A single mom, with an 11 year old son, is ordered to deploy to Afghanistan for a year. She can't find anyone to look after her kid, she's granted some extra time to find that someone, then, suddenly the extra time is denied. She's still trying to find someone to look after her baby and misses her flight. Now she's going to be Courts Martialed, and still deployed to Afghanistan, and the US military has put her baby into foster care.

Can anyone honestly tell me that the US military can't find a post, for this single mom, in the US, where she can continue her relationship with her baby? Is she so important to the Afghanistan operation that no-one else can replace her? Why is a single mom still in the military? Where is compassion?

"U.S. Army Specialist Alexis Hutchinson, a single mother, is being threatened with a military court-martial if she does not agree to deploy to Afghanistan, despite having been told she would be granted extra time to find someone to care for her 11-month-old son while she is overseas.

Hutchinson, of Oakland, California, is currently being confined at Hunter Army Airfield near Savannah, Georgia, after being arrested. Her son was placed into a county foster care system."

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That's compassion for you. God help her trying to get that baby back! TX, FL GA and some other states are notorious for "losing" children placed in foster homes! Not only that, there's a developing history in the US that not all the folks offering to take in a foster child have the best of intentions. I rather think the army just might be re-thinking their policy.

They should bloody well re-think their policy - what's more important; a warm body in Afghanistan, maybe doing damn all, or a baby's welfare - I know where my money would go!

I agree that the story is troubling. And I agree that foster care is not the solution. However, as someone who works in foster care in TEXAS, I gotta say, I don't think we've ever "lost" any children...unless you count the teenagers who run away because they don't have the tools to deal with stress. Of course there are those missed opportunities where children aren't saved at all. There has been a rash of those, but it isn't the foster care system that caused that. That was the children's own parents who killed their kids and it was the state and the judicial system that allowed it to happen. Now, as for foster family motivations...I agree with you that some do not always have altruistic intentions. Some do it for the money. We work hard to weed those people from our agency, but they do exist. There are rigorous background checks every two years, and an initial FBI check of every person over 14 in a home. Some criminal records are allowed, like driving with a suspended license or a decades old drug charge, but any recent felony charge must be dismissed in order to qualify. When we get a dirty background check back, the state foster care licensing division requires that we return an action form stating whether the person will be allowed around children. Most are not. One gentleman, who cares for the quadriplegic husband of one of our foster mothers just had an 8 page record come back. He will have to move on, and the mother will have to find other means to help with her husband. She's a wonderful foster mother who loves the children and her husband. I don't want to sound defensive, but your statement about the foster care system in several states had to be corrected. CPS is shit; the foster care system and parents are not.

Mom, it's got nothing to do with how good, or otherwise, foster care is. It's about the military separating a mother from her young child, and putting that child into foster care just so that they can ship a warm body over to Afghanistan.

It's about should a young single parent mother even be in the military.

In the UK, if a serving female, in the military, gets pregnant she's out - it's not about female equality, it's about common sense.

but I don't blame her as much as i blame the army. They should not take women into the service unless they plan to use her in a stateside job. They know a woman always has the potential to get pregnant. That always causes complications.

The Liberals created this problem by pushing for women in combat roles. It should never be.

Jack

Wulk, I agree with you. I was responding to Shirley's post. I don't think, however, that young women should be excluded from serving in the military. I do agree that if she gets pregnant she should be discharged, but that sets up a situation where not only would some get intentionally pregnant, but men would be put in the ironic position of screaming discrimination.

Well, if men get pregnant they should get a discharge too! And join a circus.

Hell no, she joined the service make her pay her due. Talk about discrimination!

The stupid military again wets its pants when the civilian side of government attempts to make a political point. A woman cannot be affective in combat when she is thinking of her children back home. As far as that goes neither can a man, but he has to endure that stress while his kids go fatherless and his wife, found upon returning from overseas, is pregnant by someone else.

If women want to be so damn independent then let them be, but what is good for the goose is good for the gander and in this case neither win. Women need to be at home raising their children! When this nation tries to be like the damn Zionists the jig is up.

Seasoldier/

Wulk,I am with you on this one. When a Military cannot see a warped Doctor among their own and can justify this,they need to be reigned in.

This is the Military Complex Ike warned us about. That is why generals like McChrysal need to be cut down to size. He far overstepped his bounds. A General who was used to doing anything he pleased under Bush/Cheney needs to be stripped by the President.

U.S. Army Specialist Alexis Hutchinson is required by her military to have a long term family care plan. Hers was to have her mother take care of her child. She should be punished for that if the mother is not in a position to do this job. If they boot her out of the military then Liberals will go crazy with discrimination accusations. It is reasonable to make her follow her long term family care plan or provide her with one, which they have done by using protective services. It would be unfair to the members of her unit to just say, Oh, OK, you can stay home while the rest go to war since you didn’t do your responsibility to begin with.

Women demand equal treatment, then when they receive it, they make a case pleading to the public for sympathy.

The U.S. Military is not a system of special circumstance solution solvers. The woman failed in her responsibilities to her unit and to her own child. In the end, I bet her mom ends up taking care of the baby... and what’s ¨long term¨. Who did she think would raise her child if she were to be killed in war?

Ladies, you can have it one way or the other - you can be treated like men or you can be kept out of the military all together, but you cannot demand to be treated equally then cry when you are treated equally.

She could have applied for a hardship discharge before the baby was born, but I’ll bet the salary was attractive and probably she had no other employment options so she elected to stay in the military, but is desirous of special treatment: That cannot happen.

It would be interesting also to know what circumstance made her a single mother. Was it divorce or did she get pregnant out of wedlock shacking up?!?

Women demand equal treatment, then when they receive it, they make a case pleading to the public for sympathy.

I agree,but need more facts on the case.

Wait a minute. Wulk first said the child was 11 years old. When I went back and read he also said 11 months. Why is she a single Mother? Where is the Father?

Appologies MA, I should have written 11 months, not years - mea culpa!

As the article makes no mention of who the father is, perhaps dead, she could well be a widow, or he may very well have flown the coup, useless to speculate.

What is a fact is that the military wants to send the mother of an 11 month old child off to a war zone, and, is accepting no responsibility for the child.

My own thoughts are that she should be discharged from the military as she is obviously unfit to perform her duties whilst saddled with an 11 month old child. Or, if keeping a warm body, in service, is so essential to the US military, then, give her a Stateside posting.

The Military could station her here.The reason I asked about the father is that he is the one who should be punished for not doing his job.

Having Sons of my own they were taught to be responsible for their actions.They had a very straight talk from their father with words they understood.I cannot say they toed the mark.I doubt very much they did.

It is OK,Wulk,I just read the first part and did not catch the baby,until you called him one.You can just forgive me for my many mistakes.

Wulk:

Appologies MA, I should have written 11 months, not years - mea culpa!

Simple mistake, when I read ¨infant¨ I knew they were not talking about 11 years-old.

As the article makes no mention of who the father is, perhaps dead, she could well be a widow, or he may very well have flown the coup, useless to speculate.

I would smooth bet a $100 she is not a widow of that would have been part of the ¨sad story¨. She either had a baby and was never married or she is divorced... probably the first is more likely.

What is a fact is that the military wants to send the mother of an 11 month old child off to a war zone, and, is accepting no responsibility for the child.

Why is this woman not applying for a hardship discharge? Does she want the Military Benefits without the responsibility? The whole story ain´t being told.

My own thoughts are that she should be discharged from the military as she is obviously unfit to perform her duties whilst saddled with an 11 month old child. Or, if keeping a warm body, in service, is so essential to the US military, then, give her a Stateside posting.

That may well be the end result of her courtmarshal; and it would be justified, but women have gained some special ¨rights¨, they are almost as protected as Blacks. The next story would be how terrible the military treats mothers by sending them home to be mothers instead of allowing them to be ¨men¨.