US Army covers up an ‘embarrassment’ (Pregnancies)

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/743101.cms ^ | THURSDAY, JUNE 17, 2004

[take]

US Army covers up an ‘embarrassment’

WASHINGTON: Many US women soldiers in Iraq are leaving the frontline and returning home, but the Pentagon does not want to reveal their numbers as the “embarassing” statistic includes unwed mothers, media reported on Wednesday.

“US Central Command is not tracking the number of troops who must leave the Iraq war theatre due to pregnancy, prompting military advocates to charge that the Pentagon wants to keep secret what could be an embarrassing statistic,” The Washington Times said.

The paper said that there have been anecdotal reports of unmrried women soldiers becoming pregnant in Iraq. One military police unit reported losing three women for that reason. Lynndie England, the 21-year-old photographed holding a leash attached to a naked Iraqi prisoner, became pregnant during an affair with another soldier at the Abu Ghraib prison compound in Iraq, it said.

But overall numbers are hard to come by. “We are definitely not tracking it,” said a spokesman for US Central Command, which runs the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. “I have been attending operations briefings for two years, and I don’t think I have heard once that pregnancy has come up.”

As in the case of England, said the paper, pregnancies can be embarrassing to the military. In May 2003, the Marine Corps was forced to bring a Marine back home after she gave birth on a Navy warship in the Persian Gulf. She told superiors that she did not know she was pregnant.

Meanwhile, among the British forces in southern Iraq, 82 women were sent home last year after discovering they were pregnant, reported the London Daily Telegraph, quoting government numbers.

A presidential commission in 1992 found that pregnancy was a main reason why the non-deployability rate for female troops was three times higher than for men during the 1990-91 Persian Gulf conflict.

[Sender]

"Oh, I thought you said to clean my GUN, Sergeant."

[take]

LOL

[TheBattman]

Would an unwed female soldier getting pregnant while deployed not be considered "conduct unbecoming"?

Is this also not one of the many arguments against women in the military - particularly in "front line" sort of rolls?

[RobbyS]

Showing the fallacy of the policy of PPA and others, who assume that people are rational about sex. Back in WWII they handed out condoms to the troops down at hood. The principal use was as waterbaloons.

[stuartcr]

Conduct unbecoming an E2?

[familyop]

"Why should the Army be embarassed? Mixed-gender forces were imposed on them by politicians over military protest. Pregnancies were inevitable..."

That's what I was thinking. Then I realized that a lot of the brass in the Army are women with that agenda who got in after politicians made way for them.

In the '90s, quite a few of the men in the Army were getting very PC--pro-feminist, pro-abortion, all of that. As our civilian society goes, so will go the Army. The last straw for me getting out of a Guard unit was when they gave us a platoon sergeant who was a prior Navy social worker.

Put homo-activists, feminist and agreeing lechers in control of civilian politics, they gain control of the military, eventually.

[Chieftain]

How about dishonorable discharges for all of them unless they can prove they were impregnated by their husbands before leaving for duty?

You are joking, right?

My wife's co-worker's daughter went into the Air Force 5 years ago as a single girl of 19 years. She was sent to Okinawa, got pregnant, (single still), had the child and continued in her Air Force work with NO REPRECUSSIONS.

A year later, the same scenario (with a different father, still single, had the kid, kept getting promoted. A year after that, SAME THING AGAIN!

You know what happened the third time she had an illegitimate kid? Do you know what the Air Force did to her??

They moved her to a 4 bedroom house in base housing!

I kid you not.

The military has been completely and totally Clintonized.

[Not A Snowbird]

Why are they surprised? This is bound to happen anytime you put young men and young women in close proximity away from home.

[mcshot]

Amen to that!
They put the fear of God in me while I was in and I resisted a "come on" by an officer's daughter out of that fear.
What's changed!

mc

[Vic3O3]

The real tragedy is the kids who have no family from this behaviour. But while I have come to change my previous stance on women in the military, it DOES take two to 'tango'. The men are equally responsible for these pregancies. Y'all seem to always blame the women for having sex and getting pregnant. Maybe we should temporarily chemically sterilize the men, especially if women are removed from the Forces...after all, that way, there'd be no increase in unwanted or aborted babies in the local populations where ever our (all male) troops are deployed.

[Not A Snowbird]

Y'all seem to always blame the women for having sex and getting pregnant.

What on earth did I say that would lead you to believe I think that?

[NJ_gent]

"Would an unwed female soldier getting pregnant while deployed not be considered "conduct unbecoming"?"

Getting pregnant isn't a crime, but the action required to get that way is. That being said, don't forget that the pregnant woman is no less at fault than the man who fathered the child. A simple paternity test should get you your second defendant for the military court hearing.

"Is this also not one of the many arguments against women in the military"

No, this is one of the many arguments against letting irresponsible idiots into the military and giving them firearms. If two people (women don't spontaneously get pregnant) aren't responsible enough to keep their pants on like they're supposed to, then why should anyone entrust their life to them?

[NJ_gent]

To hear some of the people on threads like these, you'd think there is some uncontrollable, overwhelming instinctive urge. Are you saying that men and women in the military really can keep their pants on if they want to? My goodness, what an amazing concept: personal responsibility. (/sarcasm)

[valkyrieanne]

Just let Congress try to enact a draft law that includes women. Our birth rate problems will be over, because you can have and nurse a LOT of babies between age 18 and 25.

[k2blader]

And then some idiots, even on FR, want to draft women.

[pitinkie]

I know...I have had a few teens..young maybe 13 who did not know but a woman??

[familyop]

"Y'all seem to always blame the women for having sex and getting pregnant. Maybe we should temporarily chemically sterilize the men,..."

Maybe we should just physically castrate only the heterosexual soldiers to make all feminazis and their effeminate male sidekicks happy (irony, sarcasm).

But that's beside the point that although many women who do the more civilian-like duties in our military serve their country well, women who cannot be somewhat segregated from men in the military due to MOS requirements should be in civilian occupations.

[familyop]

"And then some idiots, even on FR, want to draft women."

Yes. And to those Aunt Nancies, I say that they should recruit their own Amazons for their own personal lives and not bother us with their private preferences.

[surely_you_jest]

There is no UCMJ offense defining, or proscribing, conduct unbecoming an elisted member. The offense does not exist.

[Ruth A.]

Its been happening on the ships for years. The women go home early and get shore billets. Guess what. There are less shore billets available for the sailors who have done their time at sea.