I’ve heard that in WWII and Vietnam a lot of soldiers brought home war brides – that is, they met women while on their tours of duty and married them – but I haven’t heard of any GIs bringing home brides from Afghanistan or Iraq. Has it happened?
It has happened, but in much smaller numbers than in previous wars.
I only glanced over the first page, but here’s a Newsweek article on the subject.
It’s my impression that GIs fraternize with the locals much less than in previous wars. Bases, even those in cities, are much larger and self contained, and soldiers just don’t wander the streets meeting girls. Besides, now that GIs have access to computers, DVDs and female GIs, there isn’t that much of a reason to leave base.
The biggest factors are likely:
- An Iraqi culture and an Afghani culture that generally are very protective and paternalistic towards women
- A socio-religious setting that does not encourage (and in some cases allow) single women from going out of their homes unescorted and certainly without being somewhat conservatively dressed
- Most male GIs (aka kaffirs) would not likely gain the approval of a local female’s family to marry unless they converted to Islam
I take it you haven’t seen the average female GI.
I’m assuming they’re no more and no less attractive than the average male GI.
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And other cultures send women to the lions?
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Not true of Iraq in the slightest. And not true all over Afghanistan.
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Speculation
I would think another reason for the lower amount of brides is
i) Far less troops involved, v the millions in WWII and several hundred thousand in Korea and Vietnam.
ii) Much harder for local brides to immigrate to the States then was the case previously.
Here’s an incident (2 marriages) and insight into why it doesn’t happen more often.
Oh… and did I mention that having an intimate relationship with a local national is a violation of General Order #1? It is illegal for a soldier to do so and he could go to jail for it and/or be discharged.
I doubt it still exists, but during WWII and the Korean war, there was a War Brides Act, permitting them to come to the U.S. under non-quota status. My wife of 58 years came here under that Act from Japan. At that time (1951) the wait under the immigration quota was about ten years.
I do wonder if that law still exists, or a similar one is in effect for the current wars.
Huh. Bear, how far does the “local national” thing go? Here’s why I’m asking:
My brother is in the Air Force (which I understand is a different branch and thus, may have different rules). One of his friends, also an airman, met and married a bar girl - unfortunately, I forget where he met her (Panama? Thailand? No idea), but she is Russian. She ran drinks there and they had a special term for her, but I can’t remember it now (drink girl? Happy girl? bubble girl? Again, no idea.). She’d told him that she was basically trapped in indentured servitude to the bar she worked, had no way out, yadda yadda. In any case, he did whatever he did to “free” her, and then left to return to the States. A few months later, she shows up in the States, finds him, and off they go - they ended up falling in love and marrying.
So, now that I’ve written it all out, it’s probably a lot different than marrying someone in a combat zone. Still, he was deployed to somewhere (but in a non-combat function), met a girl, did kind of the “madame butterfly” thing, and ended up marrying her, so I thought it pertinent to the OP’s question. She isn’t a war-bride per se, but the situation is similar.
Sadly, they’re divorced now. I recall my brother saying that all their other friends told him it was a bad idea, and turns out that was the case.
Anyway, an anecdote for your reading pleasure.
Is intimate a euphemism as you use it? Specifically, is only sexual contact a violation of the order, or would just forming a close friendship with a local be a violation as well?
Lol. The moment I read “bar girl” I knew that was a bad idea.
No, “intimate” is specifically the word used in the regulation. “Intimate or sexual relation”. I supposed this allows the prosecution more leeway into hammering a soldier for his/her undesirable relationship. A very close friendship–preceived to be something more–might be a violation. But I’m not JAG, so I can’t say for sure.
Snickers, General Order #1 applies to current combat zones. A soldier can still be deployed to Korea and meet a local national or third country national and marry her. (Not that I’d know anything about that. lol)
There is no immigration quota for spouses of US citizens. As far as I know, there are no special immigration provisions for spouses of non-US citizen military personnel.
Why is that? Are they afraid the local might be a spy?
An older waitress at an Asian restaurant here is a Vietnam War Bride. She showed me a picture of her at 18 or so with a skinny, idiotically grinning GI about three feet taller than she. 
She has learned to cook corn bread and complains about her grandchildren.
Korea. Juicy girls. That’s what you remember.
I think the Army’s more afraid of soldiers pissing off local allies by defiling their women.
The article Bear_Nenno linked talks about loss of concentration (or rather, of being too busy thinking with your small head for your big head to be focused on your military duties).
The specific case the article is about is particularly bad: the two noncom grooms broke direct orders and conspired with other soldiers to help them (given they’re noncoms, they may even have ordered some of the other soldiers to go along, but this is just my WAG). If someone of mine was killed in a war zone I’d be sad, angry… if he was killed in a war zone going with a buddy to the buddy’s specifically-forbidden wedding, said buddy better be dead already.
If it was Thailand, it would have been in Pattaya. The Russian mafia has a huge presence in that seaside resort town. It is rare for Western women to work as bargirls but not completely unheard of in that town if it was a Russian-owned bar. The “indentured servitude” line is a not uncommon one handed out to punters in hopes of getting more money and/or a visa, but it’s always bunk; however, knowing how tight the Russians keep their dealings, it would not surprise me too much if it were true in that case, but I’m still skeptical, as I would probably have heard about this sort of thing if it were really going on.