Fighting Words

By MARK THOMPSON

The website promised a rare peek into the world of the wives of the Army's enlisted men. And Echo Gaines, 20, a computer student set to marry her soldier sweetheart this fall, found the material shocking indeed. No, this wasn't a steamy tell-all. It was a report from the Rand Corp., the longtime supplier of research to the Pentagon, that seems to endorse a prevailing view that Gaines will be marrying into a sorority whose members are "typically considered to be young, immature, lower-class spouses who are in financial difficulty and who have difficulty controlling their reproductive tendencies."

"My jaw hit the floor as I read it," says Gaines, daughter of a career Navy chief petty officer. "We were all shocked and offended by it because it showed only Army wives with problems, instead of those who are doing well."

So within days, Gaines, who designs Web pages between college classes and working at Sears, launched an Internet counteroffensive against Rand's report, titled Invisible Women: Junior Enlisted Army Wives rand.org/publications/MR/MR1223) and its author, Margaret Harrell. Dozens of military spouses have contributed to Gaines' Visible Women website visiblewomen.homestead.com/home.html their tales of the trials and triumphs of being married to G.I.s--and the U.S. Army.

But Harrell, a former Army brat turned cultural anthropologist, says acknowledging the traditional view of Army spouses is the first step toward knocking it down. She thinks the stereotype is rooted in reality but could be improved if the military addressed the low pay, poor housing and troubled medical care that help fuel it. "The book does reflect the stereotype," she says, "but it's one that's out there in the military community."

Harrell's doctoral work is the source of the study, which the Army didn't request but Rand published anyway. It is based on interviews with more than 100 Army spouses but focuses mainly on three Army wives speaking in great detail about the financial hardships, marital miscues and child-rearing challenges they share. One is a 20-year-old who lives with her husband and child--and another on the way, both unplanned--in a trailer home outside Fort Stewart, Ga. Deeply in debt, she is scared because her husband will be on duty in Kuwait when the second baby arrives. "I am really worried if we are going to make it," she admits. Harrell says the woman's woes, including her "uncontrolled procreation," are "very typical" in young Army families.

Life for young Army families is tough. Pay for the lower ranks is dirt poor--$965 a month in basic pay for new grunts --and often represents the only paycheck if Mom has to stay home with a kid or two. She is frequently left alone for weeks or months at a time in a strange town, far from relatives, when her husband heads overseas. That can lead to bitterness, which upsets soldiers and dents morale. While the Army likes to say it "enlists the soldier but re-enlists the family," grumpy wives prod many soldiers to leave the service after their initial tour of duty. That hurts retention and ultimately military readiness.

But rather than giving Army wives a banner to rally around, the book seems to have wounded their pride. "Unfortunately, we have a bad reputation in the civilian world," says Gaines' website. "Please read our stories," it says. "We dare you to stereotype us." Army wives ask outsiders to appreciate their particular circumstances. "Society can not understand the sacrifices we make as moms, wives, and women," says a posting from Amanda. "As we kiss our husbands goodbye, and tuck our children in at night alone, and tell them, 'Of course Daddy will be back soon,' while we hold our breath and say a silent prayer."

The Army has praised Harrell's study and sent her to talk about it with the wives of Army officers, but not to the women she wrote about. "The problem with generalizations is that generally they offend someone," says Major Ryan Yantis, an Army spokesman. "But it's very healthy when people say, 'Hey, we're not like that.'" Commanders are now distributing copies at many Army posts. But it will take bucks, not books, to fix many of the problems detailed inside Invisible Women.