Mom Chooses Son Over Service

[SuperHornet]

My response wasn't an attempt to explain the many thousands of sevice families throughout our military. If that was my intent, I would have merely countered your argument with the high divorce rate women in the military suffer - Army women divorced at a rate of 8.5 percent compared to 2.9 percent for men. Female Marines divorced at a rate of 9.2 percent, compared to 3.3 percent of the married men - according to the Defense Dept in 2008.

http://www.ptsdsupport.net/Divorce_rate ... rines.html

Yes, the divorce rate IS an issue. The services have been attempting to address that for the last 10 years or so. But those high rates imply the opposite: there ARE successes.

And I did not differentiate between noncom nor officer, you made an assumption. I realize my argument is not politically correct. We all strive for "equality", yet our courts fail to recognize that a father is just as vital of a parent as a mother with regard to custody. And until that is resolved, then women pursuing an active duty career should either put motherhood off or marry a man who doesn't serve actively in the military with a chance for deployment for the sake of the child. And single women who become pregnant while active duty should be discharged....

I'll grant that I made an assumption based on the tone of your post. I'll also grant that your equal parental status argument is valid. Of course, there are exceptions to that. (There was a MN case a while back where a single mom was deemed an "unfit mother" merely because she chose to go back to school vice mooching off of mom and/or the state and lost custody to a heretofore uninvolved father. Not that that's germane to this discussion.)

There's a good argument that nonexistent PARENTHOOD should be postponed while IN A DEPLOYABLE STATUS. (I almost said "on sea duty," but that would be offensive to the land-based services. LOL.) However, I don't believe that that should apply to those in non-deployable units (i.e. Navy shore duty or base/post personnel). If a child comes to a married couple under non-deployable circumstances, one can then prepare for the separation that will come on a transfer to a deployable unit. This would also eliminate the pain and hassle of a pregnancy crossing the deployment departure date. (Emergency leave is hard to arrange while on a cruise or in a war zone.)

As far as the potential for SINGLE parenthood, one who has been around long enough to be in that situation following a divorce would undoubtedly be smart enough to either make the required supervisory arrangements on receipt of orders to a deployable unit (i.e. BEFORE the deployment hits). While it's hard for a young person to think with the correct "head" (sorry for the horribly bad pun), abstinence prior to marriage prevents THAT issue. And if one blows that (sorry for THAT, too), it is incumbent upon leadership to FORCE the servicemember to adhere to the guardianship requirements or go for the admin discharge; at that point, it becomes an insubordination issue.

I think we want the same thing here. I'm just not prepared to be so draconian about it.

[houndawg]

You mean two years active, plus reserve?

I believe so.

The bad news is that your reserve service will be on active duty.

[SuperHornet]

I believe so.

The bad news is that your reserve service will be on active duty.

That depends on what you mean by "active duty." All reservists have Annual Training. Some even pull Active Duty for Special Work. A lot of ADSW is "back-filling" base jobs for those that are deployed. Of course, much of this depends on one's rating/MOS. While a full-blown deployment given for a grunt/Motor T/logistics/medical/ministry guy on the ground side or sea duty-intensive Navy rating, there's a fairly good chance that an Aerographer's Mate (i.e. weather guesser) or certain intelligence folk won't see a war zone. Those guys tend to get grouped in centralized locations far from harm.

Of course, there are no guarantees. Occasionally, detachments deploy, too.