Domestic violence is one of the most pervasive of all social ills. Women in big cities and sprawling suburban communities, women in small towns and rural areas, rich women and poor women are all vulnerable to violence. It is not surprising then that women in military families, either as enlisted personnel themselves or as the wives of soldiers, sailors, marines, or airmen, suffer as well from the effects of domestic violence. The most compelling statistic regarding domestic abuse in the military comes from Pentagon records. CBS news staffers analyzing Pentagon records for “The War at Home,” a 1999 segment of the newsmagazine 60 Minutes, found that the incidence of domestic violence in the military was five times higher than in the civilian population for the years 1992 to 1996.

However, the Department of Defense (DOD) argues that comparing...