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 ...
"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."
I completely agree with you. I hate the term "single mother." If I were divorced or widowed, I'd never refer to myself as a single mother. It makes it sound like there is and was no male ever involved. God, I hate the feminists and the PC language police.
Yes, you are certainly free to be judgmental of others, even though you don't know the whole situation.
I guess when you're perfect, you can sit around and judge others.
...if this woman doesn't want to go, why is she in the military? The Iraq war is older than four years isn't it?
Mommy wanted into VMI.Mommy should be available for the draft,too if Mommy wants her GI bill.
Do you really believe there are no men in the Army?
Again, if you want to argue that women should be banned from volunteering for military service or that men should be conscripted for military service, go ahead.
We are a nation ruled by pussies.
I see you've moved from melodramatic comments to stupid ones.
Please tell us about your own military service.
How about unmarried women with sperm donors?
I know a young woman who has had two by the same man, who she has never been married to, and when I speak with her I ask her how her sperm donor is doing.
He is not a father, husband, provider, etc., but simply a sperm donor.
"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?"
Ding, ding! You win. :)
Single mother does not equal out-of-wedlock mother, ace.
My dad died in 1963. My mom became a single mother. It happens a lot.
I've been away for a while. When did they start the draft up again?
**************
Good grief. This woman is incomprehensible.
Yup. How about what happened to the word "chairman?"
Women are "chairs" and men are also "chairs" of organizations.
Woe unto the person who invokes the word "man."
Oh, brother,er, I mean oh, sister.
Yep, it's simply a logical (more correctly, ILLOGICAL) conclusion of the feminist movement and its confluence with the feminist war on boys, most of whom have been successfully deballed.
Thank you Bela, Gloria and Betty.
The Islamists have an economy based on a single resource that will be replaced and depleted within a few decades, and lack the social institutions that will enable them to develop other sources of wealth. Having lots of children at that point will merely cause them to starve faster.
Well good. Shows you read the article...
Her ex-husband paid child support. Still, she only scraped by, with the help of public assistance.
Good to see 'conservatives' still up on their high horses. I was starting to worry..You don't know jack about this woman's situation but still you judge. I don't know why she signed up in the National Guard but I bet when she did she didn't envision going off to fight the war of the purple finger either. Course you can feel comforted..
"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."
Yep, she's swallowed the nationalism/patriotism/faith line. God told her to go...
Isn't a mother's first responsibility to her children?
You should be thankful that your life is so worry-free that you have time to sit around bitching and whining about what other people do.
You're probably one of those busybody neighbors that normal people despise.
You bore me.
they haven't . my point is if the feminist who force their way into VMI and want to be 'trained fighters' really want equality, they'd demand to be subject to the selective service requirements(IE: the possibilty of being drafted-preferably into all-female units)
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