oh_gal
Active Member
- Joined
- Mar 6, 2009
- Messages
- 5,942
- Reaction score
- 57
SAVANNAH, Ga. An Army cook and single mom may face criminal charges after she skipped her deployment flight to Afghanistan because, she said, no one was available to care for her infant son while she was overseas.
Spc. Alexis Hutchinson, 21, claims she had no choice but to refuse deployment orders because the only family she had to care for her 10-month-old son her mother was overwhelmed by the task, already caring for three other relatives with health problems.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/ap_on_re_us/us_soldier_mom_deployment
In the article, it states that this young woman's mom is caring for her mother, sister, and a disabled daughter AND running a daycare with 14 children during the day. Probably forthe best that grandma couldn't/wouldn't care for the child, he'd have probably been neglected, anyway, due to the sheer volume of other children/people needing care at that house.
So, this young lady states she has no other family to take care of her child. Hard to believe, but ok, let's say that's true. Get a friend. At one time, she had at least one "friend," because she didn't get pregnant alone.
I really have a hard time with what I see as a person who signed up for the military to draw a steady paycheck and get all the other "perks" (medical insurance, housing, etc.) and now that she might have to face some real danger, wants to stay home. Her plans may have fallen through with her mom, but I find it really really hard to believe that she has absolutely no one who can step up to care for this child. If that is, indeed the case, then perhaps she shouldn't have gotten pregnant in the first place, knowing she was enlisted in the military, and deployment was a very real possibility.
I have a niece who is a captain in the Army, who often jokes about having a "furlough baby," so she won't have to be deployed again (at least for a while). Apparently, it happens. (Incidentially, my niece is on her 3rd tour over in Iraq.)
This mother would get a lot more sympathy from me if her attitude was, "just give me a month to find other arrangements, then I'll deploy."
Spc. Alexis Hutchinson, 21, claims she had no choice but to refuse deployment orders because the only family she had to care for her 10-month-old son her mother was overwhelmed by the task, already caring for three other relatives with health problems.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/ap_on_re_us/us_soldier_mom_deployment
In the article, it states that this young woman's mom is caring for her mother, sister, and a disabled daughter AND running a daycare with 14 children during the day. Probably forthe best that grandma couldn't/wouldn't care for the child, he'd have probably been neglected, anyway, due to the sheer volume of other children/people needing care at that house.
So, this young lady states she has no other family to take care of her child. Hard to believe, but ok, let's say that's true. Get a friend. At one time, she had at least one "friend," because she didn't get pregnant alone.
I really have a hard time with what I see as a person who signed up for the military to draw a steady paycheck and get all the other "perks" (medical insurance, housing, etc.) and now that she might have to face some real danger, wants to stay home. Her plans may have fallen through with her mom, but I find it really really hard to believe that she has absolutely no one who can step up to care for this child. If that is, indeed the case, then perhaps she shouldn't have gotten pregnant in the first place, knowing she was enlisted in the military, and deployment was a very real possibility.
I have a niece who is a captain in the Army, who often jokes about having a "furlough baby," so she won't have to be deployed again (at least for a while). Apparently, it happens. (Incidentially, my niece is on her 3rd tour over in Iraq.)
This mother would get a lot more sympathy from me if her attitude was, "just give me a month to find other arrangements, then I'll deploy."