Military Family
Military families cry for help
Jan 27th
By Mary Brophy Marcus–USA TODAY–
Kevin Kammerdiener’s mother, Leslie, takes care of his every need, which would be fine if he were in preschool.
The thing is, “Kamm” is 21. He suffered a traumatic brain injury, shattered bones and burns on 25% of his body in Afghanistan in May 2008, which left him in a wheelchair, unable to speak and in chronic pain.
Leslie moved from Pennsylvania to her son’s home in Riverview, Fla., to care for him after he spent months at a military hospital in San Antonio.
Now Leslie Kammerdiener, 44, spends her days making sure Kevin eats well, is clean and comfortable, and is not in pain. More recently, she has been helping him rebuild his vocabulary (he can say about 100 words), which he lost after a suicide bomber drove a vehicle full of explosives into his Humvee. By night, she soothes him when he is wakeful, which she says is pretty much all the time.
“I’m lucky if I get two to four hours of sleep at one time,” Kammerdiener says.
Mostly, Leslie just wants her once-strapping son to be safe and happy — to teach him enough words so he can let people know what he needs, maybe even have a relationship one day, she says hopefully, mentioning the prom photo he sometimes cradles and sobs over.
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Military Divorces Increasing From War Stress
Nov 30th
WASHINGTON (AP) — The divorce rate in the armed forces continues to edge higher, despite efforts by the military to help struggling couples.
There were an estimated 27,312 divorces among roughly 765,000 married members of the active-duty Army, AirForce, Navy and Marine Corps in the 12 months that ended Sept. 30, the Pentagon reported Friday.
That’s a divorce rate of about 3.6 percent, compared with 3.4 percent a year earlier, according to figures from the Defense Manpower Data Center. Marriages among reservists failed at a rate of 2.8 percent compared to 2.7 the previous year.
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