Georgia Military Divorce Lawyer - Your Cheatin' Heart
The Fay Observer
I am not one of those gals who sits around, clipping my toenails and watching CSI reruns. I don’t watch much television, but I especially avoid shows that involve homicide.
I was a cop reporter for 10 years. Take my word for it — there is nothing glamorous about being at the scene of a murder. There’s just a whole lot of grieving going on.
The people who know me best are keenly aware of my aversion to such sadness. That’s why the bulk of them were stunned when I told them I was moving to Fayetteville.
“You mean the murder capital of North Carolina?” asked one.
“That’s a rough town,” warned a combat veteran. “You better get yourself a concealed-weapons permit.”
“Don’t you know they’ve got a serial murderer on the loose there?” Mama cried.
Mama watches way too much CSI and CNN. I’m a newswoman, but even I think news should be digested like all good things — in moderation.
Of course I’d heard about the murders of Spc. Megan Touma and 2nd Lt. Holley Wimunc. A person would have to have been holed up in some remote Idaho canyon to have missed the headline coverage the national media gave these tragedies.
Prior to coming to Fayetteville, I was in Fairhope, Ala., doing a writer-in-residence gig. Specifically, I was working on the draft of a true-crime book. I’d spent the better half of the past year sifting through thousands of pages of documents, conducting interviews with prosecutors, defense attorneys, the victim’s family, investigators and doctors.
All that research taught me that what seems to be the case, often isn’t. To the outsider, Fayetteville may seem to be a violent community.
“I wouldn’t live in a military town,” warned one friend.
The implication being that soldiers are like gang members, only their weapons are government-issued.
But as I read those news reports, I began to wonder if perhaps the real threat of living in a military community isn’t random killings, but all that “whoring around” that goes on when soldiers are deployed.
We know that when we send 14-year-olds off to coed camps, we need counselors to keep watch. Otherwise, somebody is going to be sneaking off, making a bed of pine straw and doing the big nasty. Probably a whole lot of somebodies.
Decades ago, when we were debating the merits and demerits of allowing women to serve alongside their brothers in the Armed Forces, opponents raised the infidelity issue. They argued that allowing women to serve would give new definition to “soldiers humping it” — a term traditionally used to describe an infantryman’s long hike.
Turns out, they were probably right. Bunk boys and girls together, even grown boys and girls — maybe even especially grown boys and girls — and you can expect some hanky-panky is gonna go on.
Divorce rates in the military have grown at an alarming rate since the Iraq invasion, according to one 2005 Associated Press report. But then again, the national trend is up, too. According to the Centers for Disease Control, nearly half of all marriages end up in divorce. (Maybe the question we ought to be asking is why the nation’s divorce rate is being tracked by the center for “disease control”?)
Far as I can tell, nobody is keeping track of the cheating rates of G.I. Johnny and Jane, but Newsweek reported in 2004 that equal rights for an increasing number of married women means she can be as big a slut as her male counterpart.
I’m not suggesting that bed-hopping led to the murders of Touma and Wimunc. There is no excusable reason for such violence toward others, ever. Nor am I saying that infidelity will invariably lead to homicide, but we’d all do well to heed the truth of that old Patsy Cline tune: “Your cheatin’ heart will tell on you.”
No matter where you live, building a safe community begins at home.
Alexandra Gonzalez-Waddington is an Augusta GA divorce lawyer & Georgia Military Divorce Lawyer Augusta Georgia domestic mediator. She is an Augusta military divorce lawyer, GA child custody attorney , and Augusta Georgia child support attorney. She offers mediation for divorce, child custody, and child support.
