US General’s wife pens op-ed about infidelity

>>> in the midst of all the scandals ensnaring the nation's top military commanders one army general 's wife is speaking out about the toll of war and impact on her own family as her husband faces charges of sexual misconduct and adultery. joining me is rebecca sinclair . her husband the former 82nd commander of the division in afghanistan. thank you for joining us. you wrote about all of this. you've been open about it. you and your -- you're standing by your husband and he's facing the possibility of charges. tell me why you decided to go public?

>> well, my family, like many other military families, have been under a tremendous strain for the last ten years due to this -- the open-ended war and what we're seeing in the paper doesn't really address that. i felt it was important to come forward and start an open conversation about the stresses.

>> tell me about your own situation because you can speak to that certainly. why do you think the war had an impact or was responsible for what your husband did?

>> well, i'm not saying necessarily it's responsible for what he did, and i don't -- i'm not blaming the war. i'm not excusing his behavior. i'm trying to say it can -- i can understand why it happened. we've moved six times in 11 years. he's been home five of the last 11 years. and this is the way most military families are. when you move that many times, you -- your kids have to change schools, your kids find new friends, spouses have to find new jobs, and with that comes the spouse has to find a new support group and new friends for herself or himself. so it's the consequences of this 11-year war have been great.

>> and as you -- you know, we talk often about the effect on military families, a lot of us report on it, but your situation is so tangible, so real, it brings it all home. so can you be sympathetic to what is going on with the other generals? obviously general petraeus was out of the military and retired from active duty when this all supposedly took place, but we've seen a lot of problems in the military. do you think that the whole military code regarding adultery and sexual behavior should be changed? your husband faces serious charges?

>> he does. he does. what i can tell you about that is, last week, in his pretrial hearing, several -- i'm very confident, actually, because several text messages , hundreds of text messages and e-mails came to light showing that -- and it is painful for me to say this, but it was a consensual relationship and my husband has also taken two separate polygraphs which showed that he is being truthful, he has never forced anyone to do anything and i'm -- we're an army family and i'm confident that the army is going to -- going to do the right thing and make the right decision on this. regarding petraeus, my heart goes out to them. i feel -- i know personally what they're going through and i just -- my heart goes out to them.

>> do you agree with the decision byes defense secretary , by leon panetta , to order an ethics review to see what needs to be done because of what he feels are too many incidents involving the high officers?

>> oh, of course. any time there's any -- there's any doubt that there are issues like that, it's always good to be looked into, always.

>> rebecca sinclair , thanks for sharing your story and good luck with you and your family. i know you're going through a difficult time in trying to make it all work for yourselves. we thank you you and your husband for your service.

>> thank you so much for having me.