Veterans, the Vietnam era, and marital dissolution: An event history analysis

Armed Forces and Society

Volumn 36, Issue 1, 2009, Pages 19-37

  Cohen, Jere ^a   Segal, Mady Wechsler ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND BALTIMORE COUNTY   (United States)

^b UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND   (United States)

Author keywords

Bridging environment; Divorce; Event history analysis; Military families; Military families: analysis; Veterans; Vietnam era

Indexed keywords

EID: 70350333147     PISSN: 0095327X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/0095327X09332146     Document Type: Article

References (90)

1. Glen Elder, Military Times and Turning Points in Men's Lives, Developmental Psychology 22 (1986): 233-45; and Glen Elder, War Mobilization and the Life Course: A Cohort of World War II Veterans, Sociological Forum 2 (1987): 449-72.
2. Glen Elder, War Mobilization and the Life Course: A Cohort of World War II Veterans, Sociological Forum 2 (1987): 449-72
3. William Ruger, Sven Wilson, and Shawn Waddoups, Warfare and Welfare: Military Service, Combat, and Marital Dissolution, Armed Forces and Society 29 (2002): 85-107.
4. Christopher Jessup, Breaking Ranks: Social Change in Military Communities (London: Brasseys, 1996).
5. Ruger, Wilson, and Waddoups, Warfare and Welfare, 89.
6. Ellen Frey-Wouters and Robert Laufer, Legacy of a War: The American Soldier in Vietnam (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1986).
7. R. A. Kulka, W. E. Schlenger, J. A. Fairbank, R. L. Hough, K. B. Jordan, C. R. Marmar, D. S. Weiss, and D. A. Grady, Trauma and the Vietnam War Generation (New York: Brunner/Mazel, 1990).
8. Robert Laufer and M. S. Gallops, Life-course Effects of Vietnam Combat and Abusive Violence: Marital Patterns, Journal of Marriage and the Family 47 (1985): 839-53.
9. J. M. Stellman, S. D. Stellman, and J. F. Sommer, Social and Behavioral Consequences of the Vietnam Experiences among American Legionnaires, Environmental Research 47 (1988): 129-49.
10. Vaughn Call and Jay Teachman, Military Service and Stability in the Family Life Course, Military Psychology 3 (1991): 233-50.
11. Josefina Card, Lives after Vietnam: The Personal Impact of Military Service (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1983).
12. Vaughn Call and Jay Teachman, Life-course Timing and Sequencing of Marriage and Military Service and Their Effects on Marital Stability, Journal of Marriage and the Family 58 (1996): 219-26.
13. Cynthia Gimbel and Alan Booth, Why Does Military Combat Experience Adversely Affect Marital Relations? Journal of Marriage and the Family 56 (1994): 691-703.
14. John Wilson, Forgotten Warrior Project Report (unpublished manuscript, Cleveland State University, 1977).
15. Ruger, Wilson, and Waddoups, Warfare and Welfare.
16. Chuck Dean, Nam Vet (Seattle, WA: WordSmith, 1990).
17. see also Barry Levin and David Ferrier, Defending the Vietnam Combat Veteran (Los Angeles: Vietnam Veterans Legal Assistance Project, 1989).
18. Dean, Nam Vet.
19. Myra MacPherson, Long Time Passing: Vietnam and the Haunted Generation (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1984).
20. Norma Wikler, Hidden Injuries of War, Strangers at Home: Vietnam Veterans since the War, ed. Charles Figley and Seymour Leventman (New York: Praeger, 1980), 87-106.
21. Gimbel and Booth, Why Does Military Combat Experience Adversely Affect Marital Relations?.
22. Ruger, Wilson, and Waddoups, Warfare and Welfare, 88.
23. Card, Lives after Vietnam
24. Card, Lives after Vietnam, 120.
25. J.W. Croake and R.S. Lyon, Factors Related to Tours of Duty and Marital Adjustment, International Journal of the Sociology of the Family (1979): 259-261.
26. Call and Teachman, Military Service and Stability (247).
27. see also Call and Teachman, Lifecourse Timing and Sequencing.
28. Jessup, Breaking Ranks. 74, 76.
29. Aphrodite Matsakis, Vietnam Wives (Kensington, MD: Woodbine House, 1988).
30. Harley Browning, Sally Lopreato, and Dudley Poston, Income and Veteran Status: Variations among Mexican Americans, Blacks, and Anglos, American Sociological Review 38 (1973): 74-85.
31. See page 91 in Jere Cohen, Rebecca Warner, and David R. Segal, Military Service and Educational Attainment in the All-volunteer Force, Social Science Quarterly 76 (1995): 88-104.
32. See Elder, War Mobilization and the Life Course.
33. Call and Teachman, Military Service and Stability, 247.
34. James S. Coleman, The Adolescent Society (Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1961).
35. see also Lloyd Temme, The History and Methodology of the Adolescent Society Follow-up Study (Washington, DC: Bureau of Social Science Research, 1975).
36. Margaret Marini, Transition to Adulthood, American Sociological Review 43 (1978): 483-507.
37. According to the Veterans Administration, 14 percent of female veterans were divorced as of September 1985, compared to 7 percent of women in the general population. See Veterans Administration, Survey of Female Veterans: A Study of the Needs, Attitudes and Experiences of Female Veterans (Office of Information Management and Statistics, Statistical Policy and Research Service Research Division [711] IM&S M 70-85-7). Much more research is needed on the family life of female veterans. Unfortunately, there are too few in our sample to contribute here.
38. For more details, see Coleman, The Adolescent Society, 58-68.
39. Call and Teachman, Life-course Timing and Sequencing.
40. See Charles Nam and Mary Powers, The Socioeconomic Approach to Status Measurement: With a Guide to Occupational and Socioeconomic Status Scores (Houston, TX: Cap and Gown Press, 1983).
41. See page 271 of Gay Kitson, K.B. Babri, and M.J. Roach, Who Divorces and Why: A Review, Journal of Family Issues 6 (1985): 255-93.
42. Ibid., 283.
43. Ibid., 279.
44. Logistic regressions were run unweighted. Listwise deletion was used.
45. Since Wald tests are a type of chi-square test, they are always one-tailed.
46. In Jennings and Markus's study of veterans' political attitudes-M. Kent Jennings and Gregory Markus, The Effect of Military Service on Political Attitudes: A Panel Study, American Political Science Review 71 (1977): 147-they write, Although in some instances the first glance suggested strong effects, these were usually reduced or vanquished with the introduction of relevant controls.
47. Goodness of fit was measured with the likelihood ratio chi-square statistic.
48. See Paul Allison, Multiple Regression: A Primer (Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press, 1999), 162-66.
49. Of course, a nonsignificant coefficient does not always indicate a noneffect. That depends on the power of the test employed. However, this study, with more than 2,000 cases and even more person-periods, has enough statistical power to provide a good chance of detecting significant relationships. In fact, this same military variable was significant in a model without controls. And several of the control variables were statistically significant. Likewise, nonsignificance cannot be attributed to low power caused by too few marital breakups. Service was statistically significant in models where the dependent variable was distributed the same as in the model with the controls.
50. Jennings and Markus, The Effect of Military Service, 146.
51. Ibid., 146-47.
52. See also M. Kent Jennings and Gregory Markus, Political Participation and Vietnam War Veterans: A Longitudinal Study, in The Social Psychology of Military Service, ed. Nancy L. Goldman and David R. Segal (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1976), 197.
53. Jennings and Markus, The Effect of Military Service, 147.
54. Call and Teachman, Life-course Timing and Sequencing.
55. The model tested was like the one in column 2 of Table 1, except that the number of years served substituted for ever served in the military. This type of model is used for confirmatory purposes whenever statistically significant effects have been obtained from a modified baseline model.
56. Any marriage period prior to 1965 was coded as 0 by this procedure because the Vietnam War period had not begun.
57. See Frey-Wouters and Laufer, Legacy of a War.
58. Laufer and Gallops, Life-course Effects of Vietnam Combat.
59. Card, Lives after Vietnam.
60. Gimbel and Booth, Why Does Military Combat Experience Adversely Affect Marital Relations?.
61. Ruger, Wilson, and Waddoups, Warfare and Welfare.
62. Call and Teachman, Life-course Timing and Sequencing, 225.
63. As before, this variable is represented by the interaction of Marine branch with having served in the military by a given postmarriage period. When having served in the military and Marine branch were added to the equation as constitutive terms (see Thomas Brambour, William Clark, and Matt Golder, Understanding Interaction Models: Improving Empirical Analyses, Political Analysis 14 (2006):63-82), the findings remained the same.
64. Nonsignificance cannot be attributed to low power caused by too few Marines. Service in the Marines was statistically significant in models without controls.
65. Call and Teachman, Life-course Timing and Sequencing.
66. J. Modell, Into One's Own: From Youth to Adulthood in the United States, 1920-1975 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989).
67. Call and Teachman, Life-course Timing and Sequencing.
68. Eliza Pavalko and Glen Elder, World War II and Divorce: A Life-course Perspective, American Journal of Sociology 95 (1990): 1213-34.
69. Card, Lives after Vietnam.
70. Call and Teachman, Life-course Timing and Sequencing.
71. Card, Lives after Vietnam.
72. Card, Lives after Vietnam.
73. Call and Teachman, Military Service and Stability, 248.
74. Ibid., 247
75. Ruger, Wilson, and Waddoups, Warfare and Welfare, 99.
76. Levin and Ferrier, Defending the Vietnam Combat Veteran, ix.
77. Ruger, Wilson, and Waddoups, Warfare and Welfare, 99.
78. Card, Lives after Vietnam, 139.
79. For example, Joel Brende and Erwin Parson, Vietnam Veterans: The Road to Recovery (New York: Plenum, 1985), 123.
80. Dean, Nam Vet.
81. Matsakis, Vietnam Wives.
82. Richard Ridenour, The Military, Service Families, and the Therapist, The Military Family: Dynamics and Treatment, ed. Florence Kaslow and Richard Ridenour (New York and London: Guilford, 1984), 1-17.
83. Gimbel and Booth, Why Does Military Combat Experience Adversely Affect Marital Relations?.
84. Frey-Wouters and Laufer, Legacy of a War, 66.
85. Card, Lives after Vietnam, 124-5.
86. Laufer and Gallops, Life-course Effects.
87. See Paulo Granjo, The Homecomer: Postwar Cleansing Rituals in Mozambique Armed Forces & Society 33 (2007): 382-95.
88. See Paul Camacho and Paul Atwood, A Review of the Literature on Veterans Published in Armed Forces & Society, 1974-2006 Armed Forces and Society 33 (2007): 351-81.
89. Brende and Parson, Vietnam Veterans, 123.
90. Camacho and Atwood, A Review of the Literature 375.