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Commentary: Deployed mom defends choice

By Pfc. Christina Carde
July 3, 2003



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BAGRAM, Afghanistan (Army News Service, July 3, 2003) -- While sitting at my desk writing my daily article for the Freedom Watch, an Army newspaper for soldiers in Afghanistan, my co-worker casually turned to me and suggested that I type my name in the Yahoo search engine to see all of the articles I've written that have been posted on the Internet.

Not thinking anything of it, I typed my name in and began to scroll down headlines of stories I've written since my deployment to Afghanistan. I was not prepared for what I found.

"Agape News Press - The case of Private Christina," read one of the sites on the page. Curious, I clicked on it to see what had been printed about me. I received the shock of a lifetime.

Cort Kirkwood, a journalist and editor of The Daily News Record in Harrisonburg, Va., had read an article about me run by the Department of Defense Web news site, Defend America, titled "A Mom's Mission" and had decided to rip it to shreds. He called me everything from basically an unfit mother for leaving my son to go off to war to a sellout for enlisting in the Army for "30 pieces of silver," a.k.a., the Montgomery G.I. Bill.

As I read the article, I realized this was not only an attack on my 3-year-old son and me, but on all mothers deployed in the service of their country. However, since Mr. Kirkwood believes he is the subject-matter expert on the lives of women in the military he has never met or spoken to, I thought I would take the time to broaden his horizons using a few points he made in his article.

"Patriotism ain't the real reason Pfc. Christina signed up (for the Army). She enlisted for college benefits and to improve her family's lot in life, she enlisted for 30 pieces of silver."

Before I joined the Army, my son and I were living in one of the worst sections in the New York City area, where getting your next drug fix took nothing more than walking across the street or knocking on the neighbor's door. Working up to 60 hours a week was just barely paying the bills, and my 2-year-old son could have walked out the door at any time and been shot during a drive-by.

I suppose I could have taken the alternate route and applied for public assistance, so upstanding citizens like Mr. Kirkwood could pay my bills for me, but I decided to get out of the rut I was in on my own and joined the service. Now my son lives in a neighborhood where you can hear a pin drop and lights are out by 9 p.m.

"Who are the military morons who think this is a good idea (to allow mothers to deploy overseas)?"

When I came to this portion of the article, I could do nothing but sit back and laugh at the irony of his statement. The same "military morons" who give American women a chance to serve their country and provide for their families, are the same who fight and die alongside many of these women in today's combat operations. They are the ones who give journalists like Kirkwood the freedom of press and speech to write tasteless, unprofessional and uneducated "news articles" such as "The Case of Private Christina."

At least these mothers can return home with a sense of pride and accomplishment and be able to tell their children that they had a part in defending their country. What will Mr. Kirkwood be able to say other than he bashed the integrity and courage of these female troops during a time of war?

"Perhaps the would-be MacArthurs see nothing wrong with a mother dumping on her young son," was the final statement that stood out for me in the article.

Like many other deployed parents out here, I haven't seen my son in six months. However, I know my son is in a safe place with everything he needs. He will never be a child who has to wear second-hand clothing or the one stuck at home because I can't afford to send him on a class trip. That is the way things should be, and if I have to deploy in search of every Bin Laden and Hussein on the planet to keep it that way, then so be it.

(Editor's note: Pfc. Christina Carde is a member of the 11th Public Affairs Detachment currently in Afghanistan.)

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The Military vs. Free Speech
by R. Cort Kirkwood



Four months after hammering the military for deploying women and mothers overseas, the e-mail is flooding in, denouncing this columnist for daring to express such an opinion.

As the cosmos goes, the opinion is insignificant. But the answers aren’t.

Two things are troubling about the mail. First, the vile language and hateful insistence that dissent is un-American and must be stopped. Second, men wrote most of it.

Shoot the Writer?

The column, which appeared in February, concerned a new mother who joined the Army after the terrible carnage and destruction on Sept. 11, 2001. A military news service lionized the woman because she enlisted and shipped out for Afghanistan.

But only recently did the military mom see my column. She posted an answer on the web, and ever since, mail from all corners of the empire has poured in.

One writer called me an "ignorant liberal," hilariously enough, while another called me a "communist." A third offered "pond scum" and a forth began, "Dear Idiot."

"Thank your ancestors," wrote another, "for putting their lives on the line to let a dirt-bag like you not flow down the crack of your ...." If you saw the film, "Full Metal Jacket," you know how the line ends.

Began another, "men like you should be shot."

This isn’t just anger. It’s feral hysterics, apropos of the lynch mob. The subtle subtext is this: Shut up or else.

And it is odd, given that many writers claimed they "defend your right to free speech." Maybe, but between the lines, they added, "don’t dare think of exercising it."

American Manhood

More significantly, the most reactionary mail came from active-duty or retired soldiers, particularly men.

They wonder what’s wrong with a mother's leaving a child behind. Feminist brainwashing complete, these men don’t see the difference between a man and a woman, or a mother and a father, or the stark evil of sending a woman into harm’s way. The emasculation is done.

Wrote one fellow, "What difference does it make that a woman goes off to war? How is that any different than a father doing it?" In another column, I suggested that some fathers shouldn’t do it, but the difference is this: a man doesn’t send his wife downstairs to check on a noise in the basement.

Said another, "Us in the military do not distinguish between male and female." This is nonsense, which is why the military "gender norms" training, but you get his point. Here’s another: "‘Mom’ won’t always be home, bare foot, and in the kitchen cooking dinner. Some will be away in far off places fighting so that we can have the right to speak out."

Yet again, from the guy who inquired after my ancestors: "Moms deserve the right to serve the country in any way the nation needs them. No one should be excused from the front lines."

This, friends, is the American man.

To Defend Democracy

The left has always said, correctly, that military indoctrination is inimical to a free society. Well, the past few weeks’ mail shows why, as a friend observed, the framers of our Constitution wisely subordinated the armed forces to civilian rule.

The military ethos imparts many admirable qualities: respect for authority, physical courage, and self-sacrifice. Tolerating dissent, however, is not one of them, and rightly so in the military ambit. Soldiers defend free speech; they do not practice it.

Neither should they threaten it.


June 21, 2003

Syndicated columnist R. Cort Kirkwood [send him mail] is managing editor of the Daily News-Record in Harrisonburg, Va.

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