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Military Mom Pays High Price For Speaking With Son (TENNESSEE)(VIDEO)
News 5 Nashville ^ | 2/17/11 | Amanda Hara

Posted on 02/20/2011 9:45:32 AM PST by GailA

WOODBURY, Tenn. - A military mom said she would do anything to answer her son's phone call from overseas, no matter what the cost.

Some seven months ago, Lance Corporal Mark Rhyne left the little town of Woodbury, for the remote deserts of Afghanistan.

"I told my son the day he deployed as he was about to get on that bus, 'I will stand in your steed while you are gone, I will stand,'" his mother Teresa Danford said.

On Monday, while working inside the Crane Interiors factory, Teresa Danford said she kept her word.

Mark called from Afghanistan, using a Satellite phone. It was a rare opportunity he only gets maybe once a month.

"You don't want to miss a word because truthfully that might be the last time you hear from them," Danford said.

Danford knew about Crane's no cell phone policy but answered anyway.

"There is nothing in this world that would stop a mother from answering a phone call from her son and what if it was not my son? What if he'd been hurt and someone was trying to contact me?" asked Danford.

The next day, Teresa was suspended from work without pay for three days. This was a first offense, and managers told her next time, she'd be fired.

"I said 'you are aware that my son is serving in Afghanistan and he can only call me when that sat phone gets to his unit' and he looked me straight in the eyes and said 'yes,'" Danford said.

Larry Officer is a Human Resource Manager at Crane Interiors. He sent NewsChannel 5 the following statement: "It is our policy that there is to be no cell phones used during working hours due to safety concerns within a production environment. Employees are allowed to use cell phones during breaks and lunches. We have a communicated policy for all employees to be reached in case of an emergency."

Danford said she fully expects to be fired for going public. But she remembered the promise she made to her son, the promise to always support him.

"If I didn't do this, then I couldn't live with myself. So if I lose my job, I lose my job. But I will have done what I gave my son my word that I would do," Danford added.

A lot of people have gotten wind of this story already, and they're not ignoring it.

A petition was posted online to demand that military family members are granted the right to answer calls from their loved ones serving over seas.

That's all Danford was asking for. She said talking to her son once a month gives her peace of mind, and gives her son the strength he needs to continue his work overseas.

Danford's son is scheduled to return home in a month, when he'll meet his son for the first time.

Email: ahara@newschannel5.com


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: military; soldier; stupitidy; troops
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To: GailA
Larry Officer is a Human Resource Manager at Crane Interiors. He sent NewsChannel 5 the following statement: "It is our policy that there is to be no cell phones used during working hours due to safety concerns within a production environment. Employees are allowed to use cell phones during breaks and lunches. We have a communicated policy for all employees to be reached in case of an emergency."

Sounds to me like this policy was put in place for a good reason. If she wants to be in a position to take a call from her son 24/7, perhaps she should have got a different job. She used her son's service as a moral bludgeon to ignore rules that might well have been their for other people's safety as well as her own...

41 posted on 02/20/2011 10:21:20 AM PST by sinsofsolarempirefan
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To: GRRRRR

Nothing like a public ass grinding to make a Company see the light.I bet their phones lite up like a Christmas tree after the tv exposure.


42 posted on 02/20/2011 10:21:35 AM PST by Farmer Dean (stop worrying about what they want to do to you,start thinking about what you want to do to them)
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To: GailA
Crane should have made an exception for her...

Woodbury is serious social conservative but with too many whites on the government tittie rural area...pretty country too about where the Cumberland plateau starts up..very hilly

Short Mountain is the highest point in US between Ozarks and Cumberlands/Allegheny range..around 2200 feet ...just a big bump...planes used to hit it frequently way back

lotsa Mansons too...and a zillion Higgins too

Cannon county..I like it...

had a crooked sherrif a few years back mand folks died over it...one should walk carefully there if you push folks too hard

bout 18 miles due east of college and Yankee laden Murfreesboro but a world of difference

43 posted on 02/20/2011 10:23:42 AM PST by wardaddy (I support the Bedford Forrest license plate in Mississippi Haley Barbour bravely refuses to denounce)
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To: GailA

Thanks for the contact info. Will send them a little “love” letter. Amazing how this woman can be fired while the union thugs in Wisconsin abuse their positions and are sacrosanct


44 posted on 02/20/2011 10:24:03 AM PST by katiedidit1
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To: pepsionice
During WW II...except for an occasional letter...no one had contact with their loved ones for two or three years. I suspect that we learned to live with it. The current society can’t.

Society didn't have computers then either.

nor jet passenger planes. cell phones, etc...

Don't know if you fly or not, or if you use a cell phone but we know you use a computer - can't you learn to live without it?

What an ass-inine post.


45 posted on 02/20/2011 10:28:48 AM PST by maine-iac7 ('WE STAND TOGETHER OR WE FALL APART' mt)
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To: sinsofsolarempirefan

Bull hockey.....the company already apologised,paid her for her time off, and is revising said policy.

Your point is moot.


46 posted on 02/20/2011 10:29:24 AM PST by Crim (The Obama Doctrine : A doctrine based on complete ignorance,applied with extreme incompetence..)
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To: GailA

My son is in Iraq. I agree with this Mom. NOTHING could prevent me from taking a call from him short of a life-endangering emergency underway when the phone rang.

Jobs can be replaced. Children cannot.


47 posted on 02/20/2011 10:30:20 AM PST by EternalVigilance (Proven adherence to principle must be the plumb line, not personality.)
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To: GailA

Having said that, the company is certainly within its rights. There’s no law against being stupid and callous.

If there were, we’d have no liberals! :-)


48 posted on 02/20/2011 10:31:44 AM PST by EternalVigilance (Proven adherence to principle must be the plumb line, not personality.)
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To: sinsofsolarempirefan
Oh for crying out loud!

The trouble with so many things in today's society is idiots who can't understand a little bending of the rules for a good reason.I suppose the "it's the rule" crowd is fine with the zero-tolerance policies that suspend a kid for a butter knife as though it were a bayonet.

49 posted on 02/20/2011 10:32:43 AM PST by hoosierham (Waddaya mean Freedom isn't free ?;will you take a credit card?)
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To: porter_knorr

We are dealing with availability, time zones, all kinds of crazy things for a Soldier just to make a call once a month.

The mom didn’t abuse the policy.

I’ve worked assembly lines, some one is always available to take your slot on a temporary basis so you can make an unscheduled exit for the restroom, etc.

Your comments make sense, and for the most part do work. But some times you get a lousy supervisor who makes no exceptions.


50 posted on 02/20/2011 10:32:47 AM PST by GailA (2012 rally cry DEMOCRATS and RINOS are BAD for the USA!)
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To: GailA

I’m surprised at the number of meanspirited, selfish Freepers on this thread.

The company is a manufacturing company, and the policy of no cell phones during work hours is apparently a result of the comapny caring for the safety of their employees, and the well being of the company.

It’s dispiriting to see how many freepers are running roughshod over a private companies freedoms.


51 posted on 02/20/2011 10:32:50 AM PST by Balding_Eagle (Overproduction, one of the top five worries of the American Farmer each and every year..)
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To: pepsionice
The current society can’t.
I agree, which is the real point here. Too many people today do whatever they want regardless of the rules, the laws, even common sense.
Using a cell phone while driving is the same as DUI and is responsible for 20% of all accidents. Yet, how many people still do it?
When her son went overseas, this woman should have forewarned her employers that she was going to take any calls from her son and they should have agreed to waive the rules.

52 posted on 02/20/2011 10:38:49 AM PST by oh8eleven (RVN '67-'68)
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To: Martel1971
She knew the rules nobody put a gun to her head to work there.

But she knew guns were pointed at her son's head every day - and firing.

During my grandson's first tour in the 'ghan, his platoon fought off over 1,000 firefights...many were lost.

He grew up in my home. When he got that once a month shot at calling - damn well sure I'd take the call NO MATTER WHERE OR WHEN...

I'm guessing you haven't had a son or close relative serving there lately?

Any company that would not have the brains to make an exception to their non-war time rules, is brain dead.


53 posted on 02/20/2011 10:38:49 AM PST by maine-iac7 ('WE STAND TOGETHER OR WE FALL APART' mt)
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To: GRRRRR

See good things can happen. thank god for computers internet video and cell phones. During my Vietnam days the only way to contact home was by US Mail or Ham Radio.........


54 posted on 02/20/2011 10:40:28 AM PST by tallyhoe
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To: CondorFlight

True.


55 posted on 02/20/2011 10:41:04 AM PST by freekitty (Give me back my conservative vote; then find me a real conservative to vote for)
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To: ASOC

I want to say “You suck...” but I won’t.


56 posted on 02/20/2011 10:41:27 AM PST by ataDude (Its like 1933, mixed with the Carter 70s, plus the books 1984 and Animal Farm, all at the same time.)
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To: GailA
"It is our policy that there is to be no cell phones used during working hours due to safety concerns within a production environment. Employees are allowed to use cell phones during breaks and lunches. We have a communicated policy for all employees to be reached in case of an emergency."

Case closed.

57 posted on 02/20/2011 10:44:12 AM PST by Bloody Sam Roberts (Tyrants flourish only when they achieve a standing army, an enslaved press, and a disarmed populace.)
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To: GRRRRR

Probably because of all the bad publicity. If it weren’t for the internet nobody would have known.


58 posted on 02/20/2011 10:44:19 AM PST by ReverendJames (Only A Painter Or A Liberal Can Change Black To White)
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To: hoosierham
I don't know the specifics of why the policy was put in place other than safety, I don't know how legitimate the safety concerns are, but if it involves heavy machinery or some other reason that involves other people's safety, then she had no right to ignore those rules. If it was just because they didn't want employees taking unschedualed breaks, then yes, I am on her side.
But from what the article said, it was about safety concerns in a production enviroment. It doesn't sound like the sort of working enviroment where you can just be completely blase about the rules...
59 posted on 02/20/2011 10:44:49 AM PST by sinsofsolarempirefan
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To: maine-iac7
During my grandson's first tour in the 'ghan, his platoon fought off over 1,000 firefights.
Assuming he was there for a year, that's over three firefights a day, every day.
I don't think any military unit in history has ever sustained that intensity of combat.
60 posted on 02/20/2011 10:46:24 AM PST by oh8eleven (RVN '67-'68)
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