Posted on 03/02/2009 3:28:49 PM PST by CMoran325
Perhaps you heard about the NC mom, Lisa Pagan, who was recalled by the army and made the case that there was no one to care for her children. Her husband travels extensively for his job, and both sets of grandparents live out of state. Having exhausted the appeals process, she showed up for duty with her two kids in tow.
Perhaps sensing a PR nightmare, the army has promised that she will be discharged. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090302/ap_on_re_us/military_mom
Now I have to say that I have mixed feelings about this story. In one way I totally sympathized with this woman, having pulled a slightly similar stunt once myself. I was still nursing my oldest when I was called for jury duty. I phoned to explain the situation and was told to get a sitter. My child had never taken a bottle and there was no way I was going to make her start just for this... So I showed up that day with her in my arms and they sent me away telling me that they would recall me soon and that I would need to find someone to care for her.
In the end, it turned out not to be an issue for me the second time I was called, but that experience 20 years ago left me thinking that the judicial system had some catching up to do with the needs of modern-day moms, and it was about time the system changed to be more sensitive to those needs.
To rip off another anthemic chant: We're ladies, we have babies, get used to it.
I think the same applies
(Excerpt) Read more at lovehateoprah.com ...
Did they say what kind of discharge? This isn’t the first discharge for failure to file a family plan.
How much severence pay did she get?
She should not have been in the Reserves. If you can’t complete the commitment, don’t cash the checks.
The military is not the place for motherhood.
In fact, it probably is not the place for women. Flame away, but integration of the sexes in the military has caused nothing but problems.
Welcome to eqality, ladies!
She was in the Individual Ready Reserve (IRR), for which you don’t get paid, don’t get “points” toward retirement, etc.
She probably figured that, even though she was in the IRR, she was out of the gain. But, she forgot that the IRR is a complement of the reserve system and was susceptible to activation any time during her remaining commitment.
Bringing her kids was just showboating and needs to be punished.
I say giver her a discharge under honorable conditions, as she was unable to completely fulfill her commitment.
equality. Damn.
I don’t get why they can’t find something for this woman to do that would be consistent with her duties as a mother. It’s not like all army jobs require deploying to combat zones. Can’t she do some office or food service or health care job that involves working in set shifts, with the kids in some sort of on-base child care? Or heck, put her to work in a child care center, to solve this problem for multiple parents.
In Texas, you are excused if you have young children to care for.
. . . from jury duty.
My feelings are not mixed. No women in the military. The fact that they can get pregnant, even if using birth control perfectly, is one of my reasons.
Give her a general. As they said in the day, “If Sam wanted you to have a wife [spouse], he’d issue you one”.
Don't get paid, however you do get points for retirement. If you aren't earning points you get kicked out of the IRR.
I say giver her a discharge under honorable conditions, as she was unable to completely fulfill her commitment.
Concur.
Agreed. If you don’t read the whole article at the link, it sounds like she was active duty. She wasn’t. She was IRR.
I disagree that bringing her kids was showboating.
I had 1 year old, seriously ill, triplet babies and was 7 months pregnant when I was called to jury duty. I phoned the government and was told that I had to report. I could find no one to watch my kids all day long, unless I paid them $10 an hour that I did not have. My husband could not take off work because he was paid by the hour, and we could not afford for him to.
The jury duty guy told me that if I brought my kids (my only option at the time), I would be jailed for contempt of court.
Luckily, we moved to another county right the week before I was to report for jury duty. No family in the area, no friends to take up the slack, no money to pay a sitter — these circumstances do occur.
It’s part of *parent*hood. Not just motherhood.
Yes, *parent*hood is a whole other kettle of fish that I didn’t want to bite off in this one post. There are many hard cases that involve fathers as well.
As for equality — it’s about equal opportunity — not being treated the same. Men and women have differences, and they must be taken into consideration. Just one is the bearing and (more often than not) primary care of children.
But that difference should not preclude women from serving — it just needs to be taken into consideration — case by case is probably warranted.
And how fair is it then that she gets to stay home and do these duties while everyone else’s husbands are deploying 4 and 5 times to make up for her absence. My husband misses everything important regarding his kids, too. No one would ever suggest that he get to stay home, and he wouldn’t want it. People need to read the contracts they sign. This is all in there, folks, including the IRR committments.
I thought you only get retirement points for drills attended?
Does the IRR give points for filling your name out correctly, like the SAT?
I never looked at my IRR statements, so I may be wrong on this one.
I have two kids.
When I was in the reserves and IRR, I made sure I had a family care plan in place.
During ODS, I saw HUNDREDS of soldiers, male and female, kicked out of The Army because they didn’t have the DCPs in place.
They were expected to serve (fight) and when the time came, they couldn’t. The were separated from service faster than you can blink, because it’s bad for morale and it’s bad for business.
If she hadn’t brought her kids, she’d be just another soldier and that doesn’t get the press.
Jury duty isn’t the same.
She may have forgotten that the IRR is still a legal commitment, but she didn’t forget to play the game.
Yep.
Somebody else is going in her place.
Maybe they have kids.
Maybe their wife/husband will quit their job to take care of the kids.
IRR requires corespondence courses. The Army may do things differently that the Navy (which I’m very familiar with), but in the Navy if you don’t do the courses they are now kicking people out of the IRR.
You do? Please provide a link.
Every report that I've read has indicated that all of the services have been hitting (or exceeding) their recruitment goals for quite some time. While that situation may be changing since the November election, I haven't any reports on recruiting shortfalls yet.
The only correspondence courses I took were for my Officer’s Advance Courses for Field Artillery and Transportation.
Once I went into the IRR, I don’t recall hearing a thing from The Army.
Of course its up to the service to decide how to administer their IRR. I assume you got no good years for that IRR service. How did your time in the IRR end?
I have to admit that statement was based on a story I read in the Washington Post Sunday Magazine about a 40-something who was joining. According to the article, the age barrier haad been raised to expand the potential pool of enlistees since they were having trouble filling quotas.
I often save the magazine to read later, and sometimes it is more than a month later when I finally get to it. I don’t remember exactly when this article was published, or how old the info would be.
I would be glad to know that they are hitting the marks and therefore this may not play a part in retaining servicemen and women who are in parental hardship.
I was well past my original duty requirements as a Captain, when I moved to another civvy job and went into the IRR.
I received a letter two years later that I was promotable to Major, so I resigned and took my “out”. I travelled extensively most of my time in the reserves, so I didn’t have too many “good” years, retirement point-wise, anyway.
As far as I know, I didn’t get any points for any of my IRR years, but I never thought about it much or even read my annual statemens.
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