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Army Sends Infant to Protective Services, Mom to Afghanistan
Submitted by mgibbs on Fri, 11/13/2009 - 1:26pm.
Army has mom, Alexis Hutchinson, arrested and 11-month old son put into county foster care system. Alexis has now been ordered to deploy to Afghanistan on Sunday, November 15, where she will be court martialed.
Action Alert: Contact Congresswoman Barbara Lee to urge her to "Request that the Army not deploy Alexis Hutchinson to Afghanistan so that she can care for her son." From the 9th District (Oakland-Berkeley, CA) phone: 510-763-0370 (fax: 510-763-6538). Nationwide: 202- 225-2661 (fax: 202-225-9817).
Donate to Alexis' legal and family support fund (couragetoresist.org/alexis)
Alexis' attorney now available for media interviews.
By friends of Alexis and Courage to Resist. November 12, 2009
Specialist Alexis Hutchinson of Oakland, CA is the single mother of an 11-month old boy, Kamani. Currently she is confined to Hunter Army Airfield near Savannah, Georgia, where she has been posted since February 2008, and threatened with a court martial if she does not agree to be deployed to Afghanistan, even though she has not found anyone to take care of her child while she is away.
In anticipation of going overseas Specialist Hutchinson flew to California and left her son with her mother Angelique Hughes of Oakland, as per her Army family care plan. However, after a week of caring for the child Specialist Hutchinson’s mother realized that she was unable to take care of Kamani on top of her other duties to her special-needs daughter, her ailing mother, and her ailing sister. In late October Angelique Hughes informed Hutchinson and her commander, Captain Gassant, that she was not able to care for her daughter's baby after all. The Army gave Specialist Hutchinson an extension of time to find someone else to care for her son, and in the meantime her mother brought Kamani back to Georgia. However just a few days before Specialist Hutchinson was scheduled to deploy she was told that she would not get the extended time after all and would have to deploy, even though there was no one to care for her child.
Faced with that choice Specialist Hutchinson did not show up for her plane. The military had her arrested and they put her child in the county foster care system. Currently, Specialist Hutchinson is scheduled to fly to Afghanistan for a special court martial on Sunday and is facing up to one year in jail. Her mother flew to Georgia and retrieved the baby but is overwhelmed, and does not feel able to provide long-term care for Kamani.
Specialist Hutchinson would like to have more time to find someone to care for her infant. However, she does not have a lot of family or friends who could do so. She says: “It is outrageous that they would deploy a single mother without a complete and current family care plan. I would like to find someone I trust who can take care of my son, but I cannot force my family to do this. They are dealing with their own health issues.”
Also in the news:
Army Sends Infant to Protective Services, Mom to Afghanistan
by Dahr Jamail, Inter Press Service. November 13, 2009
Online version with possible updates
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What makes this story SO
What makes this story SO despicable, is that the ARMY knew of the situation, regarding the lack of any care for her 11 month old son. And yet, they still pushed for the seperation of mother and child. A bond that should never be broken (extenuating circumstances aside-which this was NOT)! The US ARMY should be ashamed for sending Alexis Hutchinson to Afghanistan for the sole purpose of a court-martial. They are clearly making an example of her, and an even stronger one by separating infant from parent. She did not wait until last minute, and find herself unable to make arrangements. The ones she had made fell through. Foster Care?! The military that I honorably served is now a disgrace to be, and an unending source of embarrassment. I seek out ways to avoid being associated with it in any way. I am not proud of what I was forced to do, or the conditions I was forced to do it in. And now this. Where does it stop?
My young sister is on dialysis, with both kidneys removed, after a transplant went bad. 4x a week. She married a soldier who is in the 5th Stryker Brigade. He has been seriously injured multiple times, but the ARMY sends him back out anyhow. If something happened to him, I'm not sure that my sister would be able to mentally take it, which would cause a dramatic drop in her health condition. THE ARMY IS BREAKING UP FAMILIES ON PURPOSE! For the sole purpose of what? We all speculate, but when it hits home (IE. Destroying families DIRECTLY)-It's easy to see through the sandstorms and the IED's. It's about their power over us. Their ability to say, "Screw your family-the military is your real family...just read the fine print.
Encourage dissent, war resistors, and the people who live in this country to stop allowing family values to be a distant second to a quagmire that only involves a failed plan for a pipeline.