[Orangedog]

What about single parents at your workplace? How is that handled in the civilian world?, ie, big project due, and someone's kid gets sick or hurt, and they have to go tend to them...do they get fired?

Maybe. But the single parents in my workplace are not ordered to work in a warzone or to the defend the company's office in Kuwait.

[Razwan]

Agreed. But keep in mind that there are plenty of single parents who have depoyed, are deployed and will deploy...all without a complaint...This is a very unusual circumstance, think of a couple where one of the parents is out of town, and the child breaks an arm, and the remaining parent must attend to that child...unforeseeable, and the parent must attend to the kid