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NC military mom arrives at Fort Benning with kids
Link to story and to see picture of family

DAVIDSON, N.C. – A North Carolina mother who reported for Army duty with her two young children in tow is waiting to see what happens next.

Lisa Pagan, who was recalled to the Army four years after being honorably discharged, drove nearly 400 miles and braved a Southeastern winter storm to report for duty Sunday at Fort Benning, Ga.

She says she has no one to take care of son Eric and daughter Elizabeth, so she brought them with her. She has reserved a motel room for a week and doesn't plan to stay in the barracks.

"Them being away from me is not an option," she said.

Pagan is among thousands of former service members who have left active duty since the Sept. 11 attacks, only to be recalled to service. They're not in training, they're not getting a Defense Department salary, but as long as they have time left on their original enlistment contracts, they're on "individual ready reserve" status — eligible to be recalled at any time.

Pagan filed several appeals, arguing that because her husband travels for business, no one else can take care of her kids. All were rejected, leaving Pagan to choose between deploying to Iraq and abandoning her family, or refusing her orders and potentially facing charges.

Pagan, whose job was truck driving during her first military stint, said it would likely be Monday morning before she knows what happens next.

"I think our ultimate goal is to be honorably discharged," she said.

Master Sgt. Keith O'Donnell, an Army spokesman in St. Louis, said earlier that the commander at Fort Benning will decide how to handle the situation.

"The Army tries to look at the whole picture and they definitely don't want to do anything that jeopardizes the family or jeopardizes the children," O'Donnell said. "At the same time, these are individuals who made obligations and commitments to the country."

Of the 25,000 individual ready reserve troops recalled since September 2001, more than 7,500 have been granted deferments or exemptions, O'Donnell said. About 1,000 have failed to report. O'Donnell most of those cases are still under investigation, while 360 soldiers have been separated from the Army either through "other than honorable" discharges or general discharges.

O'Donnell said Pagan isn't likely to face charges, since none of the individual ready reserve soldiers who have failed to report faced a court-martial.

Pagan's husband, Travis, is staying behind in their home in Davidson to continue his job.

"He's very supportive. He feels the same way I do," Pagan said. "He never thought I would be called back to begin with."

In a telephone interview Sunday night, she said she arrived at Fort Benning after a scary, snowy drive.

Of her children, she said, "So far they're doing OK."



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Really, there is NO-ONE else?
Okay first issue I have is that she is not a single mom. And I know there are single moms in the military that have the grandparents or aunties or even godparents watch their kids while on deployment. It is a bit more paperwork, but it can be done. So there is NO support for this family AT ALL?
Second issue, her husband could not find another way to curb the travel for work? I know several people who can adjust their travel schedules for family issues.
Third issue, Really. This was the best solution?

Drama Queen
Attention Whore

Made a job commitment.
Meet it.

Enough said.

I don't know. I do kind of have sympathy for her. I had a cousin in a similar situation who thought he was done with the Army. He hadn't been 'active' for years, then out of nowhere he got called up to go to Afghanistan and had to leave his pregnant wife at home w/ his 2 other kids. He missed the birth and didn't see his daughter until she was about 6 months old. It was a sucky situation all around.

Maybe this woman and her husband don't have relatives nearby to take care of the kids. Maybe the husband's job relies on travel and he can't simply change his job status while his wife is away. I know I'll probably get criticized for sticking up for her, but I think the whole situation just sucks. She shouldn't even have to go over there in the first place since we (as a country) shouldn't even be there.

Vanessa

vanessa915 Wrote:I don't know. I do kind of have sympathy for her. I had a cousin in a similar situation who thought he was done with the Army. He hadn't been 'active' for years, then out of nowhere he got called up to go to Afghanistan and had to leave his pregnant wife at home w/ his 2 other kids. He missed the birth and didn't see his daughter until she was about 6 months old. It was a sucky situation all around.

Maybe this woman and her husband don't have relatives nearby to take care of the kids. Maybe the husband's job relies on travel and he can't simply change his job status while his wife is away. I know I'll probably get criticized for sticking up for her, but I think the whole situation just sucks. She shouldn't even have to go over there in the first place since we (as a country) shouldn't even be there.

Vanessa

I agree with you. If I'm reading this correctly, she was one of those folks who thought they were done with their commitment to the service. I think that whole thing where they recall people who have completed their service is a terrible idea. I think if you sign up for 4 years and serve your full 4 years, you shouldn't be expected to drop everything and come back once you've returned to your civilian life.

I don't feel sorry for her at all. She knew what she signed up for. I can't for the life of me understand why military people breed so goddamn much when they KNOW that there is always the chance of going to war.

And I agree that, since she's not a single mom, the kids should have just been left with her husband. Why is HIS job so much more important than her fucking commitment to her COUNTRY?

WonderWoman Wrote:

vanessa915 Wrote:I don't know. I do kind of have sympathy for her. I had a cousin in a similar situation who thought he was done with the Army. He hadn't been 'active' for years, then out of nowhere he got called up to go to Afghanistan and had to leave his pregnant wife at home w/ his 2 other kids. He missed the birth and didn't see his daughter until she was about 6 months old. It was a sucky situation all around.

Maybe this woman and her husband don't have relatives nearby to take care of the kids. Maybe the husband's job relies on travel and he can't simply change his job status while his wife is away. I know I'll probably get criticized for sticking up for her, but I think the whole situation just sucks. She shouldn't even have to go over there in the first place since we (as a country) shouldn't even be there.

Vanessa

I agree with you. If I'm reading this correctly, she was one of those folks who thought they were done with their commitment to the service. I think that whole thing where they recall people who have completed their service is a terrible idea. I think if you sign up for 4 years and serve your full 4 years, you shouldn't be expected to drop everything and come back once you've returned to your civilian life.

The article says:

Pagan is among thousands of former service members who have left active duty since the Sept. 11 attacks, only to be recalled to service. They're not in training, they're not getting a Defense Department salary, but as long as they have time left on their original enlistment contracts, they're on "individual ready reserve" status — eligible to be recalled at any time.

If I'm reading correctly, she did NOT complete her service.

I do have sympathy for this woman. First of all it is a bogus war and we should not even be over there in the first place. Second of all, this whole thing of calling people back after they've served their time and gone on with their lives is BS.

That being said, I'm glad I never joined the military. I had recruiters trying to change my mind while in high school, and even then I had the sense to just say no. I have a lot of respect for people who can do the job though.

As a military wife, I can see her situation and I do have sympathy for her. It's unfortunate, but when you sign up, the military owns you, your life and your family don't mean anything.

I don't understand why this couple had children in the first place, especially because there is no back up for the mother, a mother who still has unserved military time by her name. It sounds like she is living like a single parent. What a situation they created for themselves. What if this woman hurt her back or something? Who would take care of her kids? All in all, I hope the military gives her the honorary discharge.

gingerzing Wrote:She says she has no one to take care of son Eric and daughter Elizabeth, so she brought them with her. She has reserved a motel room for a week and doesn't plan to stay in the barracks.

"Them being away from me is not an option," she said.

If she rented a motel room, who's looking after the kids when she leaves the motel room and reports for duty?

"Them being away from me is not an option". Even if she gets deployed to Iraq or Afghanastan? Is she going to take them with her?

Sorry, I'm going to disagree with the naysayers here. When you sign up very little is told to you about that extra 4 years of individual ready reserve. It is not paid reserve, you are not trained, paid or otherwise even sneezed at by Uncle Sam once you are out after your initial 4 year enlistment. BUT - there is that caveat they MAY call you back, but I can guarantee that every recruiter tells folks - 'Oh, it's not likely' but unfortunately they've stretched things so thin or can't meet a recruiting quota so they pull these backdoor drafts - either try and call up IRR people (who have been CIVILIANS since their discharge from active duty - their only requirement is a current address - no fitness, uniforms or anything) or they pull a 'Stop-gap' and say your job is critical so you can't get out - even if your 8 year total commitment is up.

Drama queen? No - she did her 4 years ACTIVE duty, paid her dues, got out and made the mistake of having a current address in their database. Why did she have kids? Because she WAS GETTING ON WITH HER LIFE.

Again - this is not unserved military time - she did her active duty. Until this debacle with two wars spreading forces thin the IRR has NEVER been used like it is now. There was the rare case during gulf war one for special jobs - say like Arabic interpreters, or to backfill jobs stateside. but not to the scale where they were calling back TRUCK DRIVERS for overseas deployment! How hard is it to train up a fresh recruit to drive trucks? Not very hard - this is a bully way of trying to get bodies without having to push recruiting.

I am thinking she should get a hardship discharge - being a SAHM may not seem like much of a choice here to anyone due to being child free but that's what she chose, and was living it out. The IRR is bullshit and they're using it as a chickenshit way of getting people to deploy overseas. If they were calling her up to be part of a stateside training battalion or job, maybe there would be less sympathy for me but as someone who did their time and sees the BS that vets get now I fully sympathize, weather she had kids or not.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Individual_Ready_Reserve

And as a separate note - a coworker friend in another state was a helicopter pilot in GW1, he got out in 1992. He got notice last year that he was being recalled to duty - he has tried to resign his commission a few times over the years and they have refused. They're calling him back to be a CH-47 (Chinook) pilot because that is what his main 'MOS' is, but he last flew OH-58 Kiowa helicopters and is nowhere near current on either. That is desperation folks, he has diabetes but that hasn't stopped them, in his case they're saying he'll fill a training role stateside. This whole war has had way more foul ups than successes, especially when it comes to the treatment of current and veteran personnel.

Completely agreed with Dessi and the others that they are screwing people over. I have heard some of the stuff about hanging on to U.S. military folks well beyond what is reasonable. Telling them that they have effectively served their time and should go back to their civilian lives, yet pulling them back in years later.

I have to say that I have heard many conversations between Canadian and U.S. military folks and the U.S. folks are much worse off. Canadians get really good benefits in comparison, and it may impact your career but a Canadian can refuse a deployment simply by saying that they are not able to go or by having a spouse say that they can't manage to have them gone. That person won't ever become a General, but at least there is that choice and it is given freely. I have heard of some guys who have refused many deployments (5+) without major repercussions, other than no immediate promotions!

Quote:That is desperation folks…

Dessi's totally right. Last year my DH was called up to go to Iraq. He's active duty, so that's not the complaint. The complaint is that they were going to make him basically a commandant at an Iraqi concentration camp/prison. In his whole military career, he never had any training to make him knowledgeable about this kind of job. He's only ever been a pilot, and NOT a fighter pilot at that. He's never had any experience in police work or prisons or in the MP. He flies planes and works in offices and they were going to have him living in a shipping container and making decisions about the daily lives of prisoners who were put in there for defending their own country against invaders. We heard about the place from others, it's horrible and dangerous. I wouldn't be surprised if we learn someday that there had been torture there, too. It was pure luck that he had another assignment in Asia at the same time (a non-violent, non-aggressive, non-war assignment) and at the last second they found someone else who actually WANTED to do the prison job.

And someone else we know of who spent his whole military officer career working in IT, never doing anything but setting up computers and making networks work, he was just about to retire after his 20 odd years. At the last second they told him he couldn't retire, and, no he wasn't going to be promoted, he was going to spend a year in Iraq---as a boots on the ground military policeman. So he's about to leave after putting in his commitment, they tell him he's going to go to Iraq to do something he's never, ever done, and he's not even going to get the benefit of a promotion out of it (which would have meant more money for retirement).

They are desperate for warm bodies, no matter what, to ship off to these two disastrous wars, it sucks.

Thanks for saying (in a much more polite manner) what I was thinking, Dessi.

I am so fucking fed up with the military and its ways. The only thing that kept me safe from IRR when I got out was having been medically retired. But now that I've been cleared from that, I'm waiting to find out my status. God for fucking bid those assholes try to pull me back in. I don't know what I'd do.

Thank you for explaining the IRR for us Dessi, that's what I was trying to talk about in my reply but I don't know enough about it to explain it as clearly as you did. The woman in the article does not deserve scorn, she did nothing wrong, she and her family have been screwed by the military just like so many other families have been.

If I were President, I would abolish the entire current military system and build a new one from scratch, because the one we have is completely fucked up.

Regardless of whether the military is screwing people or not (I have no doubt that they are) and regardless of whether the wars we are in are justified (I think Afghanistan is and Iraq is not), I still don't get why the husband's job is so freaking important that he can't watch the damm kids.

CF Scorpio Wrote:Regardless of whether the military is screwing people or not (I have no doubt that they are) and regardless of whether the wars we are in are justified (I think Afghanistan is and Iraq is not), I still don't get why the husband's job is so freaking important that he can't watch the damm kids.

Military doesn't pay jack shit at the lower levels. I imagine the husband's job IS more important, simply because it pays much better!

PrairieGirl Wrote:

CF Scorpio Wrote:Regardless of whether the military is screwing people or not (I have no doubt that they are) and regardless of whether the wars we are in are justified (I think Afghanistan is and Iraq is not), I still don't get why the husband's job is so freaking important that he can't watch the damm kids.

Military doesn't pay jack shit at the lower levels. I imagine the husband's job IS more important, simply because it pays much better!

I would still like to know more, like what the husband's job is, and whether or not there is vacation or family leave time he could take.

I just get so fed up with the sexism in our society that assumes only women are fit to care for kids, and that dads don't have to assume any responsibility for childcare beyond being a wallet.

I'm going to side with the people saying that she had a duty to serve. It's in the paperwork and yes you should read it over. I agree it sucks, but at the same time she made the commitment.