P.O.W. Divorce Surge

Alan Kroboth, 27, was an American prisoner of war in Viet Nam for "275 days, 14 hours, 36 minutes and 14 seconds." Shortly after he returned home to New Jersey to a hero's welcome and a beaming wife in 1973, his marriage began to unravel. Now Kroboth has joined the rapidly growing ranks of ex-P.O.W.s who have become ex-husbands since they returned home.

Military records show that as of last October the divorce rate for former P.O.W.s stood at 27%—about twice the normal rate for men of their age group. By now, the percentage has certainly climbed far higher. Recently, the Navy's Center for Prisoner of War Studies published the results of a research project showing that ex-P.O.W.s' marriages break up for many reasons. The range goes from the rage of returned servicemen learning of their wives' infidelity to the reluctance of wives to give up the independence they learned to enjoy while their husbands were away. Kroboth is one of the many ex-P.O.W.s who were caught by surprise by women's liberation: he says he could not accept his wife's announcement that extramarital liaisons are "natural and normal."

Yet despite the soaring divorce rate, the Navy researchers maintain that "most of the families seemed to feel that the separation had actually served to bring them closer together."