I think there is a major, and bizarre, problem with many of our higher ranking military officers: they can’t get married!
That is, within the military, unless an officer marries another officer, and one outside their chain of command, there are few if any opportunities for them to meet a civilian potential spouse.
There is little or no military-civilian interface, where even junior officers could meet potential mates. The end result is that the military has become almost a celibate priesthood. If not chaste.
As I said, it is a bizarre problem.
Yet at a particular point, advancement without being married becomes problematic, so officers are encouraged to “take what they can get” from among a pool of spouses that are hardly the cream of the crop. They are discouraged to take a foreign spouse, however, which was another traditional remedy.
On top of that, a military officer is not a particularly good catch for a spouse, as they are transient, there is little chance for their spouse to have a career, and they tend to live in some pretty unpleasant locations.
While a lot of this has always been the case, and is just part of the job, the inherent prudishness of the military and the congress tends to exacerbate the problem.
The military strongly prefers unmarried personnel, because they are just easier to deal with. But there is only about a 15 year window for most people in which they can find a spouse, get married, and have children. Otherwise they are damned to bachelorhood at worst, or childlessness at best.
Spending four or more of those essential years in uniform, and in the absence of marital prospects, puts a lot of pressure on personnel to leave after one tour of service, even if they like the military. Even so, when leaving the military, they have lost four or more critical years of advancement and promotion in civilian employment, making them less desirable as marriage prospects.
The bottom line is that, while the military may prefer unmarried personnel, in the future, to retain enough good people, it may have no other choice but to do what used to be done, to create opportunities for its personnel to meet civilian spouses, and to insist that at least a majority of its junior officers get married.
And get married not to just anyone, but someone worth marrying. And to offer more stable opportunities to its married personnel. Let the bachelors go gallivanting around the world. Let the marrieds spend the bulk of their career in the same regiment and duty station.
Marriage and children are hardly topics that the military enjoy discussing, compared to its primary mission, but unless they are given consideration, it will continue to impact their mission and inhibit their performance.
“there are few if any opportunities for them to meet a civilian potential spouse.”
“military has become almost a celibate priesthood.”
“If not chaste”
“encouraged to “take what they can get””
“military officer is not a particularly good catch for a spouse”
and on and on and on.........
Wow. You have a great future in writing fiction.
I think it's this statement and the rest of your post that is bizarre.