Another aspect of this problem, that I have seen on Misawa Airbase where my husband is a DOD civilian, is that the military now has a huge support staff for all of these family readiness programs.

These make work jobs are consuming a large percentage of their budget which under the sequester, really ought to be going to pay their critical personnel.

Well, there's family readiness and there's family readiness. Some of it has to do with single servicemembers with children, or dual military couples with children, while other parts of it have to do with supporting families (including spouses at home) while the service member is deployed.

By the way, Isab -- isn't Misawa in a beautiful area? When we were there (1995-1998), the AFN radio station ID went, "Misawa Air Base, where the air is clear, the trees are green, and the snow's piled up to your butt!"

The real irony of this is: all women in the military know that if you're deployed, pregnancy is your ticket home. Anytime you get tired of sand fleas and camels, just get pregnant, and bam! cushy desk job stateside.

In our local newspaper this morning there was a story about the battle over the farm bill, which includes the food stamp program. The sidebar story was called "Mother's challenge: Feeding five kids."

Well no shit sherlock. If the bathtub is overflowing, the first thing you should probably do is turn off the water. But people act like you're some kind of nazi if you suggest that the solution is to stop having kids.

In other news, hazardous duty pay is being cut for deployed military. This will chop about $225/month from everybody's paycheck, even if you're an E3 making about $20K a year.

Letting things like this happen is why I laugh in the faces of people with a sticker claiming they "Support Our Troops".

I'm sure the money is needed here to pay a TSA thug to fondle children, and Federal office-sitters won't miss a meal, that's certain.

Boots and babies? Chesty Puller's about to spring from his grave and demand to know where his Marines went!

Geez, Old RPM Daddy, the snow maybe up to your butt, but at least it isn't Minot.

Or Thule.

Or if you don't want to deploy at all, just get pregnant. It's amazing how many pregnancies are reported just before a major naval deployment.

Single parents and couples with children where both are on active duty, have no place in a military organization that is subject to deployment. Since the women are the ones who get pregnant: birth control implants or IUDs should be mandatory.

Nothing against the troops, but the military is (or ought to be) the bloody military. It is not a child-care center, it is not there to give jobs to people who cannot do them, it is not tyere to distribute money to Congressional districts.

In other news, hazardous duty pay is being cut for deployed military.

I was under the impression that DoD was changing the designation of which areas are still hazardous, and which areas are no longer hazardous. Is this wrong?

Now, if they're redefining places that are still hot as non-combat areas, that's wrong. And that maybe exactly what they're doing. One can never tell with this government. Hell, this government can't even tell you.

I was under the impression that DoD was changing the designation of which areas are still hazardous, and which areas are no longer hazardous. Is this wrong?

Well we all know Vietnam was designated a police action which is why no soldier died there, right?

@ old RPM Daddy. Misawa is nice for about five months a year. It is getting too warm and humid now, and the snows will hit in November.

Right now i am at Camp Perry and it has been pretty bloody awful this year. My firing point in under six inches of water and mud.

I will go back to Japan in October.

Well, I can see a case where it's not totally an asinine situation. Maybe Marine is five-weeks pregnant and her plumber husband is hit by a car. BUT... how many of those cases can there really be???

All these women getting preggers on deployment aren't getting that way on their own. Maybe the male servicemembers could unite, and refuse to have sex, and make the women do their tour in full.

I know, so much more fun to blame the women only, but it does take 2.

It takes two to have sex, it only takes one to choose to get pregnant without informing the man

"Maybe the male servicemembers could unite, and refuse to have sex, and make the women do their tour in full."

Yes, because we all know that the only men capable of impregnating a woman are military personnel.

"just get pregnant, and bam! cushy desk job stateside"

Yes, we all want to change the course of our lives and wipe snotty noses and shitty asses for the next 18 years to avoid a tour of duty.

Talk about asinine.

I'm sure there are more than a few cases of this happening, but in a military the size of yours, is it really out of the realm of possibility that perhaps the condom broke?

wtf; I spent many years in the service. Some 18-20 somethings really don't understand long term consequences. Especially in harsh physical conditions, cramped quarters, poor food and water, far from home, and very lonely.

It attacks both sexes, and leads to problems but obviously, the result is shown in females.

Funny thing, though. With 20 years in all male combat units, we never had a pregnancy. Other problems, but pregnancy wasn't one of them.

Related issue:

U.S. military members should be able get a safe and legal abortion on demand in any U.S. military hospital - but they can't.

http://www.aclu.org/blog/womens-rights-reproductive-freedom/march-onward-our-military-women

"With 20 years in all male combat units, we never had a pregnancy. Other problems, but pregnancy wasn't one of them."

Is it possible that this problem was "outsourced" to the women in neighboring villages?

"Especially in harsh physical conditions, cramped quarters, poor food and water, far from home, and very lonely."

If you read the post I refer to, the poster is implying they get pregnant to avoid deployment. There are many other, more practical ways. Like heroin addiction, for example.

"Funny thing, though. With 20 years in all male combat units, we never had a pregnancy. Other problems, but pregnancy wasn't one of them."

This is yet another reason why I don't agree with women in the military. I don't agree with female cops either, but that's a different issue.

(And yes, I am a woman, so all those ready to blast me as a misogynist can jump off a cliff.)

It is ludicrous to me to put a woman in that situation, if for no other reason (and there are plenty) than the physical consequences of enemy capture.

If I were a terrorist, the women would be the first ones I'd capture. If for no other reason than to wake up the fucktards that sent them there in the first place.

"Yes, we all want to change the course of our lives and wipe snotty noses and shitty asses for the next 18 years to avoid a tour of duty. Talk about asinine."

I'm not sure how this was directed, but this has happened, for real, hundreds of times, as evidenced at just one Naval duty station - the Shore Intermediate Maintenance Activity at Mayport, Florida. Whenever a carrier and its 5000+ crew was scheduled to deploy for a cruise, here come pregnant women by the dozen. Paid by the taxpayer to sit and gestate, while some other poor schmo gets yanked out of his shore-duty rotation to go, instead.

Rome thought it wasn't necessary to maintain the core toughness of its military. It was just a symptom of a loss of national identity. That's why they're gone. We're following.

wtf wins the thread by actually giving a solution

This is yet another reason why I don't agree with women in the military.

Honorable mention to Mike43 for the slyly still-PC:

With 20 years in all male combat units, we never had a pregnancy.

With 20 years in all male combat units, we never had a pregnancy.
Posted by: Ben David at July 12, 2013 4:59 AM

Well now, with the transgendered getting "equal rights". You could have a pregnancy in an all male unit.

Isn't progress wonderful.?

My beef with the military is not women in the ranks so much as it is stupid people of both sexes in leadership positions. The army stopped giving IQ tests to officers sometime in the 80's, and the primary qualification to get promoted became your ability to run a six minute mile.

The Air Force kind of finesed this, by requiring either a business or engineering degree in order to get commissioned, but the Army did not.

This gave them a two fur. When it is all about PT and not brains, you can commission a lot more minorities, and black women are usually better athletes than white ones, so win, win.

We had a five foot tall black woman in my unit in Germany who could outrun all but two men in the entire battery.

"Boots and Babies/For Single Active Duty Moms," ... "The sidebar story was called "Mother's challenge: Feeding five kids.""

These almost make it sound like it's somehow NOBLE to plop out a bunch of kids you can't support or care properly for.

Still, we do need to 'think of the children' .. these kids are the ones who suffer the most, so these programs are probably necessary just for the benefit of these poor kids, not the moms who created the problem.

But if a single mom has five kids, she needs to be out of the USMC pronto.

They are not a babysitting service.

Why not just locate the sperm donor and force him to raise the kids? If a single mom has 5 kids and no help, there's a fucking deadbeat asshole out there somewhere that needs to look after his spawn. With him around, there would be no need for daycare.

"Why not just locate the sperm donor and force him to raise the kids? If a single mom has 5 kids and no help, there's a fucking deadbeat asshole out there somewhere that needs to look after his spawn. With him around, there would be no need for daycare. "

Right, because men only exist to be sources of income for women.