Don’t you know that when you’re a married couple both serving the war together, you are allowed to share the same bunk?

After the duty of American soldiers, the men would usually go to their quarters and women to theirs. But for Sgt. Marvin Frazier, he gets to get to a trailer where there is a pushed together bed that he shares with his wife.

There had been a historic change in policy that little had been know and that is the Army allowing the scores of wife and husband to sleep together in the sanctity of a war zone a move in aims to preserve marriage, intended to boost morale and also considered as a way to increase re-enlistment rates during the times when the military had a hard time filling up it’ ranks five years into the fighting since some are reluctant to leave their loved ones behind, I guess it’s one way of saying that you wouldn’t have to because your loved one can just get aboard.

Frazier 33 say that, “It makes it a lot easier”. Frazier is a helicopter maintenance supervisor in the 3^rd Infantry Division. “It really adds a lot of stress, being separated. Now you can sit face-to-face and try to work out things and comfort each other.”

Before in a long standing Army rule, soldiers are not allowed of the opposite sex to share sleeping quarters together, men should be in their quarters and women should be in the quarters of their own even if there are married couples, they are still prohibited, having no private living space for these couples.

The change on rules happened when a commander in Iraq in May 2006 made a decision due to the military’s interest to promote marriage bliss. In short, let no manual put asunder what God had put together.

Analyst for the military says that it is actually the first time that anyone in the Army even considered it seriously, not only contributing to a number of couples that had been sent away war this time around, but also on the way fighting has strained and dragged marriages in a repeated 12-and 15 month duties and tours.

The number of couples in army is around 10,000. Couples were also sent way back in 1991’s Gulf War but living arrangements only happened after the war itself that it became an issue, shared by Lory Manning, who used to be a Navy captain, she studied on how military policies affect nonprofit Woman’s Research and how military policies affect women.

There are more than 10,000 couples sent to the Army and many are serving the war zone and to know if how many of those are living together is not quite clear. The Army does not keep track of this.

However, couples in Army are still not allowed to show public display of affection, under the regulation that governs men and women in uniform. Like kissing and holding hands whether they are on the hall way or on duty area strictly not allowed.

The only disadvantage of the said situation was the wife to become pregnant in a war zone, in regards to policy it remains unclear if this had been applicable in Afghanistan. Pentagon shared that this is a situation that is mostly up to the individual commander, but they did not do any repeated calls to comment.

John Pike, a director of the military think tank Globalsecurity.org., said, “I think they are looking under the sofa cushions for anything they can do to improve retention. They spend a lot of money getting these people trained up.”

Frazier having spent the first five months in separate tents with the same sex, the small decree of privacy for the couple had become a prize for him when the lived in together in October.

There are other newly weds in the army like that of Sgt. Amanda Christopher, 25 and her husband, Sgt. Mathew Christopher who is 22 saying that the change of rule in 2006 became a blessing for the couple of their nearly year old marriage that four months in that marriage was spent in Iraq.

Both have their own duty in the military hospital at Green Zone in Baghdad. While Mathew is a patient administrator, Amanda on the other hand is a licensed practical nurse. Mathew also does mortuary duties.

Mathew said, “Some of the stuff I’ve seen, if she weren’t here, I’d be a lot less cool about it, that there was one night in particular, I saw something and I just thought, ‘Oh, God.’ I came in here, talked to her for a few minutes, went outside, took a deep breath and I was good to go.”

Due to not allowing couple to have a public display of affection, Christophers ha to avoid putting their arms around each other even if there is a photo of them that needs to be taken.

Amanda said, “It’s not like in the civilian world where if you see your boyfriend at work you can just go, ‘Oh, hi, Babe, We’re in uniform, and we have to maintain a professional demeanor at work.”

Another couple would be Jessica Hegenberg and her husband, Chief Warrant Officer Brian Hegenbart. The two had to live separately when they arrived due that all of the trailers that were made for couples were all occupied, they also started moving in together in June.

Brian, a 32 year old Black Hawk helicopter pilot said, “It’s nice to come back to our trailer. I just feel bad for all those guys who don’t have that to come home to every day,”

Even though couples are together in the Army, it never decreased their worries of each other’s safety, after all, they still are in war sometimes being in an Army together can make it harder in that aspect.

Jessica said, “Because we’re so close out here, we know to the hour when our loved one’s supposed to be home from a mission, So if they’re late, our brains starts going to that place where you start to wonder what went wrong. That happens more often than I’d like to admit.”