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Army Mom skips flight to Afghanistan

There have been single parents in the military for quite some time. Some of them have been in tight spots like this. The difference is they worked with their commands.
i'm not saying she did everything correctly, i'm just not prepared to hang her.
 
no, things are not equal. and it's my thought that we should support women in their endeavors, not castigate them.

really, spiker, you are projecting a negative attitude onto this soldier and we don't even know the full story. and i still don't understand why this is embarrassing.

again, this is a single parent situation, not a single female parent situation.

The fact she is a woman is totally irrelevant. If a man did the same thing, he would be treated the same way, and yes there are male single parents in the military.
 
Tight spot - sure, they suck. She was fortunate to have a heads-up before deployment, time enough to plan for it.

What would have happened if she was called up on shorter notice and only had a few days (happens all the time)? (I would be more understanding of a short-notice deployment rather than her current deployment that was planned out in advance, btw).

Your support for your children is detailed. The military tells you to have plan A and plan B.

She didn't even have a plan B - and there we go. . .you might think it's excusable but you've never been in the military or deployed. There's a lot more to deploying a soldier than you're aware of.
i'm not excusing her actions, i'm just not prepared to lynch her OR pass judgement on women in the military.
 
The fact she is a woman is totally irrelevant. If a man did the same thing, he would be treated the same way, and yes there are male single parents in the military.

Yep - it happens all the time.

Soldiers miss that flight or that bus frequently. Having children complicates the situation - but it's all the same.
 
The fact she is a woman is totally irrelevant. If a man did the same thing, he would be treated the same way, and yes there are male single parents in the military.

If it were a man, I believe that they would be less tolerant of this.....;)
 
The fact she is a woman is totally irrelevant. If a man did the same thing, he would be treated the same way, and yes there are male single parents in the military.
that was my point to spiker.
 
i'm not saying she did everything correctly, i'm just not prepared to hang her.

You have to. You cannot allow people to find ways to get out of deployments, whether intentionally or not. She has proven that she is not suited to military life. Unlike some, I don't agree with the dishonorable, I think this is best handled at the command level with NJP and what is called an "OTH RE4", which is an other than honorable discharge with no option to re-enlist at a later time.
 
Alexis Hutchinson, Army Mom Arrested for Refusing to Deploy, Says There's No One to C

Alexis Hutchinson, Army Mom Arrested for Refusing to Deploy, Says There's No One to Care for Baby



I am not sure what to say about this. This is wrong, on so many levels.


Hutchinson of Oakland, Calif., was scheduled to deploy from Hunter Army Airfield in Savannah on Nov. 5. She skipped her unit's flight, saying the only relative she had to take care of her 10-month-old son - her mother - was overwhelmed by the task and backed out a few days before Hutchinson's departure date." (military.com)



The Military, I think should not prosecute this woman.


This is a comment, I have found on the blog.

I was stationed with Hutchison at Savannah's Hunter Army AirField in GA. I think she's right with what she's doing the command at Hunter dont care about there personnel. I myself know first hand. I was discharged for tattoo's that I already had when I entered the Army I served for 3 years and one day New command pretty much said I was no longer good enough to serve because of my tattoo's. I did a tour for 15 months in Iraq and my tattoo's were never a problem. I guess what im trying to say is the military can be really unfair and I think thats what there doing to Hutch treating her unfair. I hope after all is said and done the command at Hunter really takes a look at its leaders and re-thinks there approach the next time something like this happens instead of threatening there personnel with jail or foster care for there children.
 
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Re: Alexis Hutchinson, Army Mom Arrested for Refusing to Deploy, Says There's No One


You're right. This is wrong on many levels.

Level 1 would be mommy. She should have figured out where to put her kid when she deployed. She joined the Army, she got knocked up, she had 10 whole months to figure it out. Personally, what mother, knowing that she may have to deploy, wouldn't find a place to put her kid? Either she has the parental skills of an alley cat, or she was trying to sham out of deploying. Either way she's a pice of **** and needs to be punished. Personally, I don't think she deserves to keep her kid, if this is the best welfare she can provide.

Level 2 would be her unit commander, who should have made damn sure that mommy had a place for her kid to stay when she deployed.

She broke the rules and didn't perform her job in a proper manner. She deserves what she gets and her unit commander should be disciplined for not doing his/her job, as well.

There's no excuse for any of this.
 
Re: Alexis Hutchinson, Army Mom Arrested for Refusing to Deploy, Says There's No One

Hutchinson of Oakland, Calif., was scheduled to deploy from Hunter Army Airfield in Savannah on Nov. 5. She skipped her unit's flight, saying the only relative she had to take care of her 10-month-old son - her mother - was overwhelmed by the task and backed out a few days before Hutchinson's departure date." (military.com)

She did find a place to put her kid, but they backed out a few days before her deployment.


Level 2, I agree that the level commander should be disciplined.
 
I can already tell this is going to turn into an OMG OUTRAGE!!!11 thread, so hopefully that can be preempted to some degree by forcing people to read the details:



It sounds like the Army has policies in place to prevent this from happening to single parents, but there was some confusion because the woman changed her plans last minute. I'm sure it will get resolved shortly.

If all that is true, and she followed none of it. Then dishonorable discharge.
 
Little sympathy here except for her unit and her baby.
Her fellow soldiers are counting on her and she's letting them down. They have to follow the rules.
Also, consider how long we have been deploying to the Middle East now. She knew before she got pregnant that there was a good chance she'd be deployed when her baby was little. Was she hoping it would get her out of a deployment? I wonder what the heck she was thinking, actually. It sounds like she has very little support in her life and it's not the military's job to be babysitters. It's ridiculous that they even have to do all this "reminding" to soldiers to have child care plans in place. Responsible parents already have that - and backups - without any intervention whatsoever. All the good responsible soldiers just show up on time and there are plenty of them. You never hear about them though.
 
Re: Alexis Hutchinson, Army Mom Arrested for Refusing to Deploy, Says There's No One

She did find a place to put her kid, but they backed out a few days before her deployment.


Level 2, I agree that the level commander should be disciplined.

There are several processes for handling these situations. She did not follow them. Believe it or not, the military is not all run by assholes. They know that sometimes things happen, and are not going to throw a kid to the wolves. Where she failed was in properly keeping her command notified, and that is an important failing.
 
If all that is true, and she followed none of it. Then dishonorable discharge.

That would be using a sledgehammer to drive a nail, massive overkill. Other than honorable was made for these situations.
 
That would be using a sledgehammer to drive a nail, massive overkill. Other than honorable was made for these situations.

Nope. Because if it was willful negligence on her part to not follow the orders then it was a conscientious effort on her part to give reason to not be deployed. In that circumstance, she stole my money, broke her contract, left her unit a man down. Dishonorable discharge. Look at it this way, you can't spell dishonorable without honorable. And note, my opinion on that is based on the assumption that she didn't go through the procedures provided to assist with single-parent soldiers.
 
Nope. Because if it was willful negligence on her part to not follow the orders then it was a conscientious effort on her part to give reason to not be deployed. In that circumstance, she stole my money, broke her contract, left her unit a man down. Dishonorable discharge. Look at it this way, you can't spell dishonorable without honorable. And note, my opinion on that is based on the assumption that she didn't go through the procedures provided to assist with single-parent soldiers.

But that means court martial and more money spent on her.
 
But that means court martial and more money spent on her.

Then don't steal my money.

The particulars of the case will come out. It could be she tried to do something and it fell apart. There can be varying punishments because in the end she probably didn't notify or follow proper channels for notification. But if it was willful negligence where in she did not do anything to secure plans for her child should she be called into duty; then it was nothing more than a ploy to get my money and loophole out of any actual duty.

This will be investigated and we'll find out more about it in the future I'm sure.
 
That would be using a sledgehammer to drive a nail, massive overkill. Other than honorable was made for these situations.

Failure to make a movement rates a dishonorable discharge.
 
Failure to make a movement rates a dishonorable discharge.

I just don't see it as worth the effort. Some one who misses movement has to be gone, but do it quick and easy and cheaply. The effect of an OTH is pretty similar to the effect of a dishonorable in the civilian world. In both cases, you can't get a job with the government or government contractor, but most every other employer won't even know about it.
 
I just don't see it as worth the effort. Some one who misses movement has to be gone, but do it quick and easy and cheaply. The effect of an OTH is pretty similar to the effect of a dishonorable in the civilian world. In both cases, you can't get a job with the government or government contractor, but most every other employer won't even know about it.

If we let this gal off, then you'll send a message to anyone else that it's ok to miss movement, because there aren't going to be any real conciquences.
 
If we let this gal off, then you'll send a message to anyone else that it's ok to miss movement, because there aren't going to be any real conciquences.

Other than honorable is not letting the gal off. That is the same discharge some one gets for failing a drug test.
 
Other than honorable is not letting the gal off. That is the same discharge some one gets for failing a drug test.

Do you really think we can have an army involved in two wars ( which I wish we weren't in) if we let off everyone who says I was just kidding I don't feel like going
 
Do you really think we can have an army involved in two wars ( which I wish we weren't in) if we let off everyone who says I was just kidding I don't feel like going

Hi, please read my post again. I specifically said I was not suggesting letting any one off. If you mean discharging people who won't go, what do you do, you cannot let people miss movements, you simply cannot. It would be bad for morale, it would be bad for discipline.
 
Hi, please read my post again. I specifically said I was not suggesting letting any one off. If you mean discharging people who won't go, what do you do, you cannot let people miss movements, you simply cannot. It would be bad for morale, it would be bad for discipline.

A general disharge is letting her off, IMO. I think she should have two choices:

1) Put her kid in foster care, deploy with her unit and if she performs well in Afghanistan, she can have her kid back. If she gets into trouble in Afghanistan, it's an automatic option #2.

2) A stretch in the stockade and a dishonorable discharge and lose custody of her kid for being an unfit mother.
 
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