Posted on 11/29/2006 8:36:31 AM PST by XR7
HAVRE DE GRACE, Md. — When they called her name, she could not move. Sgt. Leana Nishimura intended to walk up proudly, shake the dignitaries' hands and accept their honors for her service in Iraq — a special coin, a lapel pin, a glass-encased U.S. flag.
But her son clung to her leg. He cried and held tight...T.J. was 9, her oldest child, and although eight months had passed since she had returned from the war zone, he was still upset by anything that reminded him of her deployment...
The faraway move to live with his grandmother. The months that went by without his mother's kisses or hugs, without her scrutiny of homework, her teasing humor, her familiar bedtime songs.
Nishimura was a single mother — with no spouse to take over, to preserve her children's routines, to keep up the family apartment.
Of her three children, T.J. seemed to worry most... "He went from having one parent to having no parents, basically," Nishimura said, reflecting. "People have said, 'Thank you so much for your sacrifice.' But it's the children who have had more of a sacrifice."
When war started in Iraq, a generation of U.S. women became involved as never before — in a wider-than-ever array of jobs, for long deployments, in a conflict with daily bloodshed. More than 155,000 women have served in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Among their ranks are more than 16,000 single mothers, according to the Pentagon, a number that military experts say is unprecedented.
How these women have coped and how their children are managing have gone little noticed as the war stretches across a fourth year...
"I tell [the children] that if God needs Mommy to go ... then Mommy's going to have to go again and they're going to have to let me."
(Excerpt) Read more at archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com ...
"I tell [the children] that if God needs Mommy to go ... then Mommy's going to have to go again and they're going to have to let me."
God did not "tell Mommy to go."
It is a society that has turned its back on God that allows a mother to go to war, when there are plenty of able-bodied men.
Mommy chose to go.
And last I looked, we are a free nation.
The feminists wanted "equal" opportunity in the military, which meant that we could no longer segregate duties to keep women out of combat roles. Unfortunately, none of the grownups who were supposed to be in charge had the balls to tell them to forget it.
Uh, excuse me, but what is a "single mother"? I believe in the old days (before political correctness was enshrined by Liberals) that less-flattering terms were used to describe out-of-wedlock mothers.
no more men-- feminism and political correctness neutered them...
If you want to argue for conscription, make a foursquare argument for conscription.
But spare us the melodramatic handwringing.
Don't you know? The feminist don't want "those type of women." You know, those that actually serve in the military?
SEE: Jessica Lynch, Shoshonna (sp?) Johnson.
I tend to see women as equal and in some cases more equal but I still have a hard time with the idea of sending them into combat.
It's a little different for women without children but I'm still not thrilled with the actual combat role. My grandmother served in the WAVEs during WWII but she was a single unwed and childless woman.
I recall when the first Gulf War took off and the Air Guard F-16 squadron in Duluth, MN was activated. The support staff was mostly female and a lot of mommies found out what the National Guard can really mean.
It's not that men won't go; she VOLUNTEERED to do so. She CHOSE to have children without benefit of marriage; she chose to have them raised by her own mother; she chose to enlist. And this writer is trying to make us feel guilty for this woman's own choices?
The Islamists are having a dozen children per woman, and we're sending our mothers into war zones. I wonder which civilization will endure in the long run?
Including our current "Commander-in-Chief."
President Reagan would have asked: "If not now, when?"
After six years with a Republican Congress - it won't be anytime soon.
"Of her three children, T.J. seemed to worry most... "He went from having one parent to having no parents, basically," Nishimura said, reflecting. "People have said, 'Thank you so much for your sacrifice.' But it's the children who have had more of a sacrifice.""
Well, if the children sacrificed, it was by Nishimura's own hand. She willingly signed up to serve and knew she could be deployed at a moments notice. I'm out on a limb betting she wasn't worried about the sacrifice when she was back stateside at a desk job, using her GI Bill monies, and cashing her paychecks at the PX. BOTTOMLINE: She needs to STFU.
Yeah. An Army that should be men.
We are a nation ruled by pussies.
Women (some) have been shrieking for decades that they want to be treated the same as men. And this one volunteered.
The underlying presumption seems to be that white males have always lived a life of ease and privilege and have been stingy about sharing it. This presumption ignores little things like wars, working conditions, competition, stress, suicide rates and premature death. If they want to live like men, they'd better be ready to pay the price.
It's not about us feeling guilt for her decisions. It's criticism of our society for allowing it. Not an unfair criticism, either. Any society that has unwed mothers going to war has something wrong with it.
Me too.
Let's feel sorry for equal rights. /sarcasm
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