Army Mom Reports For Duty With Kids In Tow

Former Service Member Recalled To Reserve Duty, But Says She Can't Leave Children

(AP)  A North Carolina mother who reported for Army duty with her two young children in tow is waiting to see what happens next.

Lisa Pagan, who was recalled to the Army four years after being honorably discharged, drove nearly 400 miles and braved a Southeastern winter storm to report for duty Sunday at Fort Benning, Ga.

She says she has no one to take care of son Eric and daughter Elizabeth, so she brought them with her. She has reserved a motel room for a week and doesn't plan to stay in the barracks.

"Them being away from me is not an option," she said.

Pagan is among thousands of former service members who have left active duty since the Sept. 11 attacks, only to be recalled to service. They're not in training, they're not getting a Defense Department salary, but as long as they have time left on their original enlistment contracts, they're on "individual ready reserve" status - eligible to be recalled at any time.

Pagan filed several appeals, arguing that because her husband travels for business, no one else can take care of her kids. All were rejected, leaving Pagan to choose between deploying to Iraq and abandoning her family, or refusing her orders and potentially facing charges.

Pagan, whose job was truck driving during her first military stint, said it would likely be Monday morning before she knows what happens next.

"I think our ultimate goal is to be honorably discharged," she said.

Master Sgt. Keith O'Donnell, an Army spokesman in St. Louis, said earlier that the commander at Fort Benning will decide how to handle the situation.

"The Army tries to look at the whole picture and they definitely don't want to do anything that jeopardizes the family or jeopardizes the children," O'Donnell said. "At the same time, these are individuals who made obligations and commitments to the country."

Of the 25,000 individual ready reserve troops recalled since September 2001, more than 7,500 have been granted deferments or exemptions, O'Donnell said. About 1,000 have failed to report. O'Donnell most of those cases are still under investigation, while 360 soldiers have been separated from the Army either through "other than honorable" discharges or general discharges.

O'Donnell said Pagan isn't likely to face charges, since none of the individual ready reserve soldiers who have failed to report faced a court-martial.

Pagan's husband, Travis, is staying behind in their home in Davidson to continue his job.

"He's very supportive. He feels the same way I do," Pagan said. "He never thought I would be called back to begin with."

In a telephone interview Sunday night, she said she arrived at Fort Benning after a scary, snowy drive.

Of her children, she said, "So far they're doing OK."

[AOCGUY]

gunnerv1 - Actually for retirees it is 30 years active/inactive. As much as I miss being in uniform I am glad (and so should the American people) that I am well passed the 30 year or 55 point.

Although I didn't see it reported on CBS, the Army several days ago ruled in her favor and released her. A good move on their part.

I go back to my original point: If the U.S. decides that it is in its best interest to continue military operations at the current level then we must increase the size of the force. This will require the President going to Congress and requesting an increase in authorized force levels (and funding), which given the current political climate and leadership is unlikely. Forcing those who have already served (regardless of the fine print) to serve again is just not right. I would much rather see a return the compulsory national service (DRAFT).

[gunnerv1]

AOCGUY You do realize that unless you are not fit for duty (Via Disability) you are subject to recall back to Active duty until you are 55. Like I said "Read The Fine Print" before you sign on the dotted line. She will have to subject her case to a Discharge (Hardship) Board for her branch of Service. I don't think that she'll get it due to being married. His being on the road all the time is not going to fly with the board.

[harbinger19]

There is no excuse for this veteran to be treated this way four years after being honorably discharged. This veteran has met her obligation to the country. Again the only reason you call up an honorably discharged veteran on inactive individual reserve status to active duty is because of an extreme national emergency requiring national mobilization. Iraq never was nor ever will be a national emergency. It is a planned and routine military occupation that is part of the regular budget process. Anyone who served on active duty knows that the call up of this women is an outrageous abuse caused by an ill conceived Iraq policy under the previous Administration of George Bush. What the government is doing is under the circumstances of non-emergency conditions is an unethical betrayal of an honorably discharged veterans who have served their country and met their obligations while their country fails to serve them. This is the real truth like it or not.
Posted by claydowner at 11:09 AM : Mar 2, 2009


Right--we got ya--BUT, if the contract does not stipulate when the military can enact it--then she is subject to the letter of the contract--if it obligates her for 8 years--then whether she or you think it is fair or not is immaterial--if people do not want to obey the potential rules, they should understand the ramifications of a contract--esp with the military--it is subject to interpretation and unfortunately for service personnel--individuals are not the ones who decide when or how or under what circumstances they can be called up. If it is not spelled out--she should have to serve.

[harbinger19]

When my second husband was dying and I had 3 kids to support and was on the road for business as the sole bread winner for my family--I had to hire a housekeeper to watch my kids and my husband. Not easy--but you do what you have to do. She will be paid for returning to Iraq--with part of the money--looks like she better find a nanny.

[harbinger19]

His job requires a great deal of travel and they (apparently) have no one to care for the children in *his* absence. Since he is (currently) the sole means of support, the family contends he cannot give up his job.
Certainly the Army has no authority to require that he do so; it will be interesting to see how the competing interests are handled.
Posted by Charlieot2 at 10:28 AM : Mar 2, 2009


Perhaps the military should start a foster care program and those with no other means should be made to put their kids into the program and their wages can either be augmented by a stipend to care for their kids or it can be taken out of their pay--you can't run the military based on the antics or situations in civilian lives--there would be no discipline, if people were allowed to just "come up with a good enough reason to not do their duty" The military cannot afford to be politically correct.

[harbinger19]

There is no excuse for ABUSING HONORABLY DISCHARGED VETERANS like this. Iraq is a planned occupation not a national emergency. Let us face our problems and fix them but the solution of harassing honorably discharged veterans years later is a failure of our system to plan by the civilian leadership for a sustainable military policy in Iraq and Afghanistan with the manpower it has on active duty. As a combat veteran the way this veteran and her family are being treated by the system is an OUTRAGEOUS ABUSE. Get on this one Katie Couric this policy is wrong and it needs to be stopped by the sunshine of the free press.
Posted by claydowner at 10:11 AM : Mar 2, 2009


Thank you for explaining this. I rescind my position of being against this woman. I thought she had not fulfilled her original 4 years--instead it appears her inactive years are being exploited. That said--since when has the military been subject to or listened to public opinion. I come from a military family with almost all siblings having served and my dad being a career military man--you can't get more conservative than the military--and in a bad economy, and with AFghanistan looming--- they are not likely to be worried about PR.

[harbinger19]

Forget about being coldhearted, just be informed. Read the article again. She was Honorably discharged 4 years ago. Her children are 3 and 4.
Posted by irishwench-2009 at 9:55 AM : Mar 2, 2009


Discharge means she was allowed to leave active duty--but it does not mean she can ignore any time left on her contract--if she did not serve--she still owes. As former military--you know that if you contract for 4 years--you OWE 4 years and you are not given breaks or points for any situations you may have created in your off time. They OWN four years of her life--and at any time, if she did not serve all 4 years-even if she served 3 years and 360 days--they can recall her azz at any time and make her serve the last 5 days.

It is in the contract--honor it or stay out of the military. WE can't have forces in or out on a whim--I'm surprised you are defending her.

[harbinger19]

I understand your sentiment, but your facts are wrong...
Ms. Pagan left the military 4 years ago (with the birth of her first child). She did choose to leave and is now being recalled after an extended period of time.
From the article.."Lisa Pagan, who was recalled to the Army four years after being honorably discharged..."
Posted by Charlieot2 at 9:49 AM : Mar 2, 2009


Evidently, this young lady left the military with time still left on her enlistment contract. (meaning she had perhaps, 4 years to serve and maybe left due to pregnancy or for some other reason with maybe 2 years, 6 months of actual duty) or something like that. Part of her discharge would be acknowledgment that she did not actually serve the full 4 years of her contract and the remaining part could be held and she could be recalled at any time and forced to serve.

The military has always been like this--people who join do not realize (esp this new generation) that once you join--they OWN your azz for the duration and even if they let you go home early...you can be recalled and forced to serve--even if it is 10 years later. Fact is, she contracted for 4 years and if she did not serve all 4 years in active duty--she owes the time left. If women want to be excused for having kids or some other reason--they need to never join. It is not just a job--once you sign up for the military--it is an obligation--to desert or fail that obligation could net a person jail or even death under the right circumstances.

If people cannot understand that the military is not a quid pro quo organization nor a nouveau employment opportunity, they need to stay as far away from service as possible. When people have the ability to determine if you live or die--then deciding you no longer want to honor the contract (as if continued service is a choice) is childish and a reflection of how demented and irresponsible today's generation of children are.

[harbinger19]

Give the kids to a relative or put them in foster care--when faced with those options, this woman and her husband will obviously come up with a solution or lose the kids. She has to fulfill the contract and there can't be 'outs" due to kids--if that happens..then like illegals dropping anchor babies, people will make sure they have babies if they don't want to be recalled to duty.

[AOCGUY]

gunnerv1 - 28 years active, 2 tours in the desert 1 in latin america doing counter-narcotics. Spent the last 9 as a DoD contractor trainiing the boys and girls in uniform.

Now, fine print not withstanding, she still served her time and short of a national emergency (which OIF/OEF is not) it is more appropriate to either increase the size of the force or reduce the committment. One is the collective decision of the Congress and the President (money=troops), the other the President's decision alone.

[gunnerv1]

AOCGUY- Actually, I'm retired from the service (21 years, 3 months and 21 days). Three tours of Viet-Nam and Combat Disabled. And you?

[AOCGUY]

Hey gunnerv1, would that be the same kind of fine print that lets the bank call in your mortgage or your car loan and if you don't have the cash you're homeless and walking? Just because it's legal doesn't make it right.

BTW how much time do you have in the war? Based on your patriotic ferver I assume you must be writing from Iraq or Afganistan.

[gunnerv1]

As with any contract, READ THE FINE PRINT!

[gunnerv1]

Irishwench-2009; Uh, that would be The DimocRats very own William Clintoon! as Draft Dodger #1 and "I loath the Military" but he sure used them whenever he felt like it.

[AOCGUY]

Harper - You might want to cut back on the drugs yourself. This article was about a soldier who served her nation, was honorably discharged, and has now started a family. She is being recalled because our current military committments exceed the forces we current have allowed for by law. Appropriate solution is to either reduce committments or increase the force. I think the Army made the right call by releasing her based upon her circumstances. BTW I'm a 28 year combat vet who continues to serve as a contract military trainer.

"For all you Democrats, the majority of which are draft dodging coke snorting morons, you will be so sorry you ever elected this guy. Wait and see.
Posted by harper2008-2009 at 8:40 PM : Mar 2, 2009 ............................ "

[claydowner]

The inactive individual reserve was only designed for a WW III emergency scenario or a huge regional war like North Korea invading South Korea. I am talking about a huge regional war where a million men plus have to be mobilized very quickly for a long major conventional war. The individual inactive reserve was set up as a Cold War measure to provide a way to mobilize quickly so we could support NATO in case of a conventional invasion by the old Warsaw Pact nations. This was the intent and purpose of the law for putting veterans on the individual inactive reserve was to have a reserve of trained manpower to be called up in time of dire national emergency only.

We need to understand that if we want to have volunteers serving on active duty that the vast majority do not make the military a career. The sanctity of the contract process has to be observed because if you do not it will have a bad effect on recruiting. The only reason the Army is not short of quality recruits is that we are in a bad recession. Otherwise the number of recruits with waivers increases greatly because of criminal records, low test scores, or soldiers without a high school diploma will have to be taken in to keep the ranks filled. The truth is the military needs young men and women who have to have the same intelligence and personal qualities that a college is looking for. High tech equipment can not be run and maintained by illiterates or criminals. Most people who sign up do so because their families can not afford to send them to college or volunteers have huge college educational debts to pay off. There is very little interest in making America a new colonial power in the Middle East. Most of the folks that I met on active duty over 20 years had strong economic reasons to join the military. The GI Bill is a huge draw for getting intelligent high quality young people to join up. The ability to USE THE GI BILL is just as important as having it. Tens of thousands of our younger veterans have been pulled out of college by these inactive reserve call ups. My question has never been answered: Where is the emergency to justify calling up these inactive reserve veterans six or seven years on in these so called wars? Iraq is a planned military occupation so no emergency there. Afghanistan saw the Taliban routed and al Quaida terrorists were pushed out or disrupted making another 9-11 doubtful. Granted there maybe huge security problems in Iraq and Afghanistan yet those problems are mostly the responsibility of the local people in those countries. Are we going to stay in every country forever until everything is perfect? The Bush Administration's failure to plan properly for the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan has disrupted the very promise that brings people to sign up mainly so that they can get an education.

If we keep thinking that it is fine and normal to keep asking veterans who have already done more than 95% of their peers for the country to sacrifice yet again it had better be for only the most urgent of reasons. Seven years on Iraq and Afghanistan are not emergencies they are routine occupations. We have to understand that we only have 500K soldiers on active duty. The Army was set up to fight quick conventional wars with tanks, helicopters and mechanized infantry forces supported by lots of precision air power. The units were never designed to fight counterinsurgency wars like we are fighting in both Iraq and Afghanistan. These problems underscore the gross hypocrisy of the Bush Administration with neither Bush or Cheney having any time served in an infantry platoon in a combat zone.

If we keep this up the only people we will have to serve on active duty could be parolees and drug dealers because anyone else with any other possibilities in life are going to shun the military. We do not need anymore Task Force Smiths but this is exactly what will happen some day if you keep calling up your inactive reserve people for routine military deployments. High tech equipment is expensive high tech junk without highly educated and high quality people to run and maintain it. The people that say veterans like Lisa Pagan should "suck it up" need to think real hard about what will happen when one of our military units gets defeated on the battlefield because the only recruits we could get were illiterates or parolees just released from state prison to fight our wars for us. That is what you are saying when you say "suck it up" you are saying yes to Task Force Smith happening again. We never seem to learn that an army is only as good as the quality of its human capital. Education will win 21st century wars or more importantly prevent them by having a high quality army that no one wants to fight. This insurance policy is being shattered by inactive reserves being called up for routine deployments. This policy is unsustainable in the long run.

[kateway428]

I don't think a lot of people realize what a difficult situation it is to be in. My husband got out of the military in May, and we are fully aware that for the next several years he will be in inactive reserves and can be called back to duty at any time, all it takes is a letter with a report date. We understand that commitment as I'm sure the lady in this article did, but that shouldn't mean that people in such a situation should have to put their life on hold and just sit and wait to get called back up. She chose to start a family and her husband is in a job that he probably wasn't able to do while she was in the military since it requires travel. My husband's friends are slowly getting called back, some of them only months after starting a whole new career or starting a family and a couple others who had been out for over 3 years. One friend had just started up graduate school at Harvard when he got called up. The military did not grant his request to at least be able to finish out the semester, and would not even reimburse him for the tuition he would not get back since he was already halfway through a semester. While I respect a signed contract with the government, I still think they could do a better job of making it easier for people when they do get called back. Sometimes they're only given a month or less notice, which really isn't a lot of time when it involves having to quit a job or school, making arrangements for the care of your children, moving to wherever it is that they assign you, and basically preparing to live and work in a combat zone for up to 15 months. People don't really know how much preparation it takes to deploy unless they've been in that situation.

[gunnerv1]

Don't sign up if you can't do the time, what most service members don't realize is that they are subject to recall until the age of 55 unless they have a medical problem. Been there, saw that, it wasn't fun. Retired with 21 years from the USN

[claydowner]

I am guessing that most of the writers on this post never served on active duty like I did for 20 years. Many people who have posted here do not understand what they are writing about especially writers who say "she must report etc." You are all totally clueless if you think she must "suck it up etc." There is no excuse for the Army to call up honorably discharged veterans FOUR YEARS AFTER BEING DISCHARGED unless you have an unprecedented national emergency like Pearl Harbor. Iraq is a planned occupation not a national emergency. The Bush Administration abused the individual inactive reserve clause because they were too incompetent to come up with a policy that could be sustainable under the manpower limits of the active force. This is why active duty units have done three or four tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. Guard and Reserve units have done two tours as well. The real point to this whole thing is that our national military strategy was never meant to occupy two countries simultaneously with only 500,000 active duty soldiers. President Bush and Donald Rumsfeld were both incompetent and did not listen to General Shinsecki when he said it would take several hundred thousand soldiers to occupy Iraq.

There is no excuse for this veteran to be treated this way four years after being honorably discharged. This veteran has met her obligation to the country. Again the only reason you call up an honorably discharged veteran on inactive individual reserve status to active duty is because of an extreme national emergency requiring national mobilization. Iraq never was nor ever will be a national emergency. It is a planned and routine military occupation that is part of the regular budget process. Anyone who served on active duty knows that the call up of this women is an outrageous abuse caused by an ill conceived Iraq policy under the previous Administration of George Bush. What the government is doing is under the circumstances of non-emergency conditions is an unethical betrayal of an honorably discharged veterans who have served their country and met their obligations while their country fails to serve them. This is the real truth like it or not.

[mdalerwill]

Posted by irishwench-2009 at 9:59 AM : Mar 2, 2009

Just ignore mrs_concrete. HE sounds suspiciously like our resident troll mrs_bun aka mrs_zambesi aka mrs_garibald aka mrs_premise aka lady_organs.