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I feel like I should say that I’m in no way, shape or form advocating for slutty, cheating wives. The point of this comic is that there’s a reason so many wives cheat, why so many marriages end in the Marine Corps. As a Marine that was married during most of my enlistment, I’ve obviously had my own trials and tribulations in this regard. However, wives (and husbands) cheat because their marriage is simply not strong. The average marriage in the military is exponentially weaker than one you’d see in the civilian world.
Why? Because people get married so quick and so young in the military. It really is as simple as that. Civilian marriages tend to work out a little better because these people date for months, cohabitate the same place for years, then mutually decide that they would like to spend the rest of their lives together. It has nothing to do with money, the barracks, base housing, BAH, or anything else.
Look at it this way: You’ve got your high school sweetheart, the girl back home, your girlfriend; whatever. You join the Marines, you two miss each other, you’d do anything to be together, so you jump the gun and get married. Why not? The system of the military actually encourages it by providing you with better living conditions. But here’s the thing: at 19 or 20 years old, you haven’t experienced much. It’s not that you’re stupid or anything so trivial as that, it’s that you are still figuring yourself out. A woman gets taken from her home and transplanted thousands of miles away on a Marine Corps base, she has none of her friends or family to support her and she is young. You love each other, but your love is young. You go away for 7 months, leaving her surrounded by thousands of fit, good-looking males ages 18-24. Shit happens.
It’s amazing how much you think you know about the world when you’re 20 years old. I look back on my own marriage with poised reflection in my recent divorce; for as much as I love my ex-wife (we’re still best friends–seriously), I can’t help but look back on my 20 year-old self and think…
God I was young.
*I should clarify: my wife never cheated on me and this isn’t why we got divorced.
On another note. Today is December 7th, which, as I’m sure you know, is a day that will live in infamy. Just as our generation will never forget the attack on the World Trade Center in New York in 2001; we must continue to never forget the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. Never forget.
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