Single Mother Discharged From Army for Refusing Deployment

Single Mother Discharged From Army for Refusing Deployment

I do not know all the details of this story--just what is in the above-referenced article--and I will admit that upfront. However, based on the immediately apparent facts, I am highly disturbed by this. I do not fully understand why she was discharged. The Army is strapped for resources; I can't believe there are no open jobs domestically so that Pvt. Hutchinson could continue to serve, as well as care for her young son. The Army is so ...what, mad? that a single parent with no child care options would refuse to be deployed to a foreign war that they would discharge and demote her, as well as take away her benefits? Perhaps they don't want to set a precedent for other single parents using this as a "loop hole" to avoid deployment. I don't know.

I don't understand and will look forward to finding out details about this issue. On the surface however, it appears--once again--that the Army is an employer injurious to women, single parents, and families (not to mention individuals with whom it disagrees on personal and lifestyle issues). It is an organization that refuses to bend and grow. Ironically, the Army's "militancy" of its longstanding ways is going to catch up with the organization if it doesn't learn to modernize in a social way, the way it has modernized in a technological way.