The Sorbate: Women At War

If I approached you, told you that with this particular career there would be at least an eight year commitment, and within those eight years there would be an opportunity of removing you from your family, your home, everything you know at the drop of the word “Go,” would you do it? More importantly, would you do it if you had young children to take care of? Oh, and did I tell you that it was entirely voluntary?

War is not a family oriented affair. Just as it rips families apart by taking the lives of loved ones, it does the exact same thing by taking away parents for long durations. I have no doubt that when we started allowing women in the military, there were criticisms on whether or not they could still be good mothers given the long periods of absence. Not unlike the issue of women in the house versus women in the workforce.

I happened to randomly flip through Vogue’s September issue and started reading its "Women at War Bye-Bye Baby" article. I found myself having strong conflicting reactions and opinions to the issues this article brings up. See, I come from a military background. My father was in the Navy, though, we did not follow him every 3 years while he was stationed and re-stationed. My parents chose to have my mother and my sisters live with my mom’s...

The recent article in Vogue depicting women in Iraq and Afghanistan leaves an unpleasant taste in the mouth of any female with wishes of being a mother. It's an unthinkable dilemma: being forced to predict your own future and decide whether you should forgo the armed forces in the chance that you could have a child and still be asked to leave. Although it is impossible to rate every situation, one fact is clear. Women, like it or not, are...