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bacasper
Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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 Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2009 11:01 am Post subject: Army separates mom from infant |
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Yet another crime against humanity from your armed services.
Army Sends Infant to Protective Services, Mom to Afghanistan
Friday 13 November 2009
by: Dahr Jamail | Inter Press Service
Ventura, California - US Army Specialist Alexis Hutchinson, a single mother, is being threatened with a military court-martial if she does not agree to deploy to Afghanistan, despite having been told she would be granted extra time to find someone to care for her 11-month-old son while she is overseas.
Hutchinson, of Oakland, California, is currently being confined at Hunter Army Airfield near Savannah, Georgia, after being arrested. Her son was placed into a county foster care system.
Hutchinson has been threatened with a court martial if she does not agree to deploy to Afghanistan on Sunday, Nov. 15. She has been attempting to find someone to take care of her child, Kamani, while she is deployed overseas, but to no avail.
According to the family care plan of the U.S. Army, Hutchinson was allowed to fly to California and leave her son with her mother, Angelique Hughes of Oakland.
However, after a week of caring for the child, Hughes realised she was unable to care for Kamani along with her other duties of caring for a daughter with special needs, her ailing mother, and an ailing sister.
In late October, Angelique Hughes told Hutchinson and her commander that she would be unable to care for Kamani after all. The Army then gave Hutchinson an extension of time to allow her to find someone else to care for Kamani. Meanwhile, Hughes brought Kamani back to Georgia to be with his mother.
However, only a few days before Hutchinson's original deployment date, she was told by the Army she would not get the time extension after all, and would have to deploy, despite not having found anyone to care for her child.
Faced with this choice, Hutchinson chose not to show up for her plane to Afghanistan. The military arrested her and placed her child in the county foster care system.
continues at link. Please write President Obama, Secretary Gates, Senators and Representatives. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2009 3:26 pm Post subject: |
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| You'd think the Army would have a program set up for this sort of situation. If you're going to allow women in, you're going to be dealing with children sooner or later. Why not just institute a long-term care program for said children and be done with it? |
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CentralCali
Joined: 17 May 2007
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| Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2009 3:59 pm Post subject: |
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The Armed Forces do have a program for that sort of thing. All single parents and "dual service" couples are required to have a dependent care plan. This individual's dependent care plan didn't work out because the designated person reneged. And the military itself said it wouldn't have deployed her had she showed up and explained the situation. Skipping out wasn't the wise course of action.
And, OP; perhaps you should check out a better (as in more competent) newspaper for your information. From The New York Times:
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| Kevin Larson, a spokesman for Hunter Army Airfield, said that he did not know what Specialist Hutchinson was told by her commanders but that the Army would not deploy a single parent who had nobody to care for a child. |
Not that this rates high on the scale since it's anecdotal, but on my first ship, one Sailor was flown back to California when his ex-wife decided she could no longer be bothered with taking care of their child full-time.
But go ahead and have fun twisting the stories you find and leaving out relevant information in your haste to tar the US government as the worst thing to ever happen to humanity. The shock value has passed long ago and is now merely amusing.
Last edited by CentralCali on Wed Nov 18, 2009 7:52 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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PIGFACESOUPWITHRICE
Joined: 17 Nov 2009
Location: Electron Cloud
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| Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2009 4:01 pm Post subject: |
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| She must miss her kid. |
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bacasper
Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Thu Nov 19, 2009 12:30 pm Post subject: |
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| CentralCali wrote: |
The Armed Forces do have a program for that sort of thing. All single parents and "dual service" couples are required to have a dependent care plan. This individual's dependent care plan didn't work out because the designated person reneged. And the military itself said it wouldn't have deployed her had she showed up and explained the situation. Skipping out wasn't the wise course of action.
And, OP; perhaps you should check out a better (as in more competent) newspaper for your information. From The New York Times:
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| Kevin Larson, a spokesman for Hunter Army Airfield, said that he did not know what Specialist Hutchinson was told by her commanders but that the Army would not deploy a single parent who had nobody to care for a child. |
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Even if true, just exactly how was she supposed to divine that? Or should she just leave her kid, show up, on the chance they would not deploy her?
So now she is detained, the kid in foster care, and she is threatened with court martial. None of this is refuted by the NY Times story.
Every facet of our society including the military should be fullly supportive of the mother-infant bond. There is nothing more important, especially if a peaceful future world is something we value. The origins of violence lie in the very disruption of that bond.
More information By Jeff Paterson, Courage to Resist. November 16, 2009
"I currently don't have a family care plan, but they told me they did not care and for me to get ready to go to Afghanistan, " explained Oakland, California native Spc. Alexis Hutchinson, a 21-year-old soldier based at Hunter Army Airfield outside of Savannah, Georgia.
As I spoke to Alexis on the phone, I believed if I found her a civilian lawyer to work with the military, a reasonable resolution would be quickly found. Unlike most service members Courage to Resist assists, Alexis was not refusing to deploy. She was not looking to speak out against war. She was simply asking for more time to find someone to care for her 11-month old son Kamani. Within a few days, however, the Army had tossed Alexis in the stockade and turned Kamani over to the Chatham County (Georgia) foster care system.
In response to a public outcry, growing media attention, and congressional inquiries, the Army backed off of their pledge to deploy Alexis last night, November 15. Alexis' lawyer Rai Sue Sussman of San Francisco notes that "The Army maintains that she may still be sent to Afghanistan for a court martial." That has left Ms. Sussman contemplating travel to Afghanistan to represent her client. |
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bacasper
Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Fri Feb 12, 2010 9:54 am Post subject: |
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At least she didn't get court-martialed.
Army discharging single mom who refused deployment
By RUSS BYNUM, AP Military Writer Russ Bynum, Ap Military Writer � Fri Feb 12, 2:25 am ET
SAVANNAH, Ga. � A single-mom soldier who says she refused to deploy to Afghanistan because she had no family able to care for her young son will be discharged from the military instead of facing a court-martial, the Army said Thursday.
Spc. Alexis Hutchinson, an Army cook stationed at Hunter Army Airfield in Savannah, was arrested in November after skipping her unit's deployment flight. Hutchinson, 21, said she couldn't leave her son because her mother had backed out of plans to keep the child a few days before the soldier's scheduled departure.
The Army filed criminal charges last month against Hutchinson of Oakland, Calif., but a general at neighboring Fort Stewart chose to settle the case by granting her an administrative discharge rather than try her in a military court.
"She's excited that she's no longer facing jail and can still be with her son, which is the most important thing," said Rai Sue Sussman, Hutchinson's civilian attorney. "We're very happy about it right now."
The decision still carries consequences for Hutchinson. She is being demoted in rank to private and will lose benefits afforded to military service members and veterans, Fort Stewart spokesman Kevin Larson said.
Larson said the Army had evidence that Hutchinson, regardless of her family situation, would have resisted deploying "by any means." He said commanders decided a court-martial would be too disruptive to the Army, requiring soldiers now in Afghanistan to return to the U.S. to testify.
"This case wasn't about a soldier having to choose between her duty to the nation and her family," Larson said. "There is evidence both from Pvt. Hutchinson and her fellow soldiers to indicate she had no intentions of deploying."
Sussman denied that Hutchinson was exploiting her status as a single-mom to get out of going to Afghanistan.
continues at link |
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rocket_scientist
Joined: 23 Nov 2009
Location: Prague
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| Posted: Fri Feb 12, 2010 10:46 am Post subject: |
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| Wow, looks like more non traditional people making exactly the kinds of problems like we negative people said would happen. I told you so. Nyah. |
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conrad2
Joined: 05 Nov 2009
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| Posted: Fri Feb 12, 2010 5:29 pm Post subject: |
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| Now that she is out of the army, she will be on welfare by next month. |
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Reggie
Joined: 21 Sep 2009
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| Posted: Fri Feb 12, 2010 5:40 pm Post subject: |
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| conrad2 wrote: |
| Now that she is out of the army, she will be on welfare by next month. |
That'll make her less of a burden on the American taxpayer. But hopefully, she'll go get a real job. |
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conrad2
Joined: 05 Nov 2009
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| Posted: Fri Feb 12, 2010 6:19 pm Post subject: |
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| Reggie wrote: |
| conrad2 wrote: |
| Now that she is out of the army, she will be on welfare by next month. |
That'll make her less of a burden on the American taxpayer. But hopefully, she'll go get a real job. |
How will she be less of a burden? Someone still has to do the job she was supposed to do in Afgahnistan. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Fri Feb 12, 2010 6:34 pm Post subject: |
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| conrad2 wrote: |
| Reggie wrote: |
| conrad2 wrote: |
| Now that she is out of the army, she will be on welfare by next month. |
That'll make her less of a burden on the American taxpayer. But hopefully, she'll go get a real job. |
How will she be less of a burden? Someone still has to do the job she was supposed to do in Afgahnistan. |
Yes, but one less person in the army is one less person needlessly sucking wealth out of America to do jobs that don't benefit Americans in any way, shape, or form. |
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bacasper
Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Fri Feb 12, 2010 6:41 pm Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: |
| conrad2 wrote: |
| Reggie wrote: |
| conrad2 wrote: |
| Now that she is out of the army, she will be on welfare by next month. |
That'll make her less of a burden on the American taxpayer. But hopefully, she'll go get a real job. |
How will she be less of a burden? Someone still has to do the job she was supposed to do in Afgahnistan. |
Yes, but one less person in the army is one less person needlessly sucking wealth out of America to do jobs that don't benefit Americans in any way, shape, or form. |
Well, if you are an American arms manufacturer or military service provider (think Halliburton, Raytheon, etc.) or a shareholder in those companies, it will benefit you, but certainly in the aggregate it does not benefit Americans. |
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conrad2
Joined: 05 Nov 2009
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| Posted: Fri Feb 12, 2010 10:14 pm Post subject: |
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| But the army will just increase its recruitment target by one and get a new soldier to cook for the troops. So now we have someone pulling in her former salary and someone on welfare. |
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Mr. Pink
Joined: 21 Oct 2003
Location: China
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| Posted: Sat Feb 13, 2010 2:58 am Post subject: |
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Why wouldn't they have just worked with her to take on another position?
So all that money spent training her = flushed down the toilet. Plus she gets out of her commitment for whatever amount of years she signed up for.
I agree, it sounds like she'll be on welfare. It would have been better to keep her on activity duty stateside for all concerned. |
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CentralCali
Joined: 17 May 2007
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| Posted: Sat Feb 13, 2010 4:30 am Post subject: |
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| Mr. Pink wrote: |
| Why wouldn't they have just worked with her to take on another position? |
Maybe this is why:
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| In the statement, Army Forces Command disputed that version of events. "The investigation revealed evidence ... that she didn�t intend to deploy to Afghanistan with her unit and deliberately sought ways out of the deployment." Hutchinson admitted to lying about the circumstances, officials said. |
Boldingabove is mine. |
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