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Oakland Mother being tried for refusing to leave son and go to Afghanistan

by Courage to Resist
Alexis Hutchinson, a single mother from Oakland, CA. is facing up to a year in military prison for refusing to leave her son in Georgia Foster care, while being deployed to Afghanistan.
alexis-kamani250.jpg
In a shocking disappointment, Fort Stewart, GA Army officials announced four separate court martial charges against Specialist Alexis Hutchinson, the single mother of a one-year son who missed deployment in early November 2009 when her childcare plan fell through.

Despite assurances by military public affairs officers that the Army would work with Spc Hutchinson and her attorneys to resolve the matter administratively, rather than through the criminal process, charges of missing movement, AWOL, dereliction of duty, and insubordinate conduct were filed today. Spc Hutchinson is a 21-year-old native of Oakland, CA, now facing over three years in prison, a dishonorable discharge, and the loss of custody of her infant. She has been assigned to Hunter Army Airfield near Savannah, GA, since February 2008.

“I am disappointed in Major Daniel Gallagher’s decision to go ahead with filing charges, which shows a lack of compassion for this young mother and her infant son, and a lack of discretion to deal with the situation fairly. The situation tends to show that the Army is not able to effectively and humanely counsel Army families in this situation,” states Spc Hutchinson’s civilian attorney Rai Sue Sussman of San Francisco, CA. “An infant and his mother were forcibly separated, when other options were available to the commander.”

“We hoped that the public outcry over this injustice would have moved the Army to find a fair and compassionate resolution to a difficult situation,” notes Jeff Paterson, Project Director of Courage to Resist. “Instead, supporters of Alexis and Kamani nationwide will now lobby members of the Congressional Government Oversight and Reform Committee to investigate. What is happening here should not be allowed to happen to any single parent.”

Background

On November 6, 2009, Army Specialist Alexis Hutchinson was arrested and confined when she missed her plane to Afghanistan because she was taking care of her infant son. When she reported the following day, the Army removed her son from her and arrested her. She was granted leave to go home for the holidays in December, and returned to Georgia with baby Kamani last week.

In anticipation of going overseas, in early October 2009 Spc Hutchinson flew to California and left her son with her mother Angelique Hughes of Oakland, CA, as per her Army family care plan. However, after a week of caring for 11-month-old Kamani, Ms. Hughes realized that she was unable to take care for the infant in addition to her other duties to a special-needs daughter, an ailing mother, and an ailing sister. Ms. Hughes immediately contacted her daughter and the military chain of command that she was not able to care for Kamani as planned.

The Army initially gave Spc Hutchinson an extension of time to find someone else to care for her son, and in the meantime her mother brought Kamani back to Georgia. A few days before Spc Hutchinson was scheduled to deploy, however, the extension was revoked. She was told that she would immediately deploy, and Kamani would be placed in the local county foster care system. Any option to put her child Kamani in government custody carries the risk of Spc Hutchinson permanently giving up parental rights. Faced with that choice, Spc Hutchinson did not show up for her plane.

The military had Spc Hutchinson arrested the following day and put her infant in the county foster care system. The baby’s grandmother retrieved him and cared for him temporarily until his mother returned for the holidays. Both Spc Hutchinson and her son are currently back at Hunter Army Airfield, GA.

“They told me because I missed movement I’m going to jail… I started crying a lot and I tried to explain that I just want an extension, I just need time, that I need someone to take care of my child. They said that they didn’t care… That was the worst thing I have ever gone through, to have my child taken from me,” explained Spc Hutchinson in a November 2009 interview with KALW public radio.
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by Courage to Resist
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by WOLF
Students Informed Military Service Decision http://www.mauinews.com/page/content.detail/id/523102.html?nav=18 The federal No Child Left behind Act of 2001 contains a little-known provision that threatens the federal funding of any school refusing to turn over the personal contact information of students in grades 7 through 12 to military recruiters. This action is in violation of the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. Given the current economic recession, more high school age youth are considering joining the military. At this impressionable age, we must entrust our public schools with the responsibility to protect our children's rights to privacy. Students and parents have complained of multiple cell and home phone calls from military recruiters as well as uninvited recruiters arriving at their houses. The federal No Child Left Behind Act also grants military recruiters access to campuses, with their presence far outnumbering college recruiters and prospective employers. Recruiting is currently a $4 billion industry. According to Army spokesman Douglas Smith, the military spent an average of $16,199 for each of its 73,373 recruits in 2005. One alternative is AmeriCorps, which sends youth to “Hitler Youth Camps” and future military obligation! WOLF’s NOTE: U.S. is Recruiting Misfits for Army - Felons, Racists, Gang Members Fill The Ranks http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/10/01/ING42LCIGK1.DTL http://www.nickturse.com/articles/misc_recruiting.html US Army “desperate” to recruit http://wireservice.wired.com/wired/story.asp?section=Breaking&storyId=1047310&tw=wn_wire_story The U.S. Army has slipped further behind its recruiting goals amid the Iraq war, figures released on Friday showed, as officials developed proposals to double cash bonuses and offer mortgage aid for enlisting. Double your money scams! US Army “desperate” to recruit: The Army hopes to raise the maximum cash bonus for new recruits to $40,000 and begin a pilot program to give up to $50,000 in home-mortgage assistance to people who volunteer for eight years of active-duty service. General Heads Recruiter Suicide Probe http://www.military.com/news/article/general-heads-recruiter-suicide-probe.html?ESRC=eb.nl The Army has appointed a brigadier general to investigate allegations that commanders of a Houston-based recruiting battalion tried to cover up a toxic leadership climate and low morale after a recent string of suicides, according to a letter obtained Thursday by the Chronicle. (CAUSE: Recruiting ignorant gun fodder for illegal wars knowing they will die from depleted uranium, inoculations, not having a battle field rifle, high rate of amputees, brain trauma, 30% on drugs, 33% of women being raped by their own troops, 25% of men being raped by their own troops, water contamination, food poisoning, etc.. US Army Scandal - – Sending Teenagers to die for Uncle Sam and Israel! http://www.daily.pk/world/americas/10145-us-army-scandal--sending-teenagers-to-die-for-uncle-sam.html 300,000 US Iraq War Vets Disabled Or Ill From Duty http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/04/14/cbsnews_investigates/main4012249.shtml The military's casualty reports also exclude the "enormous number [of new veterans] flooding the VA”, often with medical problems developed due to the war. A January report by the Department of Veterans Affairs showed 299,585 veterans who recently served in the Middle East had been treated by the VA since 2002. Forty percent (120,049) of the Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who sought care from the VA did so for mental health disorders. 73,000 US Military Dead Since Gulf War I? http://www.rense.com/general78/since.htm Note - These figures do not include Iraqi civilian deaths (estimated at over 1 million at the hands of Bush 41 and the 8 years of the Clintons, and 1.2 million at the hands of Bush 43 - ed) The Department of Veterans Affairs, in conjunction with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has released the truth because they need the American People to know our military is literally, destroyed. They cannot release these horrific numbers via the chain of command because they are under orders to conceal the truth at all costs, so they let slip a report which now cannot be "un-slipped”. Any soldier who is shot but they get into a helicopter before he dies is not counted. “Over 100,000 US Vietnam Vet Suicides To Date”! http://www.rense.com/general77/hdtage.htm 73,000 dead amongst the U.S. soldiers for this scale operation using weapons of mass destruction is not high - we expect the great majority of U.S. soldiers who took part in the invasion of Iraq to die of uranium poisoning, which can take decades to kill. From a victor’s perspective, above any major war in history, The Gulf War has taken the severest toll on soldiers. More than 1,820 tons of radioactive nuclear waste uranium were exploded into Iraq alone in the form of armor piercing rounds and bunker busters, representing the world’s worst man made ecological disaster ever. 64 kg of uranium were used in the Hiroshima bomb. The U.S. Iraq Nuclear Holocaust represents far more than fourteen thousand Hiroshima's. The nuclear waste the U.S. has exploded into the Middle East will continue killing for billions of years and can wipe out more than a third of life on earth. Gulf War Veterans who have ingested the uranium will continue to die off over a number of years. For those of you who doubt the veracity of this story, who believe it can't be true because if it were true, you would have heard it from the government or from the main stream media, can see the proof yourselves directly from the United States Department of Veterans Affairs web site: here it is... Source: http://www1.va.gov/rac-gwvi/docs/GWVIS_May2007.pdf Obama's Plan To Use Army On Americans http://www.newswithviews.com/BreakingNews/breaking166.htm The Pentagon and Department of Homeland Security recently hosted a teleconference for law enforcement agencies and associations such as the National Association of Chiefs of Police to discuss the Obama Administration's interest in using the military during "emergencies." Fortunately, www.NewsWithViews.com had exclusive access to the discussion and the explanations by Homeland Security and Defense Departments officials. Young recruits can look forward to killing American citizens! FEMA RED / BLUE LIST Marked For TERMINATION (with videos) http://www.masterjules.net/futurecrash.htm Here is what was revealed: The imminent collapse of the U.S. Economy to occur sometime in late 2008 The imminent collapse of the U.S. Government finances sometime in mid 2009 The possibility of Civil War inside the United States as a result of the collapse The advance round-ups of "insurgent U.S. Citizens" likely to move against the government The detention of those rounded up at The REX 84 Camps constructed throughout the United States The possibility of public retaliation against members of Congress for the collapses The location of safe facilities for members of Congress and their families to reside during massive civil unrest The necessary and unavoidable merger of The U.S. with Canada and Mexico establishing The North American Union The issuance of a new currency called the AMERO for all three nations as an economic solution. Obviously, there is no documentary proof for the above as the meetings were secret. The information, however, does fit the profile of what is going on around us. Our Almighty Savior is ultimately in charge. Time will tell if these things are so, and time is running out! More Fema Coffins in Ennis, Texas http://maps.yahoo.com/#mvt=s&lat=32.319765&lon=-96.60759&zoom=19&q1=32.320277%252C%2520-96.608030 More Fema Coffins in Afton, Wyoming http://www.uaff.us/ Why Are Tens of Thousands of Plastic “Burial Vaults” Stacked in a Field Near Madison, Georgia? http://cryptogon.com/?p=2957 The Hercules Airseal Black Plain- Able to be used in double-depth burials Vantage Products Corporation- Meets or exceeds Cemetery regulations Army Accepting More Recruits With Criminal, Drug Histories http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/fuj/latimes2.htm In all, the Army granted waivers to 11,018 recruits in the 12-month period ending Sept. 30, 2005, or 15% of those accepted into the service that year. Those figures are up from 2004, when 9,300 waivers were granted, or 12% of those joining the Army. The Army provided the recruiting figures to the Baltimore Sun on Monday after the newspaper obtained partial statistics. Despite the increase in the proportion of those accepted with problems in their background, the Army failed to meet its recruiting target. A total of 73,000 men and women joined the Army in 2005, down from 77,000 in 2004. There was a significant increase in the number of recruits with what the Army terms "serious criminal misconduct" in their background. Army opens Prep School for Dropouts to fill Ranks http://www.blacklistednews.com/news-1256-0-13-13--.html FORT JACKSON, S.C. (AP) - Austin Swarner left high school to care for his mother while she fought a losing battle with cancer. Tony Brown wanted to begin supporting himself and left two classes shy of a diploma. Haelee Holden got tired of trying to make it through school while flipping burgers until 1 a.m. But the U.S. Army, eager to fill its ranks amid wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, doesn't see them as dropouts. They are recruits who only need a GED before they're ready to begin basic training. And so, the Army formally opens its first prep school Wednesday. "It's academic immersion," explained Col. Jeffrey Sanderson, chief of staff at Fort Jackson, home of the Army's largest basic training school. "Our studies show that with only three out of every 10 people of military age being capable of joining the Army, we are going to have to do something different." 1 in 3 Females Raped in the Military Lavena Johnson Was Raped and Murdered: Then the Army Covered It Up http://www.alternet.org/blogs/waroniraq/93071 U.S. Military Keeping Secrets About Female Soldiers’ ‘Suicides’? http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080826_us_military_keeping_secrets_about_female_soldiers_suicides/ Sexual assault in military 'jaw-dropping,' lawmaker says http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/07/31/military.sexabuse/index.html A congresswoman said Thursday that her "jaw dropped" when military doctors told her that four in 10 women at a veterans hospital reported being sexually assaulted while in the military. 1 in 3 Females Raped in the Military - Apparently, the Pentagon Doesn't Think It's a Problem http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/8/6/173829/4023 1 In 4 Soldiers Have Hearing Loss http://www.roguegovernment.com/news.php?id=11197 52 percent of U.S. soldiers wounded in Iraq, Afghanistan diagnosed with TBI http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/international/news/20090723p2a00m0na011000c.html Some 52 percent of soldiers severely injured in Iraq and Afghanistan who have come to the U.S. Army's largest hospital for treatment have been diagnosed with traumatic brain injuries (TBI), an internal study has found.
by wheres the father?
She did not conceive this child immaculately, so where is he in this picture. The lack of men in the lives of boys growing up has had an overwhelming negative effect on society, especially in minority communities. I grew up in a singe parent home and while my hats goes off to those who do well, many do not do well. HOLD MEN ACCOUNTABLE! I certainly do want to see her go to prison, perhaps a discharge is a better option. this goes to show that young people need to weigh all the possibilities before enlisting. The military is not a trade school, social service organization or college. It is the MILITARY, they are deployed overseas on missions.
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