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Short Maternity Leaves, Long Deployments
By Ann Scott Tyson
The Washington Post
Monday 18 February 2008
Schedule sends Army moms back to the field
quickly.
"Little man, I love you! Mommy misses you," Spec. Amy Shaw spoke
softly as she looked into the video camera in her Baghdad barracks, surrounded
by photographs of tiny Connor James, the infant son she left behind in Wisconsin.
"Mommy'll be home soon."
Connor was three months old when Shaw and her husband, Brad, a sergeant with
the military police, began a 15-month deployment to Iraq, their second tour
in the combat zone. Like thousands of other new military mothers, the 22-year-old
Army medic faced a stark choice: Give birth and quickly leave the baby behind,
or lose her job.
Many female soldiers hoping to start families face the prospect of missing
most of their child's first year. The Army grants six weeks of maternity leave
before a new mother must return to her job or training, and four months until
she can be sent to a war zone. The Marine Corps and Navy allow from six months
to a year before a new mother must deploy.
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have placed severe strains on the Army, including
longer deployments in which soldiers serve 15 months in the war zone, followed
by 12 months at home. Under that system, a woman who wishes to have a child
and remain with her unit must conceive soon after returning home so she can
give birth, recover and prepare for her next overseas tour.
Female soldiers interviewed over the past year say the tight schedule cuts
short precious time for mother and infant to bond and breast-feed, forcing women
to choose between their loyalty to their comrades - as well as their careers
- and nurturing their families.
Shaw had spent less than four months with Connor when her medical company shipped
out with the 4th Brigade of the 1st Infantry Division, one of the five brigades
President Bush sent to Iraq last year during a troop buildup. Now an ocean apart
from her firstborn child, she is doing everything she can to remain a presence
in her son's life, hoping that if nothing else he will recognize her voice when
she returns.
"I do phone calls. I do e-mails," she said, sitting on her bed holding
a large photograph of Connor on her lap. "I use Web cam, letters, packages
- things like that - the best I can."
The constraints on reproduction, child-rearing and family are a key factor
leading many female soldiers to quit the Army, and have discouraged many civilian
women from considering enlistment, according to Army officials. Surveys show
that time away from families, because of long, frequent deployments, is the
top reason for soldiers to leave the Army. The willingness of women to serve
in the military has dropped faster than that of men in recent years, from a
high of 10 percent among 16- to 21-year-olds in November 2003 to 4 percent last
July, according to periodic youth surveys on "propensity to serve"
conducted for the Army.
"With the operations tempo that we have right now, it makes it hard to
work in family planning and being able to deploy with your units," said
Army Capt. Stephanie Cediel, who served in Iraq while her son was a toddler
and delayed having a hoped-for second child because of the stress of deployments.
Shaw works 12 hours a day, with half a day off each week, handling everything
from sprained ankles to shrapnel wounds and amputations. "The months just
run together," she said last week in an interview from Baghdad. "Once
you hit that year mark, you are like, 'Last time I deployed I was already at
home. Now I'm still here.'"
Husband Brad sends e-mails to Connor about life in Iraq, which Shaw's mother
reads aloud to the baby. Shaw said she tries to call Connor three or four times
a week, and her mother holds the phone to the boy's ear.
"I tell him how my day's gone," Shaw explains. But, she admits, "it's
pretty much a one-sided conversation."
The challenges are exacerbated today because far more women and couples with
children are serving. Nearly 40 percent of women on active duty have children.
Women make up about 15 percent of today's military, and about half of them
have deployed for the anti-terrorism campaign at least once since 2001, and
more than 25,000 are deployed in that fight now.
The men who serve miss out, too, but they have a chance, with careful timing,
to deploy while their wives are pregnant and return for much of the child's
first year.
Over a chow-hall meal at another Baghdad camp, Sgt. Georgette Oakley, 27, described
how she had to leave behind five children and stepchildren from a blended family.
Oakley said she and her husband, also an Army sergeant, want to have another
baby, but they will not be able to until at least 2009. "Once we both get
back, we'll have one together," she said.
About 10 percent of women in the military become pregnant each year, and an
estimated 75,000 military offspring are younger than 1, according to the Government
Accountability Office. Pregnant soldiers have the option of leaving the service,
although some officers are required to first complete their remaining service
obligation; all are prohibited from deploying until four months after delivery,
unless granted a waiver.
"Without women we would not make our volunteer numbers, so if we destroy
the interest of women to volunteer it puts us in a particularly bad place, because
the nation does not want a draft," said Maj. Gen. Gale Pollock, deputy
Army surgeon general for force management.
"We need to look at the fact that many women want to serve but they also
want to be mothers," Pollock said. "It's a medical issue, it's a mental
health issue. Your ability to bond with your children is ... very important."
Pollock said last summer that she had proposed that the Army double the time
women are exempt from deployment from four to eight months, noting that she
would prefer 12 months. "That addresses the need for breast-feeding that
is important for health, and also allows for optimal bonding time," she
said.
So far, Army policy remains unchanged, spokeswoman Cynthia Vaughan said this
month. Senior Army officials declined requests to explain the reasoning behind
the current policy.
Other services grant longer exemptions, and all have generally shorter deployments:
The Navy exemption is 12 months, and the Marine Corps's is six months, and deployments
average seven months for both. The Air Force has a four-month exemption, but
its deployments average only four to six months.
When Shaw became pregnant and learned that her Army unit would deploy, she
had the option of getting out altogether. But she took pride in her work and
needed the income. "I'd like to be a stay-at-home mom, but financially
it's hard," she said.
So Shaw made what she calls one of the hardest decisions of her life. Six weeks
after delivery, on Oct. 13, 2006, she left Connor with a sitter so she could
return to weapons training. Then, before her son could sit up, crawl or cut
a tooth, Shaw and her husband left for Iraq in early February, leaving Connor
with her parents in Wisconsin.
What is most heart-wrenching, Shaw said, is "not seeing all the firsts
that moms get to see.... I have to see it on video or get it in pictures."
At the same time, "I have a lot more worries because he's thousands of
miles away," she said.
In late October, Shaw and her husband took a two-week leave to Appleton, Wis.,
where Connor's grandmother, Joan Baerenwald, is caring for the baby. Baerenwald
is the one who kisses Connor's scrapes while her husband, Dan, works at the
local paper mill. She is the one Connor calls "Mama."
"I told my daughter, 'Don't be surprised, don't get upset,'" Baerenwald
said in a phone interview, explaining that Connor simply cannot say "Grandma"
yet. "You're not taking away their motherhood," she said, but she
admits that Shaw is "missing out on so much of Connor."
During the visit to Wisconsin, Shaw was relieved to find that Connor did not
cry or fuss when she picked him up, but Baerenwald had to help her with "little
quirks" in eating and sleeping, Shaw said.
The Shaws took Connor alone to visit Brad's parents in Maine, where they "learned
he's a handful," Baerenwald said.
In a drab room back in Baghdad, Shaw is comforted somewhat by the thought that
her son does not know he is without his parents. "I'd rather be here now
than maybe when he's 4 or 5 and he's saying, 'Where's Mom? Where's Dad?'"
she said.
As she packs a box of gifts - a teddy bear, a tiny Operation Iraqi Freedom
hat and a T-shirt that says "My Mom is over there" - Shaw shares
the hope of having another child someday. But of how she would do that, with
an obligation to stay in the Army until 2010 and the prospect of more deployments,
she said simply: "I have no clue."
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