Photo By Sgt. 1st Class Marcus Quarterman | Cpl. Aron Harrity, of Armed Force Network Afghanistan, interviews Chaplain (Capt.)...... read more read more
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Sgt. 1st Class Sharon McBride
40th Public Affairs Detachment
At 2 a.m., before dawn slides across the sky like a curtain of light, she wakes up and calls for me, "Mommy? Mommy? Oh mommy, where are you?"
As her grandma responds to her cries and not me, she begins to sob more hysterically. Refusing to be comforted and becoming more frustrated and agitated because her mommy hasn't appeared, she slams her tiny head into the wall as though she wants to crack it like an egg.
My mother, her grandmother, tells me on the phone sometimes it's hours before she calms down and goes back to sleep.
Where am I?
Why am I not taking care of my precious two-year-old daughter?
Because I am a Soldier, a single parent, and I have made a commitment to the Army. I am currently deployed far away from my strawberry-blond, blue-eyed baby Lyssa, and despite my longing to be with her, as a Soldier I have given my word that if the call comes for me to do my part in making the world a better place to live, I'll go.
Since May 2006, my active-duty unit, the 40th Public Affairs Detachment, has been assigned to U.S. Army Central in Kuwait. We are working in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. And although I am frustrated and feel guilty at times because my absence is the cause of my baby's distress, I have taken comfort in the fact that I am not alone.
As we march on through another year of OIF, I'm finding a lot of single parents have made the difficult choice to leave their children in the care of others in order to do their part in the War on Terrorism.
Over the years the number of single parents has been steadily on the rise in the Army and by fiscal year 2005, the Defense Manpower Data Center reported that 6 percent of male enlisted Soldiers were single parents and 15 percent of female enlisted Soldiers were single parents.
Of these single parents, many have already completed more than one deployment; many are working on their second or third since OIF officially started in 2003. Astonishingly, they are not only balancing their commitments to their nation, but to their families as well.
"I can't be there but I call home every weekend," said Spc. Jason Kosek, a signal systems specialist, 3/126th Aviation with the Massachusetts National Guard. "And I e-mail my daughter every day."
The single parent of five-year-old Emily, Kosek is finishing the last few months of a yearlong tour.
Looking back, he said, "leaving my daughter and deploying was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do" - harder than being a single parent.
"Up until this point I've been there for everything," he said. "Her first steps, her first tooth - all her firsts. So this has been really hard on both of us."
His daughter just started kindergarten. "This is the first time I've missed something."
As a single parent, he said, he could have chosen not to deploy. It would have been as simple as not putting a 'family care plan' in, he said. But those Soldiers who don't have a "family care plan" are permanently chaptered out of the Army. A consequence he just didn't want to risk.
And although it's been hard, Kosek said he feels he made the right choice.
"Since I've been away from my daughter, I definitely don't take the smaller things for granted," he said. "My daughter always likes to hang on me, you know like an additional appendage. But, over time as a parent you learn to ignore it. I found that I miss that.
"But I feel that we (as Soldiers) have joined the military freely," he said. "It's our choice to serve. I feel [that] every Soldier needs to keep their word. We need to keep our promises.
"I don't think I would be able to look my daughter in the eye and say I bailed on my obligations to the military so I could be with you," he said. "I didn't keep my word. How would she respect me when she's old enough to understand what not keeping your word means?"
Listening to him talking about his daughter makes me miss Lyssa so much I feel like I can't breathe. Will I ever feel her chubby little fingers again as they wind in my hair at the nap of my neck when I am carrying her? It's seems like it's been so long since I've seen her, she doesn't seem quite real. I found there are other single, Soldier parents out there that feel the same.
"Sometimes I can't believe that I had her," said Sgt. Tenisha Hill, a registered mail clerk, with the 721st Postal Unit in Kuwait. Hill is the single parent of two-year old Sanaa Domonique. "I look at pictures of her and it just blows me away. I can't believe she's mine.
"I saw my baby last on July 4, 2006, during mid-tour leave," she said. "Almost a whole year had gone by and it was unbelievable how much she had changed.
"It really bothers me sometimes that I am not able to be there to see her grow up," she said. "Before I know it, she'll be a teenager. My mother said there's still plenty of years left to be with her, but I feel like this is the crucial time."
I feel exactly the same way. And I still have a long way to go before I can see Lyssa. This is my second deployment since 9/11. I didn't have her then, so this time it seems more difficult than the first. I found other single parents who didn't have children during their first and second deployments, but now they do.
"This is my third time being deployed," said Spc. Cherica Taylor, a Soldier with Special Troops Battalion, Third Army in Kuwait. Taylor is a single mom to three-year-old Tabari.
"I tried to show him on a map where I was going to deployed in relationship to where he was going to be staying with his Dad in Georgia, but all he saw was a bunch of water," she said. "He doesn't really understand that there is an entire ocean between us."
When she's talking on the phone sometimes, she explained, he'll ask her to come pick him up.
"He starts crying when I tell him I can't," she said. "I tell him I'm still in Kuwait. It makes me feel bad." But Taylor said she doesn't regret her decision to deploy.
"The separation is hard," she said. "But my job gets him what he needs. He has a good life. I don't really know why I re-enlisted. It sure wasn't the money. I think it was a chance for us to have a better life."
The key to keeping it together as a single deployed parent, she said, is having a good family care plan.
"You have to find people that you can trust," she said. "A family member or friend that will do things for your children just like you would. Without that peace of mind that your kid is in good hands it just won't work."
My family care plan lists my mother as my daughter's caretaker for the duration of my deployment. I am so thankful that my mother is taking care of my child while I am away. Without her help and support I know that I could not do this.
But as the War on Terrorism continues, soon there will be an entire generation of U.S. children who have grown up without one parent, or both, due to frequent, constant deployments.
My first inclination as a mom is the desire to sweep my daughter up in my arms and take her as far away as I possibly can, like to the back woods of Alaska; the one place I can think of where the ugliness of war might never reach her.
That desire deepens as I read the daily newspapers here in Kuwait. The front pages often show the smallest victims of this Global War on Terrorism. They feature photos of small hands, limbs and angelic faces that have been brutally crushed in rubble from the latest suicide bombing; common occurrences in this part of the world. They are the kind of photos that American newspapers would never run. These images always end up as unforgettable stains in my mind; "What if that was Lyssa?"
But since 9/11, there is no guaranteed safe place for our children. That's why I serve. So I just take it one day at a time, knowing that I'm part of something bigger - part of a solution, not part of the problem. And when my daughter is old enough to understand, hopefully she forgives me for all the time I spent away from her during her formative years. She'll be proud because her "momma wears boots."
| Date Taken: | 09.25.2006 |
| Date Posted: | 09.25.2006 09:30 |
| Story ID: | 7806 |
| Location: |
| Web Views: | 170 |
| Downloads: | 31 |
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