend an ear and a shoulder to cry on. On the other side of the coin, it can create resentment from the fellow recruits who feel they have to pick up the slack for buddy who is too busy fighting with the girlfriend and not pulling his weight.
TCBF said:
Are most soldiers on stress leave are there because of operational incidents or personal life, or both?
I think soldiers who are on stress leave are a different issue altogether from the intention of this thread and I don't personally know any so I can only guess that it's probably a combination of both.
TCBF said:
- Life should not be the avoidance of stress, but the channeling of it.
Very true!