Soldier Mom Refused Deployment to Care for Her Baby

Imagine you are both a young mother of a 10-month- old son and a soldier of the Army. One day, you have to choose whether to leave your beloved son behind and follow the call of duty or stay back with your son and take all the responsibilities. This is a difficult situation to face but in fact, this really happened.

An Army cook and a single mom may face the criminal charges for skipping deployment flight to Afghanistan because no one is available to care for her infant son if she is oversea.

Spc. Alexis Hutchinson, 21, claims she had no choice but to refuse deployment order because the only family she has to take care of her infant son - her mother - was overwhelm by the task caring for three other relatives with health problems.

Her civilian attorney, Rai Sue Sussman, said Monday that one of Hutchinson's superior told her she would deploy anyway and place the child in foster care. But she didn't do so. "For her it was like, "I couldn't abandon my child." Sussman said. "She was really afraid of what would happen, that if she showed up they would send her to Afghanistan anyway and put her son with child protective services."

Hutchinson, from Oakland, who's assigned to the 3^rd Combat Aviation Brigade of the Army's 3^rd Infantry Division and had no previous deployment. She remained confined Monday to the boundaries of Hunter Army Airfield in Savannah, 10 days after military police arrested her for skipping her unit's flight. No charges have been filed, but a spokesman for the Army post said commanders were investigating.

Kevin Larson, a spokesman for Hunter Army Airfield, said he didn't know what Hutchinson was told by her commanders, but he said the Army would not deploy a single parent who had nobody to care for is or her child.

Hutchinson's son, Kamani, was placed into custody overnight with a daycare provider on the Army post after she was arrested and jailed briefly. Hutchinson had a plan to let her mother, Algelique Hughes, to take care of the boy but she was only able to keep the boy for two weeks in October before sending him back to his mother because she has already having to care for her ailing mother and sister, as well as a daughter with special needs. She also runs a daycare center at her home, keeping about 14 children during the day.

The poor mother Hutchinson is in very complicated situation; but according to the latest news, her deployment is halted. We're looking forward to a reasonable solution from the Army so that Hutchinson can be released soon and can come back to her son.