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Report: 30,000 Single Mothers Deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan
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Afghanistan War, Female Veterans, Iraq, Iraq Veterans, Iraq War, Veterans, Women,
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More than 30,000 single mothers have deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. The Army, the most heavily deployed branch of the military, gives women just four months to stay stateside with their newborns before deploying to the war zone, leaving them little time to bond with or nurse their infants.
The divorce rate for female soldiers is nearly triple that of the men who wear the same uniform.
These are just a few of the unsettling statistics contained in a new report published Wednesday by Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America , the nation's first and largest organization representing Americans who've served since Sept. 11, 2001.
Find out more in my report from New America Media.
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Equal opportunity. They have the right to d!e just like single fathers serving.
Did they sign the dotted line to join the military? If so, why should there be exceptions in them going. I know this is a harsh reality to accept.
"and we are not saved..."
Most posters here are concentrating on whether or not single mothers (or fathers) should deploy at all. I would doubt that Mr. Glantz was actually questioning that. I think the article - besides being intended to make us all think about the impacts of these wars - was really about how long single mothers get to spend with their new-borns. 4 months is probably not long enough. Medical professionals would need to make the call on how long is long enough... but it bears thinking about.
We have in this country an all volunteer military. Less than 1% of the population chooses to volunteer. One of the facts of life, if you DO choose to volunteer, is that you face deployment. That's a part of the job of soldier.
When I was a platoon sargent, one of my biggest headaches was ensuring my soldiers kept their family care plans up to date so that their dependents would be cared for if or when we deployed. Single soldiers, married soldiers all had to have a plan in place to care for their families. I even had to keep a current family care plan for myself despite I was single with no dependents.
The article seems to suggest some soldiers, based on gender and family status, should get the benefits of military life without the responsibilities that come along with them; that "single mothers" should not have to meet the obligations they volunteered for.
None of these 30,000 "single mothers" was a draftee.
thank you. Its the people who know nothing about the military who cry about this.
I have a friend in pharmaceutical sales, she is a single mom and she travels ALOT. She is gone abt 2 weeks out of every month, so her kids stay with her parents... should her company all of a sudden tell her she no longer has to fufill her job duties and hand it off to someone else???
This isnt 7 months gone, but she does spend a significant amount of time away from her kids and she is fine with that bc she said she has to provide for them.... its called being a grown up and making sacrifices
Yes I understand that comes with some jobs. But a soldier is a different breed. If she gets killed that child is left without a mom. It can happen with civilians but it happens more with the military.
Isn't that just great....
Makes ya proud to be an American..
sure does.. bc us women actually have CHOICES... and we make the CHOICE to enlist! Makes me d*mn PROUD>
And IF they'd known that enlisting might call for 4, 5, 6 or more tours of duty fighting the same 2 stupid wars they might have chosen differently.
and women want to have combat roles? You can't pick and choose your battles here. Either you suck it up and deploy and just don't. Equal Opportunity to get get deployed.
BINGO... and fanned
Do you realize how important this time is for the mother's to spend with their newborns? What reason is there for not allowing this important time?
bc we sign contracts and are expected to honor them. Get a civilian job if you dont want to leave your kids.
I do agree with THAT part. Giving a woman less than 6 months to spend with her kid and to get back in shape is a problem.
My guess is that most people here who are asking the military to become a BABYSITTING placement service really do not know anything about the military and have never served a day in their life.
We VOLUNTEER for this job... we are not tricked with this situation, and we know that the military is vastly different from the civilian world... it is stated on the very first line of your enlistment contract.
The situation sucks, but its a family by family decision..
Let's be honest here. Many volunteer because they are out of options. If they have no job, no money, no benefits, and mouths to feed, they do what they must. This is one reason why all branches of the military have met their recruitment goals for the first time since 1973. A bad economy is a dream come true for military recruiters.
I can't fight you there.
That's true.
and yet, there are those who are out of options and still say, the military is still not an option for me. I am not accepting excuses here.
You people act like recruiters wants the job... most try to avoid the duty like the plague... my husband did not want to be a recruiter, must rather still be in his MOS, but he was flagged, screened, and assigned.
When we make a choice, no matter how dire, there are always consequenc
I know a lot of conservatives are for abstinence, but don't most liberals still believe in birth control and personal responsibility? I feel bad for the kids, but the mothers (and dads) were irresponsible, not the military. Fathers are required to be deployed and if mothers want to serve that’s their choice and responsibility. It’s not a debate about whether the wars are justified, but about the responsibility of those that choose to serve.
Stateside military service isn’t a bad alternative for those that face unemployment or under-employment. The reason military service is a tough choice, and honorable one, is the risk of deployment and death in the service of our country. These men and women are well aware of that risk when they choose to serve. I think them for their (and my son’s) service, but if you want equality, you have to honor it.
"but the mothers (and dads) were irresponsible"
How?
I dont think he meant it that way, I dont think people are irresponsible when they have kids, some are, most are not. But the post makes sense.
I completely agree with your post. I served in the Corps for 4 years, my husband is still active. When we decided to have kids, we, as a couple, decided that I would get out. We did that because we knew that at any moment, both of us could be deployed and our kids would have to be left behind with family members, we did not want that. I also did not want to leave my kids behind, even if it was with my husband, I couldnt imagine a 7 month seperation.
If people want to join and are single parents, they need to seriously consider this because it is laid out for you. Research the branches, you are least likely to leave for a long time if you join the Coast Guard versus the Navy, the Corps, or the Army. Or, if you know you cant handle this, dont enlist.
You need to ask your husband since he was a recruiter if a single parent can still join. I thought they could join but they had to give someone else custody of the child or children. At least that was the way when my husband was on recruiting duty back in the early 90s. That alone I wouldn't assign up. But you know some recruiters got around that.
I am sure that I will not be popular with this but ohwell.... there are plenty of SINGLE PARENTS who deploy... I know quite a few women who enlisted as single moms, had to have dependent waivers to even get into the Corps, and they wanted it that way. Yes, it is hard to leave your kids, but this is what they asked for. The military is VERY forthcoming with these single parents that being such will not exclude you from deployments.
I am married to a Marine, but when my husband and I decided that we wanted kids, I decided to get out of the Corps bc I couldnt see myself leaving my child behind, even with my husband. I wanted to be there to see my kids, so we made the family decision that I would get out, my husband would stay in.
The situation is hard, but these women know what will happen when they are scheduled for deployment.
Right! It's not like they get blindsided.
We know what's at stake.
Good call on getting out. I left my daughter for seven months and it was horrible.
I got out after that first deployment.
well thank you for your service. My husband is a recruiter now, and he just enlisted a single mother who had to provide notorized documentation that she had someone to take her daughter when she left for bootcamp and any subsequent deployments. They are not lied to.
I am sick of the sob stories about how its not right... US women wanted equal rights and we got them... the right to leave behind your family just like any other service member.
I know in the past families with one son could not serve in a war zone.How is it different with single moms?
That is not true and has never been true.
There may have been a policy about taking troops out of a war zone once all of their siblings had been killed. Sort of like Pvt Ryan.
But at no time was a single son or daughter given the OK to join and then told they could not deploy to a war zone.
That applies to only the draft. Not volunteer.
http://www
Just as I thought.
No policy that the only child could not be drafted nor serve in a combat role. The policy(s) have only been related to KIA's already occuring in the family.
If there were an exemption policy for all single sons and daughters do you have any idea of the upheval and confusion that would ensue when you had to deploy a Division to a war zone a potential war zone or a maybe in time war zone if you guys had been correct?
Oh yeh! Pile on these women while patriots like Limbaugh boast about their 4F feet and Hannity yells charge! We should return to the draft and then we will see how long the people of the US put up with this fiasco of a war. Washington would be filled with protesters, if all draft eligible youth were on the draft block. The volunteer army allows only a tiny fraction to bear the brunt of the sacrifice. It is true that the reserves were pushed into situations that they never envisioned and many of these women had the option of service or starve..
I'll tell you what, there are too many people in this country that now like to say, 'Who cares? They volunteered!"
They're the kind of people that justify the draft.
That said, the volunteer military does not absolve politicians of all responsibility when it comes to taking care of the troops and making sure the mission is neither meaningless or undersupplied. Apologists for the last administration love to use that argument of 'well, they volunteered!" to cover for everything about the current wars, from the lack of intelligence and the mission creep to the conditions they live in to the reliability of the equipment they use and then for the psychiatric and other medical care they get afterward.
I mean seriously, when the Walter Reed thing was going on, you had these guys going, "They volunteered. Tough."
Since when does a professionalized army entitle the politicians to utter incompetence in maintaining, deploying and supplying the military? I can't see it. Draftees or professionals, the responsibility of leadership by the politicians is not abrogated by the type of military it is.
I agree with both of you. Volunteering and laying down your life for your country puts the heaviest of burdens upon those who make such decisions. As far as volunteering goes, I served 6 years in the Navy and frankly only because I needed a job. I love America and so do others but outside of events like 9-11, the majority go into the military for work, experience and opportunity after service.
Excelent comment,(I said so below as well) but I love the avatar combined with your handle.
Young married E-1 and E-3's. Single moms and dads at the lower ranks. Single moms and dads at any rank. These are all problematic in any military that deploys. Especially war deployments.
But no military no matter how well trained and motovated is set up for the number of war deployments we are seeing in these wars. These deployments are crippling are military.
And we have not begun to see the extent of the problems that will be coming down the road.
Like my generation and my war many of these problems will surface decades later.
No one signed up for this.
No one needs to be carrying that extra load in their ruck. It's dangerous to their morale and potentially dangerous to everyone else around them.
It's bad enough when a guy gets dear johned or otherwise finds out that Jody's moved in his digs, but worse when the guy it happens to is like 19 or something.
ICorpDoc, funny my dad retired in 63 from the air force. Even then he said the day they allowed beer in the barracks and shared barracks is the day the military will changed. Sometimes he would say the old saying "if the military would want you to have a wife, they would have issued you one". I think there is alot to that saying. There was a time when E1 through E3 weren't allowed to marry without permission. The military should have kept the draft in place through the years. You get a cross section from all walks of life. It would give some of these rich kids understanding what middle and lower class people are really like and the middle and lower class kids would learn more about the world. I truly think that is why the WWII veterans are our greatest generations.
We would have never had the Army in WW2 that we needed without the draft.
Many of that generation would have willingly skipped the fight if they could. Many did.
Besides fighting for a good cause is a lot easier than fighting for a bad or questionable cause.
Thus I will put up the VN generation and the ones fighting today against my dads WW2 generation anytime.
They were not better. As good......
This is not the change I voted for.
Of course it is. You just didn't realize it before voting for the person most responsible for tearing apart this country.
You mean Bush, of course! I mean, since he started the wars and all.
Great handle! Makes it easy to digest your worthless comment.
One thing I must say: President Obama this is not "change I can believe in."
So Bush was?
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