The men, wearing standard-issue orange, wrote to injured soldiers to thank them for protecting their freedom. Several spoke of the irony.

But none dwelled on it.

In the regimented life of the medium-security Marion County Jail II, a privately run facility, Thursday’s program offered an hour or more of escape as the inmates wrote cards for wounded soldiers and veterans at a military hospital.

Many of the 30 or so who gathered in the chapel had asked to take part.

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By Amanda Kim Stairrett
Killeen Daily Herald

FORT HOOD – The Army strives for physical fitness in its soldiers, and has begun to focus on mental and spiritual fitness, too.

Fort Hood is taking a step toward building the latter with the creation of the Spiritual Fitness Center.

“An Army at war needs warriors who are experienced in wrestling with the difficult questions of pain and suffering, grief and loss, and must be adept at making tough decisions that affect all who serve in the military at these times,” states information from the Garrison Chaplain Office.

The proposed center will provide those soldiers with that guidance, and representatives from units across Fort Hood met Tuesday to discuss its benefits.

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HEIDELBERG, Germany — Three years ago Landstuhl Regional Medical Center developed the Combat and Operational Stress Reaction Staff Resiliency (COSR/SR) program to address the trauma and loss of empathy health care providers face as a result of combat and operational stress. The Army’s new Provider Resilience Training program is designed to further that care.

“(Combat and operational stress) is part of the spectrum of emotional and spiritual and psychosocial reactions that come to people in the aftermath of some sort of a trauma,” said Chaplain (Col.) James R. Griffith, chief of LRMC’s clinical pastoral division. LRMC’s health care providers sometimes experience the secondary trauma of treating those patients because they identify with them very closely, he said.

“When you’re in an intensive care unit or a burn ward, and you’re caring for a young Soldier who was wounded ‘downrange,’ you look at him and think, ‘That could be my son on the table,’ Griffith said. “The combat (and) operational stress part is that there may be a little bit of avoidance, where they’ve had enough and they need a break before they go into another ICU room.”

PRT is designed to assist military health care providers who may be experiencing provider fatigue to “recharge.”

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By PAULINE JELINEK

WASHINGTON (AP) — The divorce rate among soldiers and Marines increased last year as military marriages suffered continuing stress from America’s two ongoing wars. There were an estimated 10,200 failed marriages in the active duty Army and 3,077 among Marines, according to figures obtained by The Associated Press for the budget year ended Sept. 30.

That’s a divorce rate of 3.5 percent among more than 287,000 married troops in the Army, up from 3.3 percent in the previous fiscal year, according to Defense Department figures.

“With increasing demands placed on Army families and soldiers — including frequent deployments and relocations — intimate relationships are tested,” said Army spokesman Paul Boyce.

The new data shows 3.7 percent of more than 84,000 married Marines divorced in fiscal year 2008, up from 3.3 percent in 2007. The Marine Corps called the increase statistically small and said officials would need to examine them farther.

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UIJEONGBU, South Korea (BP)–Chaplain (CPT) Brian Oh believes in giving back. Born in South Korea, Oh spent his childhood and young adult life in Chunju, a small city southwest of Seoul.

When Oh’s mother was 13, American missionaries moved to her town and founded a Baptist church, which she began attending and where she prayed to receive Christ.

Later, Oh’s uncle planted a church that eventually grew to 12,000 members, and Oh’s mother became involved in that ministry.

As a result, Oh grew up surrounded by Christian influences. At age 15, Oh prayed to receive Christ. It was a decision, he said, that changed the course of his life.

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Liberty University Online Academy has initiated an innovative educational program that will provide select Army National Guard recruits with a high school degree.

LUOA, which provides online education for grades 3-12, will be providing instruction for recruits who meet the Guard’s eligibility requirements but lack sufficient education.

“If you want to enlist in the Guard, you need to have a high school diploma, a GED or be currently enrolled in school,” said Jay Spencer, executive associate for online projects at LU.

The recruits must be able to meet high school degree requirements within 10 months of beginning the LUOA program.

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