While I was in Vietnam, within just a few months we started to get the Dear John letters. Wives, girlfriends, started to find new partners rapidly and it definitely had an effect on our morale.
Our XO even had a bulletin board made up so we could post their Dear Johns for everyone to read. We quickly discovered that they all had the same format and said pretty much the same thing and after a while, we realized that women are fickle, and we were all in the same boat.
When I got home, I was amazed to see what women were settling for - but it's the way of the world.
There’s a saying: “The wife will bring a date to her husband’s funeral”.
I was the shoulder for a couple of military guys I knew in Iraq who received that news - via email in this day and age. I’ve never been a physical retaliation person, but I wanted to b*tch-slap the selfish women who sent those messages to their husbands while they were deployed.
I’m sorry for all of the troops in Vietnam who got those letters. So cruel and self-absorbed of those women back home to do that.
In our extended group of friends in the 70s, one had a father (high ranking US Marine) who was a POW. It was very sad that when he finally was released the mother/wife divorced him. All that suffering for what ?