Newsweek Magazine: This Mom’s Army, by Kathleen Deveny:
A mother prepares for war.
MandiBohrer has wanted to be in the military ever since high school. Aftergraduating from West Point in 1998, she was stationed in South Korea,where she met her husband. She was looking for excitement and was eagerto be deployed. As a captain, she served at the Pentagon after 9/11,and went to Baghdad twice. After her second tour in Iraq, she and herhusband decided to start a family.
In January,Bohrer, now 34 and a major, will be deployed again, this time toAfghanistan. But preparing for this tour was more complicated. Bohrerand her husband, who is also an Army major, now have a 4-year-olddaughter. Her husband, too, is being deployed to Afghanistan. “Itweighs very heavily on me,” says Bohrer. “But if I don’t step in andgo, someone else will have to. Someone else will have to leave theirfamily.” AsPresident Obama looked out over the cadets at West Point on Dec. 1 andannounced plans to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan, I was struckby how many women were in the audience. And when the first of thosetroops were called up last week, I found myself thinking about howwomen like Major Bohrer prepare themselves for war.
Thebalancing act between career and family is always difficult. But themilitary’s frequent and long tours—one year is now standard—make analready complicated situation unimaginably so. . . .
Womennow make up 11 percent of our forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. More than40 percent have children, according to a report by Iraq and AfghanistanVeterans of America, and some 30,000 single mothers have been deployedsince 2001. . . .