BlogHer - military families - Comments

Interesting. MSM was saying

Nordette — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 22:16:23 -0600

Interesting. MSM was saying he was a goner. Just got back and see the update on CNN.

Thanks, Erin.

Nordette Adams is a BlogHer CE & you can find her other stuff through Her 411.

News conference has authorities saying shooter NOT dead

Erin Kotecki Vest — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:26:41 -0600

He's in custody and in stable condition at a local hospital.

Politics & News Contributing Editor Queen of Spain

Thank you, Liz

Nordette — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:22:01 -0600

I like practical information like this that helps people take action when most of us feel helpless.

Nordette Adams is a BlogHer CE & you can find her other stuff through Her 411.

Blood Donors needed at Ft. Hood area hospitals

Liz Henry — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:12:55 -0600

http://www.sw.org/web/patientsAndVisitors
Urgent Need for Blood Donations

Due to the recent events on Fort Hood, we are in URGENT need of ALL blood types.

Please come to Scott & White Blood Donor Center and donate blood as soon as possible, we are located in Room 115 next the McLane Dining Room in the main hospital. We are open today until at least 7 p.m. and you can contact us at 254-724-4376 if you need any assistance on determining your eligibility to donate.

Scott & White • 2401 S. 31st St. • Temple, TX 76508
• 254-724-2111 • 800-792-3710 • 254-724-3038 (TTY)

-----------------
Liz Henry
Composite: Tech & Poetics
lizzard@bookmaniac.net

I am a military mom. Well

BellaSophiasMommy — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 07:30:05 -0500

I am a military mom. Well not active duty myself but my husband is. I feel for this lady. I don't know the whole story so it makes it hard to form an opinion.

This happens all of the time though. Honestly. Actually, a friend of mine has a neighbor who both the husband and wife are active duty. They have a son. The father recently died on tour and the mother is set to deploy in November. The boy I assume is going to stay with family. Now I don't know if the mother wants to go or not. Or if she has tried to fight the situtation.I think in her case considering the father died in the line of duty that she shouldn't have to deploy.

One problem I have with this mom is that she decided to stay in the reserves up until the time came to deploy. How nice. So she didn't mind drawing the extra pay this entire time to help support the family but when the word deployment came up it was a problem. In my opinion she made a commitment and if it was before she had a family she still made a commitment. I don't know if this was a planned family or not. I think that my hard hearted side would say that her husband needs to respect the fact that his wife made a committment and so does he. He needs to find something in town to make it work.

My soft side and the side I'd probably go with is to let her out of the committment. The family probably needs the fathers income to pay bills and so forth. We all know the military pays crap. But I do think that in return the mother should pay back her salary to the government. 95% of the reserve salary is given to you so that you are ready to deploy. I mean come on you only work 2 days a month. So I think that she should have been penalized in that way to rectify the situtation. Obviously, not in one lump payment but over time. I mean it only seems fair right. The army invested into her financially and with training to have her ready to delpoy if need be. We are in a time of war and it is a given.

I hate sounding like the butthead though. And I do feel bad for this family. I even feel for soilders who regret joining the army.

Any Military moms ...

PunditMom — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 08:34:22 -0600

Any military moms who can weigh in? Do you think the military is flexible in these situations?

I'm with the kids

AmberS — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 23:44:53 -0600

I think that there needs to be flexibility and a case-by-case examination. I am thankfully not in the military, nor have I ever been, but in this situation we would be sunk. My husband works non-traditional hours as a freelancer, and we need that income to pay our mortgage. Our parents still work, and our kids are really small. There would not be any good options if I had to go away for an extended period.

So as a mom with young kids, I say that changing family situations need to be taken into account. It's not exactly fair that someone enlists (probably when much younger and in different circumstances), does their bit and serves their time, but can still be recalled indefinitely and no matter what. Is the US really expecting young men and women to sell their souls to the military?

But what do I know? I'm Canadian. ;)

~ Amber

www.strocel.com

Situation by situation...

nelle2nelle — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 18:46:38 -0600

I suppose.

Yes, hubby has to suck it up, but if he truly travels lots, and if his job is to call upon clientele at distant locales, well, is his employer supposed to suck it up?

As for her employer, no option to quit from that one, unlike in most every other profession.

Going back in time, the US was sympathetic to family situations, at least in terms of siblings and drafting, though I cannot give the parameters of how far that sympathy and willingness to bypass extended.

In this case, I do think someone would have to actually examine his employment and their family situation, and then work with her to arrive at a solution. In this case, kids come first - but hubby's excuse damn well better prove out as legitimate.

llhaesa

My twin brother is full-time

Liz Thompson — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 12:09:58 -0500

My twin brother is full-time Army and his unit was deployed from Ft. Dix, last month. Though, I'm relieved that he's home and training troops for Homeland Security (due to a medical condition) it's hard to see him watch his guys and gals go.

It's really hard for him, being left behind.

We spent 4th of July on base and got the chance to meet more families who deal with very difficult situations, every day. Ready to leave at a moment's notice. Leaving their kids behind. Military families are a tough crowd, but their support of each other is neverending. Thank you for your post, Shannon - I'm passing it along to my brother - and THANK YOU to all of our soldiers and their families.

FYI: I also celebrate "Red, White and Blue Fridays" on my family blog, with an Honor Wall (explaining how it all started with one blog post) and it's where I like to share stories of simple ways in which bloggers can all help show support for our military and their families.

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This Full House

This Full House Reviews

New Jersey Moms Blog

Imperfect Parent

Not Just Husbands

myrnatheminx — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 01:08:07 -0500

My sister just left for the second half of her deployment after two weeks of R&R. I think we need to move beyond thinking about soldiers as men. Upwards of 15 % of our militarry is made up of women who face some of the same struggles men do, but also some very different ones.

Reno and Its Discontents

“Soon Myrna’s brutal social manner had driven my courtiers from the table and we were left alone, all cold coffee and hot words.”

Ignatius J. Reilly A Confederacy of Dunc

Thanks! This is an

eyefulofcanon — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 17:05:30 -0500

Thanks! This is an especially nice collection of links for those of us that aren't living in the U.S. right now, but want to feel like we do. These ladies (and gents) do a fabulous job of reminding me why it is that I am grateful for the time and service of everyone in the military and their families.

-Kirsten

www.eyefulofcanon.com

Rebekah Sanderlin is pee-your-pants funny

Lisa Stone — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 12:12:44 -0500

...and sobering at the same time. You have to read all ten on her list, from Afghanistan as golf game to her sarcasm about voters learning the world map.

When it's not you or your family or your friend in active service -- and I have none of the above right now -- I've found it's too easy for me to forget the daily family reality behind the headlines. Thank you so much for this post, Shannon.

Lisa Stone
BlogHer Co-founder
Surfette

Thanks Shannon!

Lisa Boyd — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 08:47:49 -0500

For giving us a piece of these ladies and linking to their blogs! I wish I could tell all the soldiers "thank you!" I'm especially glad that they are going to share good stories from over there. It'd be nice to hear something good now and then!

It's only part of the story...

Judith in Umbria — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 06:28:54 -0600

I was a military wife left running a military family for many years. We didn't make as much money as similarly educated civilians, but we got decent health care and commissary privileges and a sort of built-in social net wherever we went. I didn't love it, but I did it the best I could. Moving around so much meant I couldn't follow a professional career and besides, at that time working wives were frowned on unless they were childless and at the earliest part of the military career.

Military spending, on the other hand, is very little about decent pay and benefits for military personnel. Military personnel can retire after 20 years with a generous pension and they often can get well-paid jobs in associated industries because they are still young and therefore work on another pension scheme. I don't necessarily recommend that someone stay in the military for those reasons, anything but, but it does ameliorate the lower salaries a bit, I think. If they stay on for 25 or 30 years, the deal gets better yet, and the jobs and seats on boards get better as well.

The real reason to sit up and pay attention to military spending is completely other. http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/01/02/military_spending/inde...
has some information everyone should know. Military spending is doing some shocking, immoral and stupid things around the world and the situation is getting worse. What percentage of those figures do you think represent pay and benefits for those military families? The sum would blow your mind. The reason to stay on top of this massive waste and scandal has nothing to do with paying military and everything to do with saving the US economy from the robber barons that are destroying it.

http://www.judithgreenwood.com/thinkonit/

Puzzled

fnm1gll — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 22:23:19 -0600

I'm often puzzled by the comments of this administrations supporters in the military, like those shown here.

She says that Republicans provide raises to military personnel while Democrats typically don't, although the current raise seems to be coming from a Democrat-led Congress, just as the Republicans were in charge of the budget through much of Clinton's tenure. And since there's been so much reported during the Iraq war about the Bush administration's use of private contractors which are paid so much more than our own military (for often doing the same work), I would think pay would be a sore point with this administration.

Even if it were true that Republicans paid more to the military, I would think that sending soldiers to war unnecessarily would trump salary concerns. And though I dislike making the point, it's not true that soldiers in Iraq are protecting our freedom. You could say they were fighting for Iraqis' freedom perhaps. I don't think our freedom was ever in jeopardy in Iraq -- even if there had been weapons of mass destruction. Even the attack on 9/11 didn't jeopardize our freedom -- it jeopardized our safety and stole many lives. But our freedom can only be jeopardized if our country and it's principles is destroyed. However, many would say that the actions of this administration in violating the Constitution is a greater attack to our freedom than any external threats.

I do think that her point about the difference in the two worlds -- the military and the civilian -- is an excellent point. I can't imagine what it would be like to have a loved one in Iraq. I have a good friend who's son has been in Iraq and she hardly slept the year he was there. I have no doubt that his service took years off her life. It's a big price to pay and it's only being paid by a relatively small segment of our population. Our country is at war in Iraq but many of us are barely touched by this event which is catastrophic to so many lives here and in Iraq as well.