In California, the cousins took to one another like the Iraqis and the Kuwaitis; there were frequent brawls. “We reached a breaking point,” says Wax. “My sister wanted her babies back, and I just couldn’t handle their emotions.” Moore never made it to the gulf. She applied for a discharge and is on leave until this week when she is scheduled to appeal the general discharge the Army offered. She wants an honorable discharge instead.
Other military families may soon face the same dilemma. According to the Department of Defense, 65,000 soldiers–mostly men–are single parents. There are no figures on how many thousands of children live in two-soldier families. If parents are assigned to units that may be deployed, they are required to have alternate-care plans for their children in case of their absence or death. But because there haven’t been any recent long-term deployments, most plans were not so severely tested until now. The armed forces have complex rules to deal with soldiers who leave the military for personal reasons and officials say those rules apply to parents juggling work and family.
Although no one knows exactly how many parents have felt compelled to leave the military, some families are clearly in desperate situations. This week, a Tennessee grand jury will decide whether to charge Staff Sgt. Faagalo Savaiki, 42, a divorced single parent, with three counts of child abuse. In late August, according to authorities, his children–13, 12 and 10–were found alone in their home. Savaiki had been sent from nearby Fort Campbell; his children are in foster care. Savaiki claims he had made arrangements for the children’s care.
Painful choice: Military officials try to help guardians of soldiers’ children. Almost every base has a family service center that offers financial and emotional counseling. That help may not be enough, says Frederic Medway, a University of South Carolina psychologist who has studied military families. Children whose parents have gone to war “are going to have problems,” he says. “Obviously, loneliness is the primary reaction. After that may come anxiety expressing itself in nervousness and irritability. Sometimes there maybe stress-related disorders . . . The person who takes on that responsibility [for these children] has to be better than the average parent.”
War forces soldiers who are parents to make excruciating decisions. Army Sgt. Terrie Cortez expected to turn her 4-month-old daughter, Courtney, over to her parents when she was ordered to the Mideast in August. But both developed heart ailments. Cortez received a general discharge, which she, like Moore, is fighting. Even if her parents had been healthy, the separation from her baby would have been difficult. “It would have broken my heart if I were to come back and my daughter didn’t recognize me,” she says. No matter what happens in the Persian Gulf, it is likely that more parents will face the painful choice between love of their country–and their children.
