Posted on 02/11/2010 3:08:23 PM PST by NormsRevenge
A single mother from Oakland has been discharged from the Army for refusing to leave her infant son behind to go to Afghanistan, but she will not be court-martialed, her attorney said Thursday.
Alexis Hutchinson, 21, had faced criminal charges at a court-martial for refusing to accompany her unit when it deployed in November. Although that is no longer a prospect, Hutchinson has been demoted from specialist to private and will lose all military and veteran benefits, said her attorney, Rae Sue Sussman of San Francisco.
She said Hutchinson had been given an other-than-honorable discharge.
In a statement, Hutchinson said she was "excited to know what will happen to me, and that I am not facing jail. This means I can still be with my son, which is the most important thing."
Hutchinson enlisted in the Army in 2007 straight out of Fremont High School in East Oakland. She was supposed to deploy overseas as a cook with her unit, the 3rd Infantry Division, on Nov. 5. She skipped the flight, she contended, because she had nobody to take care of her then-10-month-old son, Kamani.
Hutchinson told her commanding officers she had arranged for her mother to watch Kamani while she was away for her one-year tour of duty, but when that fell through at the last minute, she could find no alternative.
In January, the Army charged her with four court-martial counts. She could have spent up to two years behind bars had she been convicted of being absent without leave, missing a movement, dereliction of duty and insubordinate conduct toward a noncommissioned officer.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Single moms should not be in the military in the first place.
Finally, some good news for the single mother cook that wouldn’t deploy.
The Army has plenty of cooks. Raise your boy well.
I hope he survives growing up in Oakland.
Didn’t John Kerry get an “other than honorable” discharge?
This strikes me as a fair result in a very difficult case both for the Army and her. I also think, however, she will find that she has not exactly enhanced her resume by her behavior and she could have a very difficult time finding work in this recession.
This.
Amen to that! I dunno if there’s any truth to the rumors that the military is being turned into a jobs/welfare program for unwed mothers but I’d like to know if anyone is out there tracking the stats and expenses.
I hate to sound un-PC but in most employment instances I’ve seen single mothers are not worth the trouble of hiring for most jobs. We could use an administration with the guts to discharge single women for that offense which was called in the ancient WAC-era “PWOP” (pregnant-without-permission).
Somehow I don’t think it will matter in Oakland.
“”...but she will not be court-martialed, her attorney said Thursday.
Alexis Hutchinson, 21, had faced criminal charges at a court-martial for ....””
did the same person write the first and second sentences?
What we need is an Army of women who will all come up pregnant when TSHTF
wonderful!
I would reserve judgment until I tasted her cooking.
The Army may have done our troops a big favor. ;-)
How did she come to be a single mom, not just a single?
Ladies in the service (and God bless the good ones) pose their own set of problems.
Can you imagine a division full of these folks in the Argonne as the Panzers come crashing through.
I guess some one “hit it”
She’s probably already interviewed with ACORN to be a supervisor. I am not on the same page as many on it “working out for her”. She made a commitment and reneiged and now wants “life without blame”. It is why this country has gone to the dogs.
lol
ramen noodles w/ raw liver are her specialty
She’s missing the war to have her mother raise the bastard
Women,regardless of marital status, with young children should not be on active duty. Place them into the inactive reserves until all young’uns are 18.
This is a bunch of horsecrap. The Army needs to send a message and put her ass in jail. She’s lucky they didnt charge her with desertion. She knew she was deployable when she enlisted, and it aint the Army’s job to worry about childcare for her. How about all the single fathers out there, any of them refuse to deploy? Bet if they did, they would be in jail right now....
Well, yeah, obviously. Stune mah beeber.
Goofing around with enlisted men, already expecting when she signed on, something else? Could put a fillip on the story.
I’m bowled over. The comments for this story in SFChronic are indistinguishable in tone from the ones here. Things are a-changing.
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