Single mothers in the military service the silent battle for their children

Single mothers in the military service the silent battle for their children

How do you think a soldier feels that has served his or her nation for many years and suddenly loses custody of the child while she is on another continent?  The number of suicides in the military has more than doubled since 9/11.  Defense Secretary Leon Panetta associated this with the fact that the Sevicemembers now have to be deployed multiple times continuously to meet the Military’s mission. Once the war in Iraq began and the soldiers started being deployed, the legal cases in the courts related to child custody began to flourish.  The war in Iraq was one of the wars that required some Servicemembers to be deployed for long periods of 12 to 15 months.  This took most by surprise and there were many Servicemembers who did not have an organized plan for their family members.  The Department of Defense makes it mandatory that every Servicemember had to prepare a “Family Care Plan” (this was a breakdown of who will take care of the children while the Servicemember is deployed and how they take care of the children, which began in 1992).  In the same year the Department of Defense stopped the recruitment of single parents in the military.  If a Servicemember becomes a single parent while in military service, she can continue serving.