I read the following article and wondered whether the USA policy holders are not taking things a bit too far. Give baby up for adoption just to go the an illegal war? It’s not as if this family are against the war.
*Los Angeles - United States Marine and new mother, Corporal Jennifer Washington, has decided to ask for a discharge rather than abandon her baby to go fight in Iraq.
Washington, a mechanic engineer whose Marine sergeant husband was deployed to Iraq in January, was faced with a heartbreaking decision this week when she was given deployment orders herself.
“I told them I can’t go and that I have a four-month-old son. They said, ‘No, you’re going anyway.’ Somebody in my command advised me that I can give up my child for adoption. I said ‘Oh no, that’s not going to happen’,” said Washington.
Washington, who has been with the Marines for three years, said she was also the main caregiver for her mother and could not find anyone to care for both her mother and son while she was away.
Officials at Camp Pendleton, near San Diego, where Washington is based, said Washington had applied for a humanitarian discharge.*
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*Originally posted by The Old Man: *
"I told them I can't go and that I have a four-month-old son. They said, 'No, you're going anyway.' Somebody in my command advised me that I can give up my child for adoption. I said 'Oh no, that's not going to happen'," said Washington.
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This case is a bit strange. i hope her application for the humanitarian discharge is granted.
i think this would be an exception; i would doubt this is the norm. They shouldn't even have put her in that position in the first place where she feels she has to make a "choice" between her four-month-old son, and fulfilling her military obligations.
But i don't think this is representative of the norm.
This is shameful, and clearly an act of inhumane desperation by the US military. Are they really that strapped for soldiers that they have to resort to such callous tactics?
i am not certain, i don't see anything wrong with the www.iol.co.za source. After being exposed to so much misinformation in other spheres, i think i would be much more willing to accept the validity of this South African source than, for example, CNN or CBC.