When the nation's top-ranking military commanders talk about the Army being stressed nearly to the breaking point by repeat combat deployments, a lot of that concern doesn't have to do with the battlefield. It has to do with home.

Gen. Richard Cody, the Army's vice chief of staff, reiterated the mantra again on April 1 before a Senate Armed Services subcommittee.

Cody said the Army today is out of balance.

"The current demand for forces in Iraq and Afghanistan exceeds our sustainable supply of soldiers, of units and equipment, and limits our ability to provide ready forces for other contingencies," Cody said.

Lengthy and repeated combat deployments with insufficient recovery time at home stations have placed "incredible stress" on soldiers and their families, testing the resolve of the all-volunteer force like never before, Cody testified.

It's taken a toll at Schofield Barracks, families say.

Divorces have skyrocketed, substance abuse has spiked in tandem with post-traumatic stress, talented people are leaving the Army, and many children are being raised in what become single-parent homes during lengthy overseas tours.

The Stryker brigade and 4,000 soldiers are just north of Baghdad on a 15-month deployment. The same unit — minus the 19-ton Stryker vehicles — spent all of 2004 and part of 2005 in Iraq.

About 7,000 Schofield soldiers with the 25th Infantry Division headquarters, 3rd Brigade and Aviation Brigade returned to Hawai'i in October. The same units are expected to leave again for Iraq later this year and early next — a year after coming home.

Four or five divorces were pending during the 15 months that one company of about 130 3rd Brigade Schofield soldiers recently was in northern Iraq. After the unit returned, there were at least 10 to 15 more, family members say.

They also say there have been drunken driving fatalities and fatal drug overdoses.

Shauna Smith, whose husband, 1st Sgt. Christopher Smith, is with the 3rd Brigade at Schofield, said a good friend has been married seven years. In that time, her husband has been on five deployments.

"So he had come home long enough for them to have kids and then left," Shauna Smith said. "Their kids don't know what it's like to have dad at home every night for any extended period of time."

Smith's husband was in Afghanistan in 2004-2005, and in Iraq in 2006-2007. First Sgt. Smith has taken a job at Rutgers University as an ROTC instructor, which will keep him out of Iraq and may lead to his retirement.

But it will let him spend time with their three kids, now 8, 13 and 16.

Shauna Smith, 38, predicts there will be a generation of dysfunctional Army kids because they are growing up with fathers constantly away at war.

She knows what she's talking about. Smith has been a military wife for 18 years. She was involved in Family Readiness Groups that keep families informed, and Crisis Response Teams that help console spouses when there's a fatality.

"I see (the Army) trying to do things. I see programs — things set up for kids and for families," she said.

But there remains institutional resistance.

"From a soldier's perspective, if you are a hard-core infantry soldier, and this is your career and you are all right with that, your career takes a toll when you say, 'I'm having nightmares and headaches' " from combat stress, Shauna Smith said.

Smith, like other Army spouses, said one year at home between combat just isn't enough because it takes a good six months to reintegrate back into family life. But if there's another deployment scheduled, the six-month mark is when the training pace picks up for the next overseas tour, creating disharmony again.

The relationships of younger soldiers who have not been through repeat deployments before are particularly hard hit.

Ahead of its next deployment to Iraq, the 3rd Brigade is expected to rotate through Pohakuloa Training on the Big Island in May, and head to the National Training Center in California in July.

Col. Walt Piatt, who commands the 3rd Brigade and will lead it to Iraq later this year, said: "In times of war, everyone sacrifices. That's why we took the oath we did — to serve."

But as a commander, he also understands that the readiness of the family is key to success.

"And when you go back to back to back (to combat), there is a strain placed on the family, which degrades the soldier's ability to perform. So it has to be addressed. You can't ignore it," he said.

Piatt said he tries to build in predictability for training.

"No surprise training. No away-from-home unless it's absolutely necessary," he said.

He said he's also limited schools that are traditionally away from home.

"What we did was we brought the school to them," Piatt said, "so that soldiers don't have to go away for up to six weeks, and they can still go home at night."

Cody, the Army's vice chief of staff, said a plan to add 74,000 more soldiers by 2011 will help restore "balance" to the service. The coming decades are "likely to be ones of persistent conflict," he said.

Army combat tours as of Aug. 1 also are being returned to 12 months in Iraq and Afghanistan instead of the current 15.

There remains plenty of frustration to go around right now among Army families, though.

"I don't know what the answer is. Making the dwell time longer would be better than making the deployment shorter," said Jennifer Swenddal, referring to the "dwell," or home time between deployments.

Her husband, Capt. Jerem Swenddal, 30, also is in the 3rd Brigade. He, too, just returned from Iraq in October.

The change to 12-month combat deployments doesn't do much for her.

"If it's still a 12-month dwell time (at home), I'm in the same situation I was," she said. "I don't think I'm going to be truly happy until the dwell time is longer — I would say at least two years, if not longer."

In the meantime, she said, "a lot of people who were good soldiers are leaving" the Army.

Natasha Beck agreed that "there have been a lot of people who have gotten divorced and they've had really rough times in their marriages."

"But I was in the military before, too, so I kind of know what to expect," she said. "I knew what I was getting myself into."

Her husband, 1st Lt. Torrance Beck, 35, also with the 3rd Brigade, soon will be training up for Iraq again. He returned to Hawai'i about five months ago after 15 months of combat duty.

The Becks have a 4-year-old daughter.

"As long as Torrance and I are able to keep the lines of communication open, we really don't have any problems," said Natasha Beck, who's 28.

She, too, believes life would be more tenable in the Army if there were two years between deployments.

"We want to have more children, but it's like, I don't want to (raise another child) by myself," Natasha Beck said. "So it's like prolonging all that stuff and I'm knocking on 30's door. A year is definitely not enough to be reintegrated in and focus on your family."