A Vow to Hold Steady for the Troops

HINESVILLE, Ga. -- With its soldiers again on a distant battlefield, this Army town is doing its best to prevent wartime desertions -- by spouses.

By offering everything from wives-only socials and church-sponsored support groups to free baby-sitting and financial help, Army commanders and local officials hope to stem the kind of exodus seen here more than 12 years ago when troops from Ft. Stewart marched off en masse for the first Persian Gulf conflict.

Soon after the 1990 deployment, residents recall, the spouses -- nearly all of them young wives -- scattered, too. In droves, they broke leases, packed up children and went home to their parents to wait out the hostilities. The sidewalks of Main Street and shopping centers emptied around Hinesville, which then had 21,600 residents. Many businesses suffered losses; a number collapsed during an economic tailspin lasting a year and a half.

But the latest mass deployment from Ft. Stewart -- which along with nearby Hunter Army Airfield is home to the 3rd Infantry Division (Mechanized) -- has produced a different picture.

To the pleasant surprise of the folks around Liberty County, the feared ghost-town effect has so far failed to materialize during the six months since Ft. Stewart began shipping its 16,000 soldiers to the Persian Gulf.

“The dependents and the families of the soldiers didn’t leave this time,” said Bill Goodwin, who manages a Kroger supermarket where sales have held their own. “You don’t see the soldiers ... but the dependents are still in town and still shopping.”

The troops’ departure hasn’t left the local economy unscathed. Real-estate agents say apartment vacancies are up as much as 25%, and sales of homes in the $50,000-$70,000 range favored by some military families have dropped.

Merchants are cutting back on advertising and cinching their belts in other ways to make up for reduced sales already dampened by recession. Chong Mason, who owns the Golden Dragon restaurant, said she has laid off four workers to stay afloat as the flow of soldiers dribbled to almost none.

But officials say the harsh lessons from the prior episode have helped head off worse trouble by persuading the spouses to stay. And officials are doing a better job of helping them manage alone.

“We’ve done a lot to let the families know we care about them -- that we don’t want them to leave,” said Bob Sprinkel, assistant commissioner of Liberty County and a former serviceman, who was deployed during the Gulf War.

The Army has made it clear to spouses that it will be easier to get information about their loved ones if they stick around. On base, they stay connected through family-support groups that make use of e-mail updates, “telephone trees” and social outings like women-only karaoke sing-alongs.

Hinesville’s mayor, Thomas J. Ratcliffe, set up a city military-affairs committee that has distributed coupon books for discounts on services and meals for the families of deployed troops. One power company is allowing families to defer without penalty paying up to 30% of their utility bills while the soldiers are away.

“What you have in many ways is what I like to think is Southern hospitality,” said Ratcliffe, whose City Hall office looks out onto Main Street, now decked out in yellow ribbons and foot-tall American flags.

The town and base blend almost seamlessly, and few can envision life without Ft. Stewart, established in 1941. Ft. Stewart and Hunter Army Airfield, with 19,400 soldiers and 4,000 civilian employees between them, pump $1.85 billion into the area economy. Locals are fluent in the argot of military acronyms and refer to the division as the “3rd I.D.”

But Hinesville’s fast growth -- the population jumped by nearly 50% during the 1990s, to 30,392 -- has softened the blow of a big deployment. On its two main commercial boulevards, the town boasts a Wal-Mart and shiny strip malls, plus a movie theater and a host of fast-food outlets that didn’t exist 12 years ago.

Local officials credit Ft. Stewart’s commanders with laying plans before the deployment began last fall. Amid looming tensions with Iraq, the garrison commander, Col. Gerald Poltorak, instructed his staff to find ways to help spouses stay.

“He said, ‘Let’s keep these families here. We don’t want a mass exodus like in Desert Storm,’ ” said Susan Wilder, a civilian who is the deployment program manager on base.

Staffers produced articles in the base newspaper and videos to drive home a simple point: “Don’t go away.... This is where the information on the particular soldier you care about will be available,” Wilder said.

Latoya Woods, the 20-year-old wife of a sergeant sent to Kuwait in September, said she is staying, along with the couple’s nine-month-old son, to keep closer tabs on the division, which has penetrated deep into Iraq. “You get a lot of news being here, and you’re available for them to call you quickly,” she said.

Woods also has turned for support to one of the area’s abundant churches, which have flung open their doors, offering spouses spiritual help, chat groups and advice on the basics of solo living, from personal banking to checking oil in the family car.

Woods, whose parents live in Mississippi, has attended support sessions at Live Oak Church of God near the base. They have helped, she said.

Marisol Laboy-Morris, a former banker who is a pastor at the church, has given financial advice to waiting spouses, many of whom are for the first time in charge of the checkbook and their husbands’ pay, which now includes a combat bonus.

During the Gulf War, she said, “a lot of these women were up and leaving because they messed up finances.”

The final economic toll here will depend on how long the conflict lasts. At Realty Executives, which rents almost solely to military personnel, owner Susan Strickland said she’s surprised the vacancy rate has not been higher.

“But we’re waiting for the soldiers to come back to get back to normal business,” she said. “There will be trouble if this carries on for long months.”