Soldier mom refuses deployment to care for baby

This undated self-portrait provided by Army Spc. Alexis Hutchinson shows Spc. Hutchinson and her son, Kamani. Hutchinson is an Army cook and single mother based at Hunter Army Airfield in Savannah, Ga. who could face criminal charges after she refused to deploy to Afghanistan, saying she had no family able to care for her child.

 this mother's story

Sadly, this is not a unique story.  The dark side of human conquest discards mother.  Mothers demand. Their voice, and their presence act out against the very structure of war, and draws out, against stark logic, the contradictions of killing, and taking, which is the core paradigm of the war in Iraq. In the Washington DC area, where I live, I have heard a few stories of families torn asunder by deployment. The children suffer horribly, and the soldiers that come home realizing there is no support for them are devastated.  Many come to unemployment, the humilation of losing their practices, businesses, and some like the DC sniper, their minds.

Soldiers are cannon fodder pure and simple.  Simple is the operative word.  The younger the soldier the easier to recurit with their general lack of education, historical perspective, and huge expansive energies, and eagerness to please, serve, and impress.  Older soldiers reared on the rightness of American might are easily swayed away from the analytical approach of more liberal thinkers into believing in any war campaign that stands shoulder to shoulder to the myths of cinema, and religious rhetoric of the Jerry Falwells, and Jim Bakers of the Christian persuasion.  But no matter how a soldier comes to serve in the American services soldiers are never honored in the deep sense of the word.    The ancient purification ceremonies of many cultures, including Europe's, are discarded being to close to what is ridiculed and shunted to the side with the Mother's cry, and demanding voice for what is right, what is true, what is fair.

- Gregory E. Woods (Dawn Wolf) Keeper of Stories

2009

Alexis Hutchinson's plea

There is never a good reaction when ordered to leave your family to fight a war thousands of miles from home.

Dawn Wolf, Keeper of Stories