Post-Deployment Indicators of Single Soldiers’ Well-Being

The civilian literature indicates that married individuals generally have better health than others; but little is known as to whether this also applies to soldiers. Using a sample of 4,346 soldiers surveyed 3–4 months after Iraq deployments, we examined three perspectives that explain the advantage of the married (social causation and social selection hypotheses, and crisis theory). We divided single soldiers into two groups – never married and previously married – and compared their well-being to married soldiers using logistic regression (adjusting for age, gender, rank, parental status, education, and combat exposure).