Reply #54: I'm neither military nor ex-military, but I don't agree with this decision.

[Nine]

I think it's a wrong, unjust system and a wrong, unjust war. I'd like to bring all the soldiers home. I'd like to do away with the whole military concept that borders on indentured servitude. But none of that has anything to do with why this woman was let out of her commitment. It has to do with some ridiculous notions that (1) a man shouldn't be expected to take care of his own children and (2) a family where one of the two parents is called back into service shouldn't have to suffer any financial disadvantage or disruption from it.

It's ridiculous to say there was no one to take care of the children. Would a male have been allowed to argue that he couldn't fulfill his commitment because his wife would have had to quit her job and stay home with the children? The husband here needn't have become a stay-at-home father anyway. He could have looked for a different job even if it meant a cut in pay. He could have tried to work something out with his current employer and let them take on some of the PR burden of firing a man whose wife has just been called to go fight in a war.

Even if he did have to quit his job and had to take care of the kids himself because he could not find another that paid enough to afford childcare, would the family be worse off than many other military families in the same situation? The army does provide housing and other support to military families, does it not? It's not as if this family would have gone hungry and homeless, they might just not have had quite as comfortable a lifestyle as before. I think there's some classism at play here as well as sexism. If the husband worked a low-level job at Mcdonald's, even with a shift schedule that precluded easy childcare arrangements (just as his traveling job did), would people be insisting that he couldn't possibly be expected to quit his job or look for another? There seems to be some assumption that this nice, middle class family shouldn't have to be put through what lower income families must go through. Isn't that idea something we liberals are supposed to oppose?

If it were just a matter between this woman and the military, that would be one thing. But letting her not fulfill her commitment means that others must serve in her place. That's not fair. The greatest disadvantage to being called back for anyone is the very real risk of being killed. I would say that dwarfs any financial matters. As I see it, this woman is sending someone else to risk life and limb in her place based on the argument that her family shouldn't be expected to give up her husband's supposedly well-paying job and begin living on her military pay. I don't see how that can seem right to anyone.