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Army Charges Mom for Refusing to Leave Infant
Spc. Alexis Hutchinson was gung-ho in 2007 when she enlisted in the Army straight out of high school in East Oakland. She'd done three years in the ROTC, and this was her ticket to rock-solid stability, she told relatives.
Angelique Hughes, mother of soldier Alexis Hutchinson, plays with her nephew, 8-month-old Charles Wilson, in her home. (Photo: Lance Iversen / The Chronicle)
Now a single mother in uniform, she wants nothing more than to be a
civilian again, her mother says - but she may have to spend a couple of
years in military prison before that can happen.
The 21-year-old Army cook was charged this week with four court-martial counts for refusing to leave her infant son behind to go to Afghanistan in November with her unit.
Hutchinson is posted at the Hunter Army Airfield outside Savannah, Ga., and for now is serving her normal duties, said base spokesman Kevin Larson. No arraignment date has been set.
She was supposed to deploy overseas with her unit, the 3rd Infantry Division, on Nov. 5, but skipped the flight, she contended, because she had nobody to take care of her then-10-month-old son, Kamani.
Child care plans fell through
Hutchinson told her commanding officers she had arranged with her mother, Angelique Hughes, to watch Kamani while she was away for her one-year tour of duty, but when that fell through at the last minute, she could find no alternative.
Larson said her commanders had offered her child care options but that she had refused them.
Hutchinson was arrested Nov. 6. After a brief stay in military day care, Kamani went back to Oakland with Hughes. Hutchinson was released after two days in military jail and had been waiting until this week for officers to decide if she would be cleared, discharged or brought up for court-martial.
Could face 2-year sentence
Her answer came Tuesday, when the Army charged her with being absent without leave, missing a movement, dereliction of duty and insubordinate conduct toward a noncommissioned officer. If convicted, she could spend up to two years behind bars.
"I'm so mad," Hughes said Wednesday. "She'd been in the ROTC since the ninth grade, and even though I told her she should wait until the war is over, she was so eager to join up right after getting out of Fremont High School she did it. Now look at what a mess this is."
Larson said the Army is sympathetic to soldiers' child care concerns, but that when Hutchinson told officers she had nowhere to leave her child, that was not entirely true.
"The command set up alternative child care options for her," he said. "Some organizations came forward, including a well-known veterans group, and offered to take care of the child. Command passed that on to Spc. Hutchinson, and she said no."
Hutchinson's mother and her lawyer vehemently disagree.
"They said, 'You have to get on the plane, and maybe your child will end up in foster care,' " said attorney Rai Sue Sussman of San Francisco. "That wasn't really an option. It's a lot harder to get your child out of foster care when you come back from being away, and that was unacceptable to Alexis."
Hutchinson, who could not reached for comment, has no contact with Kamani's father or his family, Sussman said.
Hughes said she had wanted to take care of Kamani, but shortly before the deployment date, she had to begin helping an ailing sister. She was already caring for an 8-year-old daughter with special needs and a frail mother and running a day care center with 14 children, Hughes said, and the load overwhelmed her.
"I thought the military would understand," she said.
Discharges for child care
According to the Defense Department, single parents are not allowed to enlist for active duty. But the military has 70,500 single parents who had children after finishing basic training. That's about 5 percent of all active-duty personnel.
Legal child care disputes in the Army do have some precedent, as in the case of Lisa Pagan of North Carolina, who resolved a battle with the service last spring over being ordered to report for duty even though she said she had no one to care for her two young children. She received an honorable discharge.
About 3,000 soldiers have been discharged from the Army over the past two years after they couldn't deploy because of child care or pregnancy difficulties, according to the Army Times.
But neither Sussman nor base spokesman Larson said they could recall another court-martial in such a dispute.
"Overall, her command has shown a lack of compassion and failed to properly counsel Alexis," Sussman said. "It's very disappointing that they've chosen to throw the book at her instead of working with her on this."
Comments
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26 Comments so far
Show AllI guess the idea of valuing families got lost somewhere in the Imperium.
This woman is mad over events that are entirely her own doing.
Enlisted in the Army.
Had a baby.
Presumably has been paid by the army for some time which was great until she actually had to serve.
I don't have a lot of sympathy.
Actually, she was serving. She is a cook, and was cooking in the army, and deserved her pay. There are plenty of jobs stateside in the Army for cooks, and she could be assigned to one of them.
For some reason, the Army wants to make an example of her, though more than 3000 other soldiers have been allowed to leave the Army in similar situations. Anyone foolish or desperate enough to join the Army deserves all our sympathy.
You've heard the term "military intelligence".
Now you know how it works.
My, this liberal compassion for a single mother is truly heart-warming. Bottom line, the military told her that she had to deploy and that it was very likely her child would be put into the foster care system. I think that's pretty darn draconian. But of course deploying to kill people is so much more important than raising your child. This very young woman may not have made all the best choices in the world but that is not a real great reason to put her child in foster care and her in prison. (maybe you compassionate folks would have felt differently if her skin weren't brown)
There is no basis for claiming that skin color has anything to do with this case.
You are just making things up.
"Legal child care disputes in the Army do have some precedent, as in the case of Lisa Pagan of North Carolina, who resolved a battle with the service last spring over being ordered to report for duty even though she said she had no one to care for her two young children. She received an honorable discharge."
Bullshit. Lisa Pagan is WHITE. (A picture of her with her family at http://discuss.epluribusmedia.net/taxonomy/term/6514)
No, I'm not. Do some research.
Peggy, the above link proves that this decision was based on factors other than her merely being A.W.O.L. If the white lady walks while this woman both goes to jail and loses her child, there is something more than just "going by the book" at work in this situation. I agree with your premise entirely.
jstevens,
Let me be clearer than other have. If this was an isolated incident, of course it would be silly to say race was a factor. But, from anecdotal evidence that I used to see every day (until I unfortunately moved to an adjoining 100% white borough - which itself is evidence of ongoing racism) to the social scientist's reports every year which document disparate treatment between black and white in employment, schools, healthcare, housing, law enforcement, and sentencing, it is pretty clear that racial discrimination is a fact of life in the USA.
So, assuming race was a factor in this case is a pretty safe assumption.
There are plenty of jobs in the Army for cooks in this country, and the Army could easily assign this girl to one of those jobs, instead of trying to force her to leave her baby in foster care.
But the Army prefers to send this mother to prison for two years, and her baby to foster care, a perfect way to destroy the baby's chances of normal emotional development. What is the point of this?
Where is the Commander in Chief? Didn't he say that we are focusing on the future, not on the past, and that's why he gave all the torturers and murderers a free pass? Why then can't we focus on the future of this mother and child?
"About 3,000 soldiers have been discharged from the Army over the past two years after they couldn't deploy because of child care or pregnancy difficulties, according to the Army Times."
Lisa Pagan of North Carolina, who is mentioned in the story above, received an honorable discharge under similar circumstances, even though she was married and had her husband to leave the kids with. Of course, Lisa Pagan is white.
Poor people making war on poor people, always the way to riches for those that "set the rules".
But she signed up VOLUNTARILY they say and there are rules she must follow, she has made her choice.
Yet the peoples who are ordering to war violate every international treaty signed and violate these same laws everytime they order a drone attack on a village in Pakistan, all by choice.
Slaughter a family of 20 in some village in Pakistan, and you are a hero protecting "Freedom" and "American Values". Refuse to deploy to war so that you can raise your child and it prison .
See the rules and the law even the concept of morality, honor and dignity itself, does not apply to the people GIVING orders. These are just memes. They are "memes" towards the same end. Keeping that PROFIT coming in.
The rulers can not and will not tolerate the slave class refusing their ORDERS.
GW- I've agreed with a lot of your postings, but have to differ on this. We need to maintain a military that obeys legal orders. Irrespective of the political heads that may or may not heed international agreements, that should not, in my opinion, be up to the individual soldier to question. (I DID support the marine several years ago who refused to serve in a UN force not under US leadership however).
Should we be holding our political leaders accountable for violation of treaties? BY ALL MEANS! Should generals at the Pentagon question the rational behind a given order? Again, yes. BUT, once the commander in chief makes the decision, the duty of all below him is to follow the orders. just an opinion.
so, we have another militaristic jingoist-exceptionalist who calls himself a "liberal" here.
So, do you also admire all those Germans in the 1940's who loyally followed the orders of _their_ commander-in-chiefs?
The "following of orders" is the heart of savagery and barbarism. Disobedience is how we will end war for good.
Whoa there sweet-p... try and find once on these boards where I have referred to myself as a "liberal".... can't do it, because I've never claimed to be such. I have said, and I will repeat, we are all more alike than we are different. For ANY one person to be totally "liberal" or totally "conservative" is to be totally without a brain. Certain issues should not even be considered in the lib/con arena, to wit, the protection of the environment. Even if one does not buy into the "global warming" scenario, the fact is, it is not good to pollute the environment and it does everybody good to clean it up.
As to a standing, obedient army.... I personally believe that we need such. Without a standing Army, the USofA would not exist for more than thirty days. I do NOT believe in the INITIATION of violence in the settlement of any dispute, be it personal or global, but just as I have been trained to defend myself, I believe our country needs to be able to do the same. IF you'd read my posting, I said that we need soldiers to follow LEGAL orders, which do not include slaughtering innocent civilians or intentionally targeting civilian sites. Legal orders DO include showing up for deployment. Following orders is how people make a living, be it in the military or in industry. You may keep hold of your utopian world without war, but I will say with all certainty, it will NEVER come to pass short of having every person in a dream cell a-la MATRIX.
In The War of 1812 the United States of America had soldiers who refused to enter Canada because they felt they were not CONSTITUTIONALY obligated to do so. As Citizens they felt their duty extended to defending their homes against invasions and NOT by invading anothers land.
How is your current Military an improvement on that and how does having a Military that puts ORDERS above doing what is the RIGHT thing condusive to forming a Civil and a progressive Society that is respective of Civil Liberties?
The Congress and "The Commander in Chief" are representaives of the people, not of themself and not of an entity called "The Fascist State". Their offices carry with them a RESPONSIBILITY to the people. One of those is not to ask the Citizens of a Country to fight in Illegal wars, to invade other nations or to drop bombs on Villages thousands of miles away on people who are of no threat to the state.
They have a duty and obligation to keep the peace and to resort to war only as a last resort. They failed those obligations when they LIED the country into war. They failed those obligations when they lied about Abu Ghraib. They failed those Obligations when they violated the Geneva Conventions and The UN Charter. They failed those obligations when they deemed the peoples of Pakistan and Somalia and Yemen as threats. They fail those obligations each and everytime they seek out new wars to fight rather then seeking out means to preserving the peace.
They failed them In Vietnam and Panama. They failed them in the Spanish American war, in the invasion of Granada, the bombing of Libya and the supporting of coups in the Honduras, Haiti and Chile.
As such the Citizen has no obligation to OBEY their orders and as such the Soldier of Conscience has every obligation to refuse to participate in those crimes.
It should be up to the individual soldier to decide because those in Government have proven themselves ot be irresponsible LIARS and because those in power are not acting in the best interests of the people of the United States of America. It should be up to the individual soldier because the leadership has failed to act in good faith and good conscience.
The Commander in Chief can give an order that is LEGAL for soldiers of the United States Army to fire upon American Citizens . To suggest that the Military personel must follow those orders is to remove from those personel all responsibility for their own actions and is to turn them into agents of tyranny. Mindless automans that might as well be the "Daleks" with orders to exterminate.
The Citizen Soldier, whether they volunteer or NOT must be loyal to Conscience first, the Constitution second , and the person giving orders LAST.
You do remember the Christmas truce in the First World War?
Soldiers from both sides started a self proclaimed truce in defiance of ORDERS.
I am of the mind that suggests that they all should have put those guns down, embraced and went home in peace ending the war and the needless loss of millions of more lives.
You it seems suggest they should never have disobeyed orders and stoppped the killing. They did the "Right and proper thing" to pick up their weapons and start killing one another again for the next 4 years simply because the ORDERS were given to do so.
I can never agree with your point of view.
Okay, we disagree on this point. I will always believe that there will be a need for a standing army, though I do not agree with ANY 'first strike' scenarios that the government can come up with. Like I said, I have agreed with a lot of your posts and respect your overall positions.
This woman is a soldier, she knew what she was doing when she signed up. To deploy someone in her place is BS. They offered to take care of the child, who is kidding who.
The suggestion that she is being treated this way because she is black is downright laughable.
I can't find too much sympathy for this soldier. Her mother said she had been in ROTC or whatever in high school. I think she knew what AWOL is. Lets use brains here.
Though I agree, she SHOULD HAVE KNOWN what she was signing up for, her situation seemed to have changed. Her mother had signed an agreement to care for the child, but found that she was unable to do so.
There are 'hardship' situations that the military have been addressing for many years. Unless there are unstated events that warrent this action, I see no reason why her deployment could not be 'defered' for two months to allow her to come up with a viable alternative child care strategy. (I was under the impression also that most of the cooking was contracted out to Dick Chaney's alma mater)
I do agree with you, this is not racial, and she should have to fulfill her obligation.
I agree that the military should try to work with her, but ultimately she needs to serve her time.
There is no reason to confuse this case with a moral protest.
If this lady has no repercussions, all anyone would have to do is claim that they have no suitable child care available.
It would be a ticket out of any obligations.
The reason why the grandmother suddenly can't watch the child has not been made clear and is suspicious.
NO SHE WASN'T! while a child can watch something it is beyond all
expectations for them to grasp it on a adult level! there is no
way the rotc or any other government arm should be in our children's
schools or minds! this is a key element in the arguement that we no longer
have any vestige's of a democracy left at all in this backwater we
call the usa!
This girl had been in ROTC since the ninth grade. She was brainwashed as a child. Get the military out of our schools!
I thought the US Military just killed any babies that got in its way?
Amazing! Our Secretary of War is forcing child abandonment at the point of a gun.
Will Michelle (Flotus) watch the baby for the next three years?
We don't need a military that obeys unreasonable or illegal orders, and it's unreasonable to ask a mother to leave her baby in foster care. What is the point of this?
We need a military that is led by people who care about our troops and who abide by international law. We don't have that now, and probably will never have it. I don't see the point in forcing anyone to "honor" their commitment to enlist in the cesspool that is the military. The guys at the top don't honor their promises, but are fast to dump on the kids on the bottom.
Kind of the way that the mortgage and finance companies abandon their commitments, but then tell the people they have victimized with those fraudulent loans that they have a "moral" obligation not to walk away from those loans,
The GI Rights Hotline (877-447-4487) provides accurate and helpful military counseling and information on military discharges, AWOL and UA, and GI Rights. Their help is confidential and free. Every high school student, and everyone who has made the mistake of enlisting, deserves to know about this resource.
The website is: http://girightshotline.org/
the brilliant radio announcer and author (a christmas story)
put it so eloquently."when we are children our brains slowly
metamorphosis from scrambled eggs slowly into brains." and
while This process is ongoing there is nothing you can
do that they will listen to! this was the dynamic at work
here. for those of you who haven't had this happen yet
god bless you. for those who have you are sitting there smiling and saying to yourselves thank god its over! forgot to add the author
in the beginning of this piece he was jean sheppard .