The military lets parents out of their commitment if they do not have someone to care for their child. This woman should have gotten out of the military when she got pregnant if she did not want to be separated from her child. But instead she continued to collect her pay until the day came for her to deploy when her family care plan supposedly collapsed (note that her grandmother is currently caring for the child). Then, instead of showing up and facing the situation she goes AWOL. ANY soldier that goes AWOL should expect to be arrested. You don’t get special treatment because you are a woman or a mother. Someone elses child or parent or spouse had to go in her place and the unit had to go to fill the slot that was left by her.

If a woman wants to be in the military then she needs to expect to be treated the same way a man is treated. Women who shirk their responsibilities make things harder for those who are trying to receive equal treatment.

Heart wrenching. Putting your kid in foster care is not an option.

So she should be allowed to stay in the military and just not deploy Bunny? That’s absurd. Someone elses parent should have to go instead?

You don’t get special treatment because you’re a mother or a single parent. You’re treated equally. My husband (or anyone elses husband) should not have to deploy in her place because she can’t find childcare, she shouldn’t be receiving paychecks if she can’t do her job and part of her job is DEPLOYING. That’s what you do in the Army when it’s the middle of war.

If she’d followed proper procedures (if she truly did not have childcare) she’d still be with her child while she awaited her expulsion from the military, but she went awol and when you go awol you get arrested.

how is it far-right to expect someone who volunteered to join the Army, and elected to stay in and receive medical care and pay through and following pregnancy, to actually show up with her unit and either deploy or follow proper procedures? She signed up for a job, then bailed, and there are consequences for that. But in fairness, it looks like she sure learned that sort of behavior from her mother.
I do have sympathy for this woman, not because our decidedly all-volunteer Army is holding her to her commitment, but because her mother (maybe) let her down. Still, it doesn’t excuse the fact that she went AWOL.

that’s fine…it’s not that dangerous to vote
I still believe that there are fundamental differences between men and women and I just don’t think it’s great to have women in combat
There are lots of things women can do to contribute

This comment thread is full of trolls. The woman is a cook, there are lots of non-combat cook positions that the army could assign to her that would have worked. The Army is a bureaucracy and isn’t equipped to handle unique problems like deployment of single parents. That means the army should change not that women shouldn’t be part of it. If she were a male single parent, I’d feel the same way.

There are tons of parents in the army, many of them single parents. If the army made an exception for her, what would that say to all the others who had to be separated from their kids and had to go through a lot to get child care?

Bunny, I’m not sure what you think a good solution would be. If they said they would deploy those who could find childcare and not deploy those who can’t, there would be no motivation to find child care.

I’m nearly with you GP. I’d prefer if women weren’t in the military. I can be fine with doctors, nurses, cooks, inteligence officers, and other truly non-combat roles being filled by women (driving a convoy through a war zone is not non-combat). I’m just a little old fashioned. I think women should be treated differently, specifically, better. That said, this lady seemed to have a plan and her plan bailed on her. I say give her a month or so to get something figured out, but if her number is up she must go.

Bunny, we have no idea whether she did her best. That’s what the Army investigation and possibly court martial will determine. We don’t know if she even spoke with someone like a nanny agency, to see if a nanny could stay full-time in her home, or if she simply threw up her hands when her mother changed her mind. It seems unlikely that the grandmother’s situation suddenly changed—you can’t start a licensed home daycare on a whim, and it would be awfully coincidental if all three of the family members became disabled after she agreed to care for the baby. In my opinion, the grandma should have never agreed to add the baby to her already full plate. But while we’re at it, 19months ago (give or take) or whenever it became clear to Hutchinson that the baby’s dad (what happened to him, anyway?) wouldn’t be around, Hutchinson should have started making serious plans to either find someone who was not as overextended as her mom to be her back-up, or to leave the Army. The Army does provide an “out” for single pregnant women in the form of an honorable discharge before commitment is up, though it does mean giving up a good deal of the benefits that come with fulfilling your commitment. She chose, knowing full well that deployment was possible, to stay in the Army and get paid.

eeerggh….the army pays all her expenses while she’s deployed, and sends an allowance to ANY servicemember’s dependents. If her mother had kept the baby, the allowance, which was pretty darn generous when my parents were keeping my nephew, would’ve gone to her to see to the baby’s needs. The allowance could’ve just as easily been paid to a nanny if she had absolutely no other relative or friend besides her mom. When you figure in that her son’s medical care is paid for, she has either a rent-free base home or an off-base home w/ Army Housing Allowance paying for it where the nanny could stay, it would not be hard to eek out the money.
It is beyond clear that the mom made some poor decisions. Is she to blame for her mother’s backing out? No. But she did choose to take on, with her eyes open, the role of single parent-soldier, and she then chose to go AWOL.
What do you think the Army should do with her? Continue to pay her salary, housing, medical, etc. while she gives half-committed service? Or should they have kicked her out when she became a single parent?
Some other Army cook went in Hutchinson’s place, and it may well have been another parent. Is Hutchinson’s and her mother’s situation worth that kid (or those kids) losing a parent?

GP: There are lots of military jobs that are non-combat, and we all know that military service can be a route out of dead-end jobs options and/or poverty. Women need to have the military as a career option, especially women who are heading families. Do you want no women in the military at all, or want the military to restrict female soldiers to non-combat positions?

One option that this woman may or may not have considered (or had suggested to her) is to give a trusted friend temporary legal guardianship of her son for the duration of her deployment. This is not at all the same thing as putting her son into foster care, which I believe is an unconscionable request to make of her. I agree that it’s on her to honor her commitment to service and deploy with her unit (or quit, which might carry the risk of a dishonorable discharge – I don’t know), but it’s on her employer/the military to make sure she and all other parents are aware of every childcare option available to them. If non-familial temporary guardianship wasn’t discussed, then the military was remiss in their duty to a soldier.

I’ll leave it to the more military-proficient posters here to explain government obligation to enlisted people’s families, GP. Though I doubt you really care.

Where’s the father in all of this? Can’t she leave the child with the father? If her mother can’t care for the child, does she have another family member or trusted friend who can take care of the child? Can she make other child care arrangements?

The military is not a Monday-Friday 9-5 job; especially at a time when we’re at war. I don’t mean to judge, but she should have thought about this before she decided to join the military, and have a child as well. When you’re in the military, you have to go where they tell you to go. You just can’t pick and choose where and when you want to go to. Supposed she lived during the days of World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, and she were drafted? Would she have done the same thing?

I am sure that there are other people who are in the military, who do have kids, have other child-care arrangements. The military is not going to bend the rules simply because she has a child and she doesn’t want to get shipped over to Afghanistan. Her duty to her country is just as important as her child.

If she wanted to put her child first, she should have never ever joined the military in the first place. She should have simply taken a regular 9-5 civilian job.

Congress may have abolished the draft in 1973, but when Uncle Sam calls you, and it’s time to go; you go.

Foster care? you’ve got to be kidding!

Comments: As a female Navy vet I won’t even comment to GP, though I really, really want to. I think that it is terrible timing on her Mom’s part. However, when you are in the military, you do what you are told – she made a child care plan… then she went to her command when that fell through. Seems to me that the person to blame here is the supervisor who told her to put her child in foster care. Sounds as if he was being flippant, or an ass. If that is the response you get when you ask for help… I’d be AWOL too. I don’t think single parents should deploy… (and so should not stay in the military) but if the alternative is being unemployed? Not all military skills transfer to civilian jobs. As with pregnancy leave and other issues, I think that a single parent who is still working out logistics should be given time to sort them out… and that deployment time added to her obligation. The message that sends is that the military cares for their people, but you still have to fulfill your obligation.