OpEdNews - Page 3 of Article: Soldiers Are Being Forced to Choose Between Their Children And the Military, And They're Paying the Price In Jailtime

According to Gilberd, Church's story is not unique.

"When there's a parent dying who wants their son or daughter home with them, or there is a child with special needs who needs intensive parent support, or some other family emergency, the military is not willing to provide that support," she explained. "Military regulations say there should be assistance available to the soldiers, and superiors are supposed to help with this, but soldiers find that the opposite happens."

After remembering an incident during the first Gulf War, when "there were reservist mothers who were breastfeeding who were ordered to active duty," Gilberd shared another story.

"Jose Crespa came home from an Iraq deployment. He went home on leave and found his sister had developed schizophrenia. His mom was unable to deal with the situation, which was complicated by the fact that his sister had a child to care for. He went AWOL for a month [late 2007] to help them, then went back to Fort Carson and let the military know what was going on. They threatened him with a general court martial, and it took attorney intervention and his Article 138 Complaint (A Redress of Grievance procedure for when soldiers are wronged by their command) to get him out."

Crespa was lucky to have good attorneys, as he was discharged without any disciplinary action and with an honorable discharge. However, things usually don't turn out this way.

"I wish I could say that's a common outcome," was Gilberd's comment on Crespa's case.

The Pentagon tracks hard numbers of soldiers going AWOL, and since October 2001, more than 50,000 soldiers have done so. But the military does not keep track of the reasons why soldiers go AWOL, or get hardship discharges, including when the reasons are those like Hutchinson's, Carter's, Church's, or Crespa's, or if the soldier has PTSD, or other mitigating circumstances.

According to Gilberd, cases like Crespa's "get lost in the shuffle," and added, "To most folks, this is just one more AWOL, or one more hardship discharge. There's no way to know how many soldiers are going AWOL and are trying to apply for hardship discharges, but counselors run across these cases often."

"Looking at these reasons would not reflect well on the military, but there are lots of these," Gilberd continued, "And to me, the irony is that there are procedures that should be available to these folks to get out, but the problem is that the command is not willing to follow the procedures. And it's all part of that "there's no family in your duffle bag" mindset. So it's all about keeping the numbers up, and having enough deployable service-members, and not letting too many people go."

As the military now finds itself preparing to deploy 30,000 more soldiers to Afghanistan and maintains more than 120,000 in Iraq, it is under tremendous pressure to maintain personnel in the ranks, which only exacerbates these problems.

"When a division is seen as having too many discharges or disciplinary problems, pressure comes down on them to not let so many people go," said Gilberd, "So the lower command gets subtle pressure for them to stop [losing personnel], and ultimately people become disposable. And not just the soldier, but their kids, or their mother, father, sister, or infant."

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