More than 155,000 women have served in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Washington Post reported. Of those, more than 16,000 are single moms, which is an unprecedented total, military experts say. “How these women have coped and how their children are managing have gone little-noticed as the war stretches across a fourth year,” the Post noted.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
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20 Comments
Women have fought very hard to win the rights to stand side by side with the men in war. I’m not a fan of leaving children motherless OR fatherless. I would bet there are just as many single dads out there fighting as well.
Bush loves orphans, he wants to create more and more of them everyday.
Bush hates orphans and wishes they were dead too. Come on, Doug. Get in the game.
What well reasoned and rationale debate we have here…
These women were brave enough to volunteer to serve.”… as the war stretches across a fourth year.” What a cheap dig. Is this the Washington Post who are part of the Right Wing Media? BAH
Their enlistment was voluntary. Women want equal rights…this sort of scenario is part of it.
Sounds like the Conservative answer to ‘Welfare Moms’.
I bet those Single Dads aren’t the custodial parent.
I didn’t see anyone asking for sympathy for single mother soldiers fighting. What I saw was to make people aware of this and give recognition where due.
Apparently simple facts are “cheap digs” to HotWoodLicker.
How long will these Bush dead-enders continue to support the worst president ever?
In the immortal words of disgraced Don Rumsfilled, “Could be six days or six weeks, I doubt six months . . . “
All I have to say about the men who I have known to serve/are serving, three were parents, and two were the custodial parents of their children. Of the two men who were custodial parents, one man’s children went to live with the mom, and the other’s child stayed with the step-mom.
The biggest problem with single mothers at war- is that either the father may not even be in the picture at all, or would not want the child interfering with his new life and refuses to take residential custody.
However, I would hope that when there is a deadbeat dad in the picture, that the women would consider what would happen to their children before they sign up for military service in the first place.
I’m gonna guess that a large portion of those single moms are members of a guard unit. They likely had little idea they would ever be deployed overseas when they joined up.
JR,I wouldn’t be so sure; my granddaughter has friends who are talking seriously about enlisting in the Marines and toting an assault rifle in Iraq. They’re just as sure as the guys that they won’t be the one coming home in a bag.
Have you noticed all the commericals for the military right now are focusing on what they can do for your career, has the parent as the one not wanting their child to go?
So what do you think mom?
Notice the mom doesn’t respond “well yeah you might get a career, or you might end up dead”.
Isn’t it sad that it has come to this, when service to our country was an honorable thing, nothing the parents had to be convinced was the right thing.
Right, Mom, the military recruiters have no doubt encountered resistance from either: 1) parents who were (barely) old enough to go to Viet Nam, or who had older siblings who so served; or 2) parents young enough to have been untouched by the whole Viet Nam thing, but who didn’t enlist/serve themselves, because of hearing stories from siblings/parents of the experience.
It is indeed a sad commentary that such parents have to be “convinced” that military service is an honorable thing; however, I submit this is due to a number of things, including the overall bad feelings left from the Viet Nam experience, the shaky start to the all-volunteer military, and a general feeling that the recruiters are being less than truthful. Add to this the Iraq mess, and I can understand the marketing approach.
JR, I would think you are correct; I suspect many of the single mothers currently on active duty are members of the National Guard, who joined for the educational benefits and the extra pay the weekend drills provided.
Mom, are your granddaughter’s friends single without offspring, or single moms?
Vaughn, not me, the person with granddaughter’s friends was Jed.
I’m only 34- I don’t have grandkids yet lol.
Sorry, Mom, gotta relearn reading the threads.
Jed, same query: how many are single moms, how many are without offspring?
I bet the mom’s joined for the same reason most guys do, extra income, educational benefits, especially important to a single mother that wants to better her position.
Vaughn,Two without kids, one with two, all currently single.