Boosting Morale 7,000 Miles From Home

We've been lucky these past 6 and a half months. We've run over 50 missions through some of the worst areas left in Iraq and haven't lost anyone. The rockets and mortars that occasionally make their presence known have been off-target, and other than an isolated incident involving a violent extremist (that's the new politically-correct term, FYI) posing as an Iraqi soldier, there has been no violence to speak of on our base. All that to say this: regardless of all those good things, this is not an easy deployment for anybody. Marital strife in the Army has almost become the norm, rather than the exception. One of my soldiers is dealing with that as we speak, and I can't imagine what he's going through. I spoke with another soldier on the bus yesterday who is on his 4th (yes, fourth) deployment. His daughter was born shortly before his first deployment, and is now 8. He has spent 4 years TOTAL with his 8 year-old daughter. That's another untold cost of war. Military divorce rates were through the roof but are finally starting to level off, but only now that the deployment cycles have slowed. A lot of the reason I'm here in this Army right now is so that that Staff Sergeant won't ever have to miss another year of his girl's life. Largely symbolic, but better me than that husband and father. We are halfway done here, but these kinds of stresses are huge burdens on us over here trying to finish the job so we can get back home to our loved ones. Unit morale is often affected by stress...be it inside the unit, problems back home, or just soldiers getting stuck in a rut. Morale in the workplace, regardless of the workplace, is INCREDIBLY important. It doesn't matter if you're a dishwasher at the Olive Garden or the Army Chief of Staff. If your morale is low, your job is affected. So, what can be done to boost morale in the workplace? Today, it was throwing a whole bunch of meat on the grill and pumping out awful hip hop music through computer speakers. It never ceases to amaze me how such a simple thing like a "backyard" BBQ can improve our morale. It's rare to have a "fun" day out here, but today was fun. I saw a platoon come together to put this "grillstravaganza" together and every single one of us had fun...for hours. 3 bags of charcoal, and roughly 30 pounds of meat were consumed and every soldier left with a smile on his face. Did we solve all our problems as a result of John's famous (near-)beer brats? No. But we were reminded of the fact that every single one of these soldiers here has whatever support that they may need, regardless of the situation, and that DOES (re)build morale.